Dantega:Volume 8 Chapter 1
(PART 1)
Ubica and the rest are walking up the long flight of enclosed stairs that climbs up a small mountain and leads to the 4th Gate. They haven’t been travelling for more than a few hours and they’ve already made it here, which is quite the relief.
After what Trojia said the other day about how the world they left behind could be completely destroyed without them knowing it, the feeling of urgency really seeped into their psyche. It has been close to a year since they were sent here after all, having this level only take about a week to pass is great.
“This sure is a long ways up, huh Trojia?” Tsubiri asked as she walks near the back of the group alongside Trojia.
“.....”
When she doesn’t answer, Tsubiri frowns.
She’s normally not that impatient with people, but the two have walked at least a couple miles and Trojia has snuffed her conversation attempts on more than one occasion already.
“Hey what’s your problem?? I’m standing a foot away from you ya’ know?”
Trojia doesn’t look her way but answers very coldly, “It’s not like we’re friends, you should know better than to talk to me so freely.”
“That’s ridiculous, every one of us are