Dantega:Volume 6 Chapter 3

(PART 4)

Lilith is wearing a tightly fit golden silk robe that’s more or less transparent; with nothing like a bra or underwear beneath the robe, just about everything can be seen under the right lighting. Unlike the restricting and degrading outfit of Asmodeus, Lilith’s is the exact opposite. She shows freedom in her presence that oozes pride and liberation.

She is the first woman, she came before Eve, and broke away from the unreasonable situations cast on her in the Garden of Eden. She had forsaken the word of God and decided to make her own, for that she was punished of course, but after thousands of years she's grown far stronger than even God could have imagined.

When God created her, she was meant to be below Adam, who existed as the representative of man. Now, it's very likely no man could stand up to her will. So much time has been spent honing her abilities to manipulate men that she simply sees them as inferior beings.

The candlelight shines off her hazy orange hair and her multicolored eyes gleam as if they were glass marbles. Lilith is a stunning beauty, and her presence sparkles in confidence as though very aware of how she must look to the people she feels are fortunate enough to gaze upon her.

She spreads her arms and smiles when she says, “I can’t let you kill her.”

She then slides her open palm down the side of Trojia’s face, caressing the princess as though she were a prized possession. “If you were to do that, your soul would lose the irresistible pureness that has gotten me so fond of you.”

Trojia stares blankly forward with her red eyes as Lilith begins touching her in ways that can only be described as inappropriate. Lilith uses her thumbs to caress Trojia’s lips, and her hands smoothly slide down to Trojia’s breasts and begin fondling them.

For whatever reason, Trojia’s not fighting it one bit; it could be the result of Lilith manipulating her into complacency; but no matter what it is, Trojia doesn’t make a move.

Not even her deadened red glare shows a hint of rejection.

This invites Lillith to continue her groping, she now slides her hands down Trojia’s back and begins touching Trojia’s skin from under her skirt.

“Ahh, such a fine figure you have.” Lilith said, the pitch of her voice dances as though she were reciting poetry. “Even I can be envious of your youthful body. But the truth is, I can feel your soul within my fingertips when I touch you.”

Lilith halts molesting the princess and looks to the fabled False Prophet; the only person who stood by the side of the Antichrist is stuck helpless against the wall like a pin up butterfly.

“There’s no need for you to stain your purity with the likes of this imposter. I will kill her myself and use her to keep myself looking as young as you.”

“Geh!!” Messor hisses through bloodied teeth as she tries to think of a way she can escape this danger.

Lilith smiles and takes her first step forward in an attempt to devour Messor’s soul when all the sudden she feels a light prick on her neck.

“..?”

Trojia has stepped in between the two and is poking Lilith with the tip of the blade being held in her right hand, and with her left she’s grabbed the grip of the other twin sword impaling Messor to the wall.

“...She’s mine.”

“What do you think you’re doing? You shouldn’t even be able to move well” As surprised as Lilith is, she seems to be unafraid by Trojia’s sudden threatening movements. “You’re letting your hatred for the False Prophet cloud your judgment. You’ve felt what’s in my touch haven’t you? That should be more than enough to replace your desires for revenge with what I can offer you.”

In one fluid motion, Trojia pulls the blade out of Messor’s abdomen, sending blood flying into the air; and with her other sword in her right hand she pushes it to the left side of Lilith’s neck. The sword in her left hand then crosses over the other to create an X shape around the base of Lilith’s throat.

“What?”

This all happened so fast that Lillith didn’t have time to react and defend herself. She simply never saw this turn of events coming, so she never had her guard up to begin with.

“You’re In the way.”

“Is this some kind of a joke? You’re telling me that you’re actually rejecting my touch?”

A cold sweat falls down the Gatekeeper’s temple as she looks into the glowing red eyes of Trojia.

It’s at this moment that the confidence in herself has wavered upon being confronted by this girl with the pure soul. She was arrogant enough to believe that no one could ever fight against her temptations, the fact that she has touched someone with her bare hands should have been a foolproof way of assuring their loyalty forever.

She has now realized that she has made a fatal error.

“W-Wait!”

SHLINK!!

Trojia pulled outwards with both of her hands as if she was opening a double door. The result of this simple movement is gruesome, Lilith’s head flies upwards being trailed by a fountain of blood as if it were a cork from a celebratory champagne bottle.

“Khaa?”

Is all that Lilith was able to mutter before the inevitable happened.

Her severed head hits the ground in a wet sounding thud.

Just like that, the first woman that was so strong that she opposed God back when there were only two humans alive on Earth, has been slain. In that short moment, all of the magnificent history and a trail of biblical events that followed behind this woman are no more. The third Gatekeeper has been defeated; she died thinking she had full control of the situation all the way until she felt the sensation of her head being separated from her body. Once she realized that, there was nothing left of her.

In that quick second where the legend of Lilith was destroyed by a teenage girl; that certain teenage girl has taken her first life.

And that girl didn’t even bat an eye once the blood spray painted her face, hair and clothes red.

Trojia feels as though she has just killed two birds with one stone. She’d have to go through Lillith eventually, why not take advantage of it now when the Gatekeeper least expected it?

Even Messor is shocked, Trojia turned into a heartless monster on par with her and Ubica in a mere second.

Now, it has truly dawned on her, this girl can, and will kill her.

(Tch! Like I’ll let that happen!)

She leans back on the wall with all her weight and starts to impossibly sink into it as if she were a ghost that held no mass. What she’s doing is nothing like that however; being the False Prophet that was born of the Earth; she’s able to freely move through earthly material.

She’s lucky that the castle is made of stone otherwise she’d be doomed.

Trojia senses something is amiss and immediately forgets about the headless corpse she just created. Lilith’s body has barely dropped to the ground when Trojia turns and flings both of her swords into the area where she knows Messor is.

Two solid thunks reach Trojia’s ears as her eyes catch up; she knows right away that those noises don't match the sound of a flesh and bone body being pierced.

Just below where her swords stick into the wall, she spots Messor’s feet scurry backwards into the wall and disappear.

Trojia’s emotionless face begins to contort and her eyebrows form into a frown when it dawns on her that she’s just let her greatest enemy get away. She kicks Messor’s puddle of blood on the wall with great strength, and surprisingly, that kick was enough to send chunks of the wall scattering about.

Gritting her teeth in frustration, she says to herself,

“I bet you think you’re clever… I’m still coming for you, Messor!”

She prepares another bone breaking kick against the wall to break through and give chase when the door that she entered this rectangular room from, opens up and a bright light shines on her.

Her red eyes flash as she looks through the light and notices that Rage and Napoleon had just rushed into the room.

She halts her kick and turns away from the light as a reflex, the sudden brightness stung her eyes.

“Trojia! Are you alright!?” Napoleon asks worriedly, the first thing he noticed was all the blood on and around her.

“I’m fine.” she coldly answers, “Where are the others?”

“We split up in groups of two so we can travel down each of the three doors a little ways back.” Rage answers.

“That’s good... The rest of you are bound to run into the other girls, we did the same thing at those doors.”

“So...” Napoleon says as he looks around the room, it looks like a tornado has blown through here. “What just happened?”

“The Gatekeeper is dead. We’re free to pass through the Gate once we find it.”

“What!?”

Trojia’s body seems to weaken as her tone of voice begins to gain more humanity, “Let’s go... We’ve still got to find the Gate before we can pass.”

Her frame leans to the side and she falls against the wall. Rage and Napoleon can tell that she’s on the verge of collapsing and rush to her aid. Before they get there however, she falls unconscious and drops like a sandbag to the ground.

“Trojia!”

Napoleon takes her into his arms and checks her pulse; he sees that she’s fine and breathing regularly before he takes a sigh of relief and looks up to Rage.

Rage then leans down and reaches towards her face, instead of checking for her breathing like Napoleon did, he lifts up her eyelids and stares into her eyes.

“Green?” Rage asks himself.

“What exactly are you trying to find?”

“I’m absolutely positive that when we got in here... her eyes were red.”

---

Asmodeus is flying through the city with a trail of smoke being left in her wake; she’s been ruthlessly beaten like this for minutes now. After banging into the side of a building and ricocheting violently to the ground, she bounces to a stop and quickly tries to get up before her body gives out. She doesn’t even reach one knee when out of nowhere, Ubica appears behind her.

“!?”

He swings down his sword immediately.

Asmodeus barely has enough time to block it by stretching the chains tied above her hands by metal bracelets worn on her wrists. The sound of metal clashing rings through the air and sparks fly all about.

On a normal occasion, these chain links should have snapped from the force of the sword made of pure diamond; the only thing keeping it intact is Asmodeus’s own power surging through the chains.

A yellow light surrounds these chains and the shackles around her wrists vibrate.

She uses this as a weapon of defense and a weapon of offense, with a certain amount of power taken from a spike inside the bracelets stabbing into her wrists that she uses to send to the links, she can use the chains as an unbreakable shield, or a weapon so sharp it could tear through any material. Knowing that, Asmodeus changes the properties of her chain into an offensive weapon so she can cut Ubica’s sword right through. She’s pretty much been trying to do similar things this entire fight, the problem is that Ubica hasn’t even given her a chance to do anything but defend.

Sure enough, the same thing happens again.

Ubica jumps up into the air and disappears in the smoke of a destroyed building.

“Damn it!! What kind of power is this!? Haah?? Ubica!”

Unlike before, Ubica has allowed her to stand on her feet; she looks around the smoke and dust for any sign of him and flinches at every sound.

Asmodeus is not this weak, she should not be playing the role of a mouse with Ubica the cat, it should be the other way around. It’s just that Ubica has revealed a benevolent strength the likes of which she’s never seen before, it’s almost like she’s found herself in a battle with an Angel. This type of battle needs to be prepared for appropriately, it’s going to take a few minutes for her to figure out just how she is going to go about combating this.

Her main power allows her to control the wind, and because of this she is able to move extremely fast and also propel large objects, the issue is that it takes time to stir up the atmosphere like that. With the way Ubica presses forward with his relentless assault, she hasn’t even been close enough to be able to take advantage of her strength.

Despite her handicap, and despite knowing that she doesn't have that long to come up with a plan, she smiles confidently as though she knows she still has a way out.

“Good thing I have backup coming to help me.”

---

Tsubiri is running through the city with her head down, not caring where she goes. She doesn’t notice the onlooking citizens out on the street and the panic of the populace, all she can hear are the sounds of explosions coming from the area behind her being caused by the battle between Asmodeus and Ubica. Sprinting for over a few minutes or so has gotten her quite winded, it is only now that she decides to rest her tired legs and take a look back at the scene she had fled from. Out in the distance of the metropolis, she sees large plumes of smoke rising, and flashes of white light zoom across the sky and leave a green vapor trail behind. She’s never seen this kind of power before but she has a strong feeling that it’s coming from Ubica.

Even with that feeling as intense as it is, that little bit of doubt is enough to make her very nervous. She’s scared to death of him not making it out alive; and she’s also afraid of what he’ll have to put himself through in order to survive.

Not being able to bear it any longer, Tsubiri turns her back to the battle and begins running away again.

Ubica had told her to get as far away as possible from him, and unlike the time before, she has every intention of sucking up her reluctance and waiting for him to find her once he’s done fighting.

She bites her bottom lip and says to herself, “I know you can win...”

A deep breath follows her words in an attempt to inflate faith into her chest, there’s nothing she can do other than that. Almost feeling secure about his victory, she suddenly hears a voice from in front of her that shatters that false sense of hope in an instant.

“Long time no see girly, I’m tickled to see that you’ve made a fine man out of my old pal Ubica.”

Standing in front of her is a child with bright orange hair; his eyes of an amber shade stare menacingly as he smiles thinly at her.

Tsubiri immediately recognizes him and his sudden appearance sends shivers down her spine. This child was the Demon that represented Greed out of the 7 Deadly Sins; that child was an absolute monster that slaughtered thousands of people and laughed about it pleasurably.

Standing short and imposing in his dark blue overcoat is Mammon, he’s casually swinging his circled tip sword in his hands and it gleams off the surrounding skyscrapers.

“Come on now, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I-I thought you were...”

“That I was killed? Nah, we demons are quite tough to kill, you know? Especially when we have access to so many souls here in Purgatory, it’s going to take a lot more than what he did to destroy this little body of mine.”

Tsubiri is terrified of this monstrous demon taking on the form of a child; if Ubica’s ferocious attack back on the Second level wasn’t enough to kill him, she shivers to think just what it will take to defeat these Demons of the Hierarchy. Now Ubica is up against two of them, and she’s found herself alone with one that would have killed her multiple times over the last time she was confronted by him if not for Ubica saving her.

She takes a couple shoddy steps backwards and starts booking it away from him as fast as her legs can take her. Just because she now has the power to fight, doesn’t mean she stands a chance against one of the 7 strongest Demons of Hell.

“Hey hey where ya goin? Did you forget?”

A ball of antimatter appears in front of Tsubiri and the now adult Mammon hops out of it, cutting her off.

He leans in and looks square into her frightened eyes and says, “I promised that I’d kill you for electrocuting me when I was fighting Ubica... Greedy people have amazing memories, you know?”

“!!!”

Tsubiri turns around once again and tries to flee; and once again, it’s to no avail.

One of Mammon’s orbs of antimatter encircles her legs as she runs. Tsubiri knows full well what these bubbles are capable of and is stricken with a fear so deep that it shakes her very soul. A slight of hand is all it would take for Mammon to have this ball capsize and take her legs with it.

With her attention focused on trying to get away from this ugly ball of death, Mammon again appears in front of her and latches onto her throat with his little hand.

Her movements grind to a sudden halt and Mammon smiles thinly as he says, “But before I do that, we’re gonna have a little fun.”

Both Mammon and Tsubiri are engulfed in a churning dark gray bubble that then shrinks and pops.

Mammon has taken her to the opposite dimension of Antimatter; a world that he created himself where escape is impossible.

---

Messor finds herself in a very small room lit by a solitary candle, this room is odd because unlike the other, there is no door leading in or out of it. The only thing in here is a dark tunnel imposingly stretching into the darkness before her, the cold air blowing from within is seemingly telling her to enter, but the coolness of the breeze communicates danger as if she’s staring directly into a trap.

Her blood is falling from her stomach like a leaking faucet but she pays no mind and lets it drip down her legs and to the floor; the floor that she has found herself in is covered in dark green grass for whatever odd reason. She’s more focused on her new surroundings and her possible pursuer than her wound, no matter how gruesome it looks it shouldn’t take too long to heal with the help of Dantega.

Exactly like Ubica, her body heals itself without much work, with no need for medicine to ward off infection, her body’s natural function will take course and she’ll be as good as new in no time. Of course, that doesn't mean the pain caused by this horrific wound isn't affecting her; she's still hurting quite badly and it pulsates with each heartbeat.

“Tch, I’m not going anywhere near that tunnel.” she says as if speaking to the castle itself.

She walks up to the wall and prepares to morph through just like last time but is shocked to find that it isn’t working.

“..?”

She tries once more and when nothing happens yet again, she realizes that there must be some kind of barrier keeping her from doing so. She then walks towards the tunnel and notices a plaque placed conveniently just before the entrance stating:

‘For those who have found themselves at the entrance of this tunnel, you have broken the number one rule of my castle. If one wishes to reach the Gate, they ‘must’ go through each door on the pathway to it. If you are here, that means you’ve tampered with the pathway you were on in an attempt to shorten your route. As a consequence, the one(s) responsible are sent down a different route to the Gate, one much more dangerous and difficult called the ‘Punishment Labyrinth’. If you are able to reach the other side of this maze, then you will have arrived at the Gate, where I’ll be waiting.’

This message was obviously written by Lilith. The message does enough to explain how this massive castle works; there are certain tests one must go through to reach the Gate, no matter what path one chooses. If a person finds a shortcut of any kind, they are automatically transferred to this little room and forced into the labyrinth ahead.

To Messor, this path is no different from any other one, it’s still her ticket to the Gate.

“Hmph, even after death I see you still intend to make this a pain in the ass. Fine then, I’ll get through this and wait for that girl to show up. This time however, I will be ready.”

Messor enters the tunnel and disappears in the darkness without an ounce of doubt in her ability to overcome whatever dangers awaits her.

---

Phoenix walks along the dark hallways of the castle, his aura is blending in perfectly with his surroundings.

Xavier, who is holding a torch can only stare at his back as each step his priest moves forward the farther away his presence feels. It’s just like the last time they were separated form the others, Phoenix was acting rather dour then as well.

“U-Um...” Xavier mutters, trying to find something to say.

“Don’t bother talking.” Phoenix coldly replies to the prince’s discomfort.

“.....”

Xavier droops his head and looks at his feet as he continues to walk; lacking the social skills needed to handle this kind of situation, he decides to just stay quiet. With his mind racing, he fails to hear the footsteps of Phoenix slowing to a stop and accidentally walks right into his back.

“Whaaa!?”

He falls backwards and drops his torch, causing sparks to fly all over and darkening the already black path ahead.

“What’s going on, why’d you stop??”

“Shut up, Xavier.” Phoenix says, grabbing the prince’s face to keep him quiet whilst without turning to him. “There’s someone up ahead.”

Phoenix is glaring at something in the darkness like a dog growling at a ghost. There’s nothing in front of him that can be seen but he can feel it.

This tenseness lasts for a few moments when a girl's voice is heard from within the darkness yelling,

“Who’s there!?”

Phoenix immediately drops his guard, releases his grip on Xavier’s face and takes a slight sigh of relief.

“Aria, it’s me and Xavier.”

A clattering of footsteps pitter-patter towards them and sure enough, it turns out to be Aria and Daey.

“So you guys made it huh?? Where’s everybody else?” she asked excitedly, quite happy to see a friendly face from within all this darkness.

“We split up at that pathway a little ways back.”

“I see.” Daey added. “We’re kind of in a jam here, we’ve been contemplating turning around because this hallway seems to go on for miles... We can’t help but feel like we are getting ourselves even more lost than we were before.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, but the lady of the castle told us that all three routes would eventually lead to the Gate. I’m starting to think that she is playing a trick on us though.”

“Hmmm.” Phoenix mutters as he holds his chin and walks deeper into the dark hallway.

“H-Hey!” Daey shouts, a little ticked that he ignored her and kept going.

“There’s only one way to find out.” Phoenix says, his figure disappearing with each step. “I have no intention of backtracking away from the Gate and traveling in a larger group. It’d take longer, and not to mention it’d be more dangerous.”

Leaving the others alone and confused, all thoughts of going back are instantly quelled, and they begin following the priest who looks confident in his decision to walk down the hallway.

Xavier in particular doesn’t feel safe at all being separated from Phoenix so he starts running to catch up. “Hey Phoenix, hold up for a sec!”

He doesn’t get more than a few feet closer when,

CLICK

“!!”

Xavier’s foot sinks into an indentation on the stone floor; the square block dropped down about a foot and causes him to lose his balance. While falling, two strange circles of light flash on the walls directly on each side of him; the two lights make a strange hissing noise that starts deep and rises to a high pitch as if it’s ready to blow.

Being the explosion expert Aria is, she knows what is going to happen right away.

She shoves Daey backwards and rushes to him.

“Xavier!!!”

In a swift motion, she jumps, grabs Xavier in mid-air, and twists her body.

BAAAAAAAAAMMMMM!!!

As quick as it started, it ended in a flash and a loud noise.

Through the rubble clattering on the ground, Xavier’s frame rises and he gingerly stands to his feet.

“Are you okay!?” Daey shouts, running to his aid but weary of her steps after seeing what had just happened.

With his eyes hung downwards and firmly planted on the sight of something, he answers, “Y-Yeah... But.”

“But what!?”

Daey clambers over the rubble and looks down to see what he’s staring at; laying there bloodied and covered in rubble is Aria.

“Oh no... Aria!”

She begins moving whatever debris out of the way to make room for her to breathe while Xavier stands there motionless; it’s as though shock has overcome his senses. Aria has a wound somewhere on her head that’s causing blood to slide profusely down her face, her breathing is shoddy and she keeps sliding in and out of consciousness.

“I don’t get it... Why did she do that?” Xavier asked softly as if stating his thoughts aloud.

“We don’t have time to worry about that now! We have to do something!”

Daey pulls a handkerchief out of her pocket and covers the wound on her head, when the blood soaks the handkerchief right away; she loses the ability to think ahead.

“Phoenix!” she shouts further down the hallway, “Phoenix! Aria is hurt! Phoenix!!”

Judging by the silence after the echo of her frantic voice, it would seem that just like he said, Phoenix has no intention of backtracking away from the Gate.

He left them behind.

---

Cyrus and Strauphius are walking along a hallway so bright it almost hurts their eyes; it gleams in a fluorescent blue light and makes the pillars posted every ten feet on the side of each wall seem like crystals.

“Is this really the right way?” Straphius asks while scratching his ear with his finger.

“How am I supposed to know that? I wasn't all too keen on separating like this, I’d feel a hell of a lot safer if I was with Napoleon and Rage rather than you.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean??”

Cyrus stops in his tracks when he spots something out in the distance. “Please don’t tell me that’s what I think it is...”

“Huh?”

Out in the distance seen plain as day are two people scrunched down and not moving. At first he had hoped that the bright light was playing tricks on him, but he could perfectly see two figures lying lifelessly on the ground.

As soon as Strauphius takes a gander, he notices the same thing and shouts, “Are those bodies!?”

“Let’s go!”

The two of them rush over and to their dismay they find the limp bodies of Sora and Niera firmly planted on the ground. They have no obvious wounds, but it’s quite apparent that there’s something horribly wrong; their eyes are wide open as if they’ve been petrified

“What’s wrong with them!? Princess!” Cyrus shouts frantically.

Strauphius doesn’t know what to say; all he can do is check their pulse and hope for the best. But before he could, he and his partner heard the sound of metal against metal clattering out in the distance. Due to the light of this hallway, they can see what it is that’s causing the noise immediately.

There are four armored suits moving towards them as if they are on wheels; they shine in a bright silver and look almost fake as they rush forward in their gleaming light. Each of them have the same crest on their chests as the Colossal’s outside, and each color is different.

Seeing this again, they know that these objects are moving by the use of the souls of the men tempted by Lilith into coming here. All it would take is for them to break those crests and free the souls trapped inside, with that they’ll be able to pass; it sounds simple enough.

However,

Not giving the two any time to formulate a proper plan, the armored knight suits gather into formation and move forward for a physical assault.

“Get ready!” Cyrus shouts, guarding Niera with his body by stepping in front of her.

Strauphius doesn’t respond but his body language gives him an answer, in these types of situations words are borderline useless; all that matters is if the job can get done or not.

The two rush in for a head-on attack, with the suits of armor moving forward at the same speed, the imminent sound of swords clashing is soon to be heard. That is, if it ever got to that point.

Before any metal clashes with each other, Cyrus’s heart stops momentarily and he suddenly drops to the ground. The thunk of his body banging against the smooth crystal-like floor stops Strauphius in his tracks and fills him with confusion.

“Huh?”

Cyrus’s eyes are wide open and seen through the black tint of his glasses clearly; Strauphius can see that he’s still breathing but the look of death on his face is enough to throw the heavy weight of fear down on his shoulders. It’s not just the fear of Cyrus's health, it’s the fear of the unknown, it’s the fear of not even knowing how it happened and not knowing if the same will come his way and when.

Without realizing it, the four suits of armor encircle him and send their weapons screaming towards his defenseless body.

At the last second, Strauphius comes to his senses and uses his intense speed to scatter; the weapons of all four armored suits crash into the ground he was once standing on.

Once he gets a safe distance away, he attempts to regather his racing thoughts; in the past, he’d normally flee from such a situation. But now, his comrades are downed right in front of him so there’s no way he can just leave, he must fight.

“Oooaaaahhh!!!”

With this scream of determination, he readies to charge; however, his first step forward doesn’t land on the ground, it swings underneath him and he falls face first onto the ground.

“Eh!?”

He immediately tries to stand back to his feet, but his body is paralyzed.

“!?”

Strauphius has found himself in the same state as Cyrus, Niera, and Sora. He doesn’t know how or why that happened but the answer seems to get closer to him in the form of footsteps. The back of his collar is forcefully pulled upwards and his limp body hangs towards the floor.

He can’t tell what’s going on but he knows that his body is being dragged off somewhere; the only thing his stuck in place eyes can see are the suits of armor throwing Cyrus and the two girls over their shoulders and following him.

This level of uncertainty has gotten him genuinely afraid, and it’s very likely that the other three are also conscious and aware of what’s happening as well, trapped in their own bodies and helplessly being moved against their will..

(Damn it! Damn it! What’s going on!!) he thinks to himself as he’s carried off down the hallway.

They take a quick left into a very dark room and he is stricken with the frightening realization that he’s going to find the answer to that very question any moment now.

---

Asmodeus's body is firmly planted into the ground, being forced in by the foot of Ubica.

Even though she’s in a position of obvious defeat, she’s still smiling.

“What’s so funny?” Ubica asks as he presses down even harder; the ground below her cracks as a result.

With her chest collapsing under the weight of Ubica’s foot, she still forces out a laugh and replies, “Oho, it’s just the fact that you’ve changed so much... It’s actually quite funny because you’re so fake, your’e like a high-school girl.”

“Is that so?”

CRRAACKKK!!

The ground under her starts splintering like a glass window that's had a rock thrown through it; and if one listened closely enough, they’d hear the sound of Asmodeus’s chestplate cracking along with it.

“I think you’ll find that I can still be just as ruthless as I ever was.”

“It’s not that same!” she yells, spitting out blood that flies up and lands back onto her face. “I want to know how this happened! I have to know how it is that the man who was once the Antichrist could kill off thousands of people and not be swayed in the least! Before you kill me, tell me how!”

Ubica releases the pressure on her chest and points his sword at her neck; he sighs and replies, “It’s a whole chain of occurrences that led me to becoming the person I am now... But there’s really only one reason why; there’s only one thing driving me away from my darkness.”

“Then tell me!”

“Asking me like you really care... you’re trying to bide your time, what are you waiting for?”

“Don’t think I have any sneaky plans up my sleeves, I’m pretty incapacitated at the moment if you haven’t noticed. But you see, my natural curiosity as the Demon of Lust is longing for the explanation of how the once brilliant man that I admired so much could throw away his true self. You could at least do that for me, right?”

Ubica pauses for a moment, and then answers coldly, “I won’t”

He raises his sword and swings for her neck; in his mind, he has no reason to tell her anything about him. He knows exactly what has changed him and how, and that’s all that matters, he couldn’t care less if anyone else wants to know.

The answer to her question, and the reason why he’s become stronger, is known only by him, Tsubiri, and Michael...

---

Two months earlier at the Second Gate, there was a battle raging between the last remaining Angel and Ubica. The fight for one of the two was over revenge, and the fight for the other was to protect his friends.

In this battle, the righteous intentions won out, and it has left the vengeful Angel lying at the foot of the righteous man.

“Kill me...” Michael says as he floats on the water of the lake which surrounds the Gate.

Standing triumphantly over him is Ubica the victor.

“I won’t do that.” Ubica replies as he sheaths his sword. “I’ll get nothing out of it.”

Michael frowns and grits his blood stained teeth. “I don’t want your damn pity! You didn’t hesitate to kill all the other Angels, so why am I any different!?”

“Because now I don’t have to.” Ubica sternly replies.

He gestures to Tsubiri and the two begin walking towards the Gate.

“Yes you do have to! I will chase you to the ends of any world! I won’t stop until I kill you, Antichrist!”

With his back turned, Ubica says, “If revenge is still your driving force to stay alive when you do, then the results will always be the same. You’ll alway lose.”

Michael spits out blood and asks, “You think your confidence is enough to sway my grim resolve? I’ll get stronger from this and I’ll---”

“You won’t.” Ubica coolly interrupts. “You’ll only get weaker.”

“How would you know that!?” Michael’s shouts carry pain and anguish. “How can you be so damn sure that I can’t win!?”

Ubica then smiles and grabs onto Tsubiri’s hand, they continue their walk up the stairs to the Gate as he leaves the defeated Archangel with some final words.

“Because we both know what true strength is… It just took me until now to realize it.”

The two walk through the Gate and into the next level, leaving the injured and disabled Michael behind to gather his thoughts. He hisses in anger at the fact that he has once again lost to Ubica; what makes it worse is that the current man he lost to is nowhere near the strength he once held as the Antichrist.

That thought brings him to Ubica’s parting words, just what is strength anyways? What is true power?

The Antichrist had absolute power, but is that really the truest form of it?

Michael had once believed that good would always defeat evil, until he was so ruthlessly crushed by evil that it altered the very fiber of what he once was. Could it be that the roles have been reversed yet again? After the Apocalypse, Michael existed in a constant world of hate, he did so in order to gain enough strength to defeat an even worse evil; but instead, he has tasted the chalky flavor of defeat.

The only difference all of these years of giving up on himself has made is how he was crushed.

Michael has lost to the one thing that he himself had once so proudly represented.

He has been defeated by the power of good.

Ubica found strength in the love he has for Tsubiri and he used it against Michael in a brilliant display.

Michael never had any chance of winning.

Ubica has proved to him that good can still defeat evil, and the cruel irony of this hits him worse than Ubica’s final attack as he contemplates just what has happened to him.

“Damn it!” he shouts as he tries to move his arm to slam the water he’s floating on.

His body is more or less paralyzed, so he failed to do even that.

All he can do is take deep breaths in frustration and glare into the sun as he asks himself,

“What am I supposed to do now!?”

---

The current Ubica that has so easily handled Asmodeus is using that very same strength he had found while battling Michael. Tsubiri helped him realize this true power of his, if not for her, he’d have never recovered from the atrocities he was just forced to commit.

So long as she’s by his side, he’ll use his new strength to destroy what he once was and the people who are attempting to send him back into that darkness. His sword is only inches away from Asmodeus’s neck, but the smile on her face doesn’t leave and her eyes still shine bright with confidence. The reason why she can stare death in the face without a hint of fear, comes in the form of a churning gray bubble planting itself between her neck and Ubica’s sword.

By the time Ubica reacts to it, it’s far too late, the two collide and the second they touch the bubble explodes outwards and knocks the sword right out of his hands. The force was enough to twist Ubica’s arm backwards at an awkward angle and dislocate his shoulder.

“Arrrghh!!”

“That’s payback for the time you busted up my arm, old pal.”

This is undoubtedly the voice of Mammon.

Ubica’s face contorts in shock, he has locked eyes with the person he thought he killed over a half a year earlier.

“I’m sure Mammon being alive will come as quite the surprise to you.” Asmodeus says as she stands to her feet and dusts herself off. “And you were right; I was trying to buy time. But you didn’t even let me do that, I guess still can be a cold-blooded bastard.”

“H-How?” Ubica asks, replaying the events of that night in his mind.

Looking closely and analyzing the final part of that battle, he feels that there should be no way that he could’ve survived.

His theory contradicts the facts planted firmly in front of him, but instead of dwelling on his confusion he decides to charge. While running, he pops his arm back into place by twisting it in front of him; he then holds out his hand and his sword flies back into his grasp. If he could defeat Asmodeus, he can handle Mammon as well; he knows exactly what it will take for him to win.

Asmodeus jumps in between the two and intersects him by jumping over his head and allowing his neck to catch on the chains latched to her wrists. Ubica is clotheslined at such a speed he does three or four back-flips before viciously landing onto the ground.

He coughs wildly as his throat feels like an elephant has just stomped on it; he didn’t even see it coming.

(How did she become so fast!?) he thinks to himself frantically as he struggles to breath.

“You know I could’ve ripped your head off right there if I really wanted to.” she said smugly, walking towards him as she continues, “I think it’s about time to take things a little more seriously, though I gotta say, getting beat up by you was quite the turn-on.”

She’s implying that she was pretty much losing on purpose because she enjoyed it. Ubica doesn’t believe that to be the case, but it still does enough to sprout the seed of doubt planted deep within him.

“Hey Ubica...” Mammon asks, forming dozens of his bubbles of antimatter and letting them surround him as if it was a barrier. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed it yet, but all we’ve been doing is putting you in really fucked up positions in order to see how you’ll get out of them. We give you so many chances to make your way out, but in spectacular fashion you always choose the wrong one. You’re like a carnivore caught in a trap; in any normal occasion the fight or flight instinct will take over and it it should bite, it should only be natural when there’s nowhere to escape. But like the pacifist beast you are, you turn away and run into that wall countless times, just hoping that it’ll break under the weight of your will... It’s not going to work old pal, it’s time that you use those sharp teeth of yours for real.”

“I can beat you guys without resorting to Dantega, all of your stupid attempts to take a power that will soon no longer exist, it’ll all be a waste of effort!”

“Oho, you say that with such vigor, but you have yet to show us any proof otherwise.” Asmodeus adds, her chain making noises as she gestures her hands. “There hasn’t been one occasion where you haven’t let Dantega seep out of you while fighting us, and you know it.”

“.....”

She’s right; he used it against Nero, he used it against Mammon, although he didn’t fully use it on Leviathan, once Ubica’s revenge was taken away he was almost completely overcome by it. The only reason he didn’t use Dantega’s power during the fight with Abaddon and Beelzebub is because he simply didn’t have time; under that kind of pressure, there’s no doubt the Antichrist’s power would devour the strength he gets from his love for his comrades.

“So we’ve constantly put you between a rock and a hard place in wait for you to unleash your true self; thus far we’ve tempted you with Greed, Lust, and Envy, since it hasn’t really worked, we’ve decided to try something a little different. That’s the reason why I’m here as well. Our goal today is to completely overwhelm you with a situation impossible for you to get out of without unleashing the power of Dantega.”

Ubica still finds it within him to reject what they say, he knows better than anyone what is going on inside of his body. There’s light in there that is in the process of destroying the power that stands in the way of being the person he wants to be.

“...That won't happen, I'll show you both how wrong you are.”

He rushes in at Mammon once more, this time more mindful of the movements of Asmodeus. He gets within five meters of the unwavering demon when a bubble forms in between them about ten feet in diameter.

Knowing that if he carelessly tries to power his way through that, Mammon could have it retract and send a large chunk of his body to another dimension; he also can’t blow it away with brute strength because he’d just turn it into a bomb and explode it in Ubica’s face. So instead of using either of these tactics, he decides to send a long range attack directly through the bubble.

He swings his sword and slices the wind to create a pressure zooming forward horizontally; what this does is create a very thin pocket of still air sandwiched in between two gusts flying a hundred times faster than the speed of a category 5 tornado on the Fujita scale. This still air acts like a blade being hurled faster than the speed of sound; Mammon won’t have the time to send the brunt of the attack to another dimension through his bubble so it would pass right through and slice Mammon in half.

“Not so fast, old pal.”

The bubble suddenly turns transparent and its contents can now be seen. There is a certain girl inside this sphere, and in the instant she’s able to see outside she locks eyes with Ubica.

Ubica doesn’t understand how or why she’s in this situation, as far as he knows it’s just a hallucination. But one thing is for sure, seeing her in that bubble knowing full well what could so easily happen to her is enough to make his chest burn in angst. Ubica has seen firsthand the powers of those orbs, he’s watched as Mammon compressed over ten people into the size of a golf ball from within it.

"!!!”

“Ubica!”

Just hearing her voice was enough to shatter his train of combative thought as if a truck had run into it; now the only thing rolling through his mind is panic. In less than a second, his own attack will slice through the bubble and along with it the upper body of Tsubiri.

In this state of pure heart stopping panic, he pushes off the ground and rushes to her at such a speed it quite literally explodes the air behind him. He can’t even think straight as his blurry eyes are set solely on Tsubiri; he’s attempting the impossible, he’s trying to out run his own attack. The attack meant to hit Mammon at such a speed he’d have no way of countering it.

Ubica’s body is surrounded by a bright light and with him in it, that light shines wide like a television screen that had abruptly been shut off and it zooms parallel with his own attack.

He’s going to make it to her, he’s going to save her, he’s going to pull off the impossible.

At least that’s how it looked for that short moment.

The transparent sphere that Tsubiri is trapped in quite literally fizzes away like a sugar cube dropped in water and her entire presence disappears. It’s like he saw her through a mirror room in a carnival house, she vanished like she was nothing but a mirage.

With her gone, the sight of the man standing behind that sphere can be seen once more. But this time, the blurred figure of the man Ubica barely catches sight of in his intense speed shocks him worse than the sudden appearance of Mammon.

Although he can’t make it out clearly, he knows it’s not the Demon of Greed.

Ubica is on a collision course with this man, both his attack and his body have no way of stopping before it is too late.

Time seems to slow down in this instant and the man’s face can clearly be seen as he holds his hand out in front of him.

He has red eyes with white pupils, jet black hair and is wearing a confident smile on his face.

Ubica instantly recognizes him as Damien.

With his right hand, Damien grabs onto Ubica’s face.

The wind attack that was trailing behind takes a sharp turn towards Asmodeus before it is knocked away by the back of her hand as if someone threw a cotton ball at her. As soon as these motions are made clear, time speeds up once more and,

SSLLLLAAAAAASSSHH!!!

The wind of Ubica’s attack that was rerouted towards Asmodeus and effortlessly deflected before crashing into the middle of a building, it doesn’t stop until it slices through a few more structures and sends them all toppling to the ground.

Loud explosions from the collapse of dozens of buildings ensue behind the Demon of Lust when she says, “Well look at that, I finally got to show off my ability to alter wind.”

The next thing Ubica knows, he feels his equilibrium being thrown backwards and then is followed by a blunt pain in the back of his head.

With a firm grip on Ubica’s face, Damien slams the back of Ubica’s head into the asphalt road and sends it splintering into thousands of pieces.

BOOOSH!!!

Not being able to comprehend what had just happened, all Ubica can do is feel himself sink deeper into the ground as his own blood is seen floating in his peripheral vision.

“I’ve finally got my hands on you, Ubica...” Damien says as he releases his grip and jumps out of the crater he created in the ground with Ubica’s body.

Asmodeus and Mammon walk to each side of him and peer down on their enemy as if he were a dying eagle stuck in hole; it’s just as Mammon said, Ubica is nothing but a beast constantly being cornered.

With the sudden appearance of the puppet master behind all of this, Ubica can’t help but feel the weight of his instincts beating down on him to combat the glares of the three above.

Although Damien isn’t one of the 7 Demons of Hell, he’s certainly on a different level than everyone else, especially if he can give orders to the highest ranking members of the Hierarchy. Satan, who’s one of the 7 Demons himself and is supposedly the leader of the legendary group is hard pressed to even do that; the fact that they are following Damien means he offers them something worth fighting for that he’s yet to show. That could be something beneficial to the demons, or it could be that Damien is just that strong.

Ubica hasn't seen Damien’s real powers after all this time, but he’s just caught a good glimpse of it, he can feel it in his aching bones after finding himself buried in the ground.

He tries to lift his broken body out of the crater and struggles to climb up the steep wall over ten feet high; to his surprise, Damien and the other two don’t do anything to stop him and allow him to shakily pull his way back onto the road.

He stands to his feet and after a couple wobbles, he asks a question that somewhat surprises the others.

“Where’s... Tsubiri?”

“Oh? I actually had thought the first thing you’d ask me is why I’ve decided to come, but I guess now I know where your priorities are.” Damien replies.

“You have her don’t you? Tell me where she is!” Ubica’s voice cracked slightly when he shouted out that demand.

His legs feel like wet noodles and his eyesight is still very hazy due to the impact of Damien’s attack.

Mammon takes a rather long sigh of exasperation and answers, “Yeah, I got her right here.”

He then raises his arm and the same dark gray bubble forms to his side and becomes transparent once more, revealing Tsubiri.

“Let her out of there!”

“Hmph, like I’d just casually let her free, I don’t know if you recall, but this little lady here shocked the shit out of me the last time we met. I promised that I’d kill her for that, and here I am, looking to carry out my word. I just thought it’d be much more fun if I had you watch, old pal.”

“You!”

Ubica tries to take a step forward and drops as if he lost all strength in his legs.

“Ubica!” Tsubiri shouts; despite her situation she finds herself more worried about him.

Damien slightly huffs air out of his nose in a little laugh and starts walking towards Ubica; he gets to the pathetic beast desperately trying to reach Tsubiri and steps on the hand that’s holding the sword, forcing Ubica to drop it and become even more defenseless.

“Look at what you’ve become... under my foot groveling like a neglected dog. Tell me, what do you expect to do once you reach her? Do you honestly think you can save her in your condition?”

“...I’ll find a way.”

Ubica said that with about as much of his confidence broken as humanly possible.

Truthfully, he knows the real answer to Damien’s question.

“Your only way is through Dantega. If not, she dies.”

“Don’t listen to him!” Tsubiri shouts from within the bubble.

Mammon clicks his tongue and shrinks his bubble rapidly; forcing her to roll herself up into a ball to avoid being compressed.

The bubble doesn’t stop until Damien says, “Stop that Mammon, I won’t let you kill her just yet.”

Without even questioning him, the boisterous demon of Greed stays silent and stops the bubble in a small enough size to force Tsubiri into a sitting position. If the bubble hadn't stopped there, any further could have broken her neck.

Ubica’s chest rose into his throat when he saw that, so much so he couldn’t even yell out to her.

The pressure of the whole situation is crippling Ubica’s soul, earlier, he was very confident in his newfound ability to gain strength without resorting to Dantega. The crack in that confidence formed when Asmodeus mentioned that she wasn’t really trying to fight him, and a chasm formed when he was confronted with an additional demon of the Hierarchy. Right now, with Damien present and Tsubiri’s life in their hands, the overwhelming presence of inadequacy has landed upon him like a falling planet.

He had spent the last 3 months since his battle with Michael truly believing in himself and trusting that he was on the right path, to have it crumble so easily under the weight of an outside force, and faced with the deadly result of losing the very person that helped him feel that way, is enough to make him want to cry out in anguish.

The fear in Ubica’s eyes doesn’t go unnoticed by Damien.

“Your expression looks so familiar to me.”

“..?”

“The hopelessness and desperation, the injustice of it all. You want so bad for it to not be this way that it’s enough to make you want to grind your teeth into sawdust. But you have a magical tool you can use to save you from it, I don’t understand why you’d let yourself go through this when in your hands is the ability to make it stop.”

Ubica grits his teeth in contemplation, he knows as well as anyone what he can do. But there is a price to that power, and the price is losing everything that he truly wants.

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“But it can be.” Damien quickly added. “You don’t have to lie there and suffer through hopelessness like I did. You don’t have to spend hundreds of years struggling to make even the smallest change in your situation like I have. You can flip a switch and end it all in a second.”

Surprised by what Damien had just said, Ubica looks up to him and sees a chink in the impenetrable armor of what he had always seen of the son of Satan as. He had never known anything about Damien, but in his mind he had created an image of him that always seemed so in control, so what is this hopelessness Damien is speaking of? What struggle could he have possibly been put through that led him to this point now?

Ubica can't, and refuses to see him as someone operating from within a hopeless world of suffering, there is simply no way Damien can understand that human of a world.

So instead, he looks at Damien as though he were looking at a fraud.

“I see… you’re not doing all this because you know what hopelessness is.”

Ubica pulls his foot out from under Damien’s shoe and stands to his feet. Looking the son of the Devil square in the eyes, the feeling of this stand off is palpable.

“You’re doing it because you do not know what absolute power is.”

Damien clicks tongue and grabs onto Ubica’s throat.

The glare that Ubica is returning to him doesn’t budge, it’s just like he is looking down on a child.

“You talk as though you even know what you once had, if you did, you wouldn’t be forsaking it when everything you care about can so easily be destroyed. This is why I hate you, so much of what you are is what I was supposed to be. So I’m going to take it all for myself.”

Ubica doesn’t blink. His green eyes stare holes into Damien.

Damien pushes him away and turns his back to the Antichrist.

“But not yet, you’re going to have to become your true self first. It’s become obvious that our tactics haven’t worked thus far, we’ll need to go with our back up plan.”

Seeing Damien walk away from Ubica, Asmodeus is confused. “Hey what’s this all about? Can’t we just kill that girl and get this over with? He’s bound to turn if we take her away from him.”

“No...” Damien replies, “It won’t be enough right now.”

Damien looks at Mammon and says, “Let her out.”

Mammon is biting his lip in resistance, he wants nothing more than to kill her and torment Ubica.

“You can’t be serious..?”

“I agree, we have him right where we want him. How are we just gonna pass on this chance!?” Asmodeus voices her displeasure as well.

“We might have him where we want him, but not where we need him. So long as he’s missing the most important part of himself, he’ll be able to handle the loss of his friends.” Damien smoothly replies.

“But...”

They doubt him because it seems like for the first time, Damien has allowed his own personal interests to outweigh his logic regarding the plan involving Ubica. If the goal is to break him, then killing those most important to him is the easiest way to do it. To them, it just feels like Damien is making it more complicated than it needs to be.

“That will be the last time either of you question my command, understood?”

The two stay silent and Mammon sends Tsubiri out about a hundred yards away down the street and frees her from his bubble of antimatter, dropping her firmly onto the asphalt.

The three walk away a couple feet when Damien turns around, prompting the others to do so as well.

He looks at the silent and slightly relieved Ubica and sends him a malicious smile, “So long as you keep rejecting yourself, you’ll be living on borrowed time.”

“...I don’t need absolute power to defeat you, I need true power. There is nothing you can do to change how you’ll lose.”

“True power… Is that what you want to call it?”

Damien holds out his hand in the direction where Tsubiri was dropped off at; Ubica shifts his tired gaze to her position.

“Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Damien's next move is a simple wave as if he was shooing someone away. It is that simple motion that will bring about an attack that shakes the very core of this metropolis.

Within a millisecond, every window in the entire city pops and a head wrenching screech rings through the boulevards and alleyways as if brought forth by a powerful wind.

The shards of glass don’t even reach halfway to the ground when,

GAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSHHHHH!!!

A tremendous explosive noise burst out from the area of the city around Tsubiri.

Actually, it was not just one.

Thousands and tens of thousands of explosive noises shoot from the core of each building at such short intervals that they all sounded like a single massive blast.

However, Ubica had no clue what had happened.

If one had an aerial view of the city, they’d see the top of every last structure in the metropolis break and fall into their own debris as though each mass had a detonation charge. If one had a view even higher than that, even one from space, they’d see a stain of gray towering into the atmosphere as if a great fire has purged the land of Purgatory. That is how devastating this attack is, that is how much destruction the son of Satan has caused with a simple wave of his hand.

Ubica doesn’t even see this unfathomable attack; he doesn’t notice everything around him crumbling like a stacked deck of cards that had the base card at the bottom suddenly taken out. He doesn’t pay any mind to the hundreds of thousands of people who have certainly all lost their lives in this very instant. As if he has tunnel vision, he only sees the frame of Tsubiri disappear in a great plume of dust followed by her silhouette being engulfed by the falling buildings collapsing from each side of the road she found herself in the middle of. What he’s so sure he’s seen, is the dreaded sight of the girl he loves being crushed to death under the weight of Damien’s power.

Ubica’s next breath is filled with soot and debris; he doesn’t bother to flinch at the sharp pain it sends his throat into. He merely holds it in as all sound is replaced by a deafening ringing in his ears, and only the gray cloud where she once was is seen through his wide eyes.

“Ah...” Is all he can mutter as he starts walking towards that plume of smoke.

He’s completely ignoring the presence of Damien and the other two Demons, his mind simply can’t function in a way that tells him his enemies are still standing just a couple feet away.

Asmodeus and Mammon are more or less amazed at the display Damien had just put on, not just because of his immense power, but because he was so quick to change his mind on letting Tsubiri live. It’s like he chose to let her live on a whim, and chose to kill her on a whim. Standing in front of them is the powerful leader they chose to follow instead of Satan. This is what they’ve wanted to be a part of this entire time.

Damien, who has surrounded Ubica and his two allies with a pocket of untouched air, faintly frowns and snaps his fingers.

This gesture immediately engulfs Asmodeus and Mammon in a bright red flame and sends them back to Hell.

As if he wanted to keep the two demons from hearing his next words, he looks at the pathetic form of Ubica making his way into the dust.

“You may think that I seek absolute power because I don't know how terrifying it really is, but I am the enemy you need to fear most because someone like you who has had absolute power knows nothing of true suffering. With absolute power you always have a way out, you'll never be human enough to know real pain. But me? I know it all too well, it lives within me like Dantega lives within you. But I won't accept my struggle any longer, since I don't have the power to change things on my own, I will steal it from the person that does."

Damien engulfs himself in flame and sends himself back to Hell along with the others; leaving Ubica in this now desolate wasteland of a once booming metropolis.

Those words of Damien’s struck the innermost part of Ubica’s soul and added weight to his already heavy legs as he inched his way forward through the rubble.

It’s more than likely he’ll never find her, between the thick dust polluting the air and the never ending layer of rubble on the ground, he’d be lucky to find a whole car in this desolation, forget finding what might remain of a human body.

He doesn’t even want to look at the bits and pieces of human flesh littering the cracks and crevices of fallen buildings. Unable to find the courage to get close enough to the severed limbs to attempt to identify them, if he had found her in a mangled state like that he’d be crushed.

“...hhhaaa.”

Realizing this pitiful search of his is fruitless, he allows the world around him to blur over as he walks forward over the rubble and through the smoke. The question is, what will he do now? What will he do if he never finds her, or worse, what would he do if he stumbled upon her corpse?

These thoughts begin to manifest into a pain brewing deep inside him, and he’s fighting back his body’s instinct to manage that pain.

He shuts his eyes as he continues walking forward.

This is when an odd warmth hits his eyelids and the color of orange is seen through them; feeling this unusual sting he opens them only to find that he’s staring directly into the sun.

He turns away quickly to free his eyes from the sudden brightness.

(The sun..?) he thinks to himself as he looks at his surroundings.

There is no longer any sign of Damien’s ferocious attack, he’s found the booming metropolis is intact and completely unscathed. It’s as if he had awoken from a cruel dream; the ground below him is untouched, the sky above him is crystal clear, and the air he’s now breathing has lost its poisonous flavor.

His entire body has been thrust into a completely different realm of existence than what was just felt on his skin.

“W-What..?”

“... Ubica.”

A girl's soft voice is heard to his left, this is the very voice he had thought he’d never hear again no more than a few seconds earlier.

Standing there, completely untouched by the devastation he had thought he just witnessed is Tsubiri.

Her eyes are wallowing up with tears as she sees Ubica in such a horrible state.

She was in the same situation as Ubica; she had no clue what happened and was under the impression that Damien had killed him in that blast.

“Aaah...”

Ubica mutters, unable to articulate any words to go along with what he’s feeling.

A surge of strength is felt in his legs as he rushes to her, when he gets within a few feet his knees give out and he falls to them.

Tsubiri is about to lean down to help him back up to his feet but she is stopped when Ubica throws his face just below her chest and squeezes her back tightly. She can feel him breathe into her stomach as if he’s on the verge of tears as well.

What was once a place destroyed by a horrendous blast where the two had thought they lost one another, has now been replaced with life and relief. Tsubiri wraps her arms around him and squeezes as well; the two of them share similar emotions as they embrace.

“Well then...” Tsubiri says as the sun reflects off of her still intact glasses. “This has been some kind of birthday huh?”

Her attempt at injecting comedic relief to the tense situation doesn’t go unappreciated.

She helps stand him up to his feet and he takes a sigh that releases the rigidness he had felt constricting his body up to this moment.

“Your future birthdays can only improve from here.”

“Ha, yeah the bar has been set pretty low. But before they showed up, I was really having a lot of fun, and my present made it out unscathed too!”

“At least there’s that.”

Looking around, he can’t help but be amazed at what Damien has done, to be able to create an illusion that Ubica could taste, smell, and feel isn’t something he had thought possible. Though he realizes how truly scary Damien is, he still feels that if Damien fights solely to gain power, he will win.

But…

What if it’s more than just that?

What if Damien is truly is fighting for something more than just a desire for strength?

Can he compete against something more complex than simple desires?

Not knowing for sure just what it is, strikes more fear into Ubica than Damien’s ability to alter his reality to the point of truly believing he was in a destroyed city.

Not to mention, they are going to commence this alternate plan to extract Dantega from him that he can't even venture to think on what it may be. Tsubiri an his friends are safe for now, but what lies next for them?

“... Tsubiri," Ubica says, shaking off the anxieties that no longer need to be dwelled upon. "thank you for everything.”

With his hands on her shoulders, he puts his angst into the back of his mind and manages a smile.

He can handle these things because right now, the person most important to him is right in front of him.

“Let’s go back to the others, pass through the Gates and get home so we can end all of this. The kind of life we want is there at the end of this road.”

Seeing the peaks and valleys of Ubica’s emotions first hand, Tsubiri is grateful for that smile he’s giving her, it’s genuine, and void of despair. It’s the look of his that tells her he hasn’t, and will never give up on her. It tells her that there will never be a day when he goes back on the birthday promise he made earlier.

Tsubiri smiles wide at the prospect of reaching the end of this road, she’s not ready to give up either, even in the face of overwhelming power. Even though she had earlier requested that the two of them leave this dangerous road and live a life outside of it, she knew deep down that this desire isn’t fair to everyone else. Ubica doesn’t only belong to her, at least not yet.

He has a responsibility to see this thing through, and it’s now her obligation to help him do that as his partner.

The most important part is that there is light at the end of the dark path of this journey, and the reward of that light is something she’s willing to spend as much time in the darkness needed to reach.

“I like the sound of that!”

Conflict of Interests: (END)

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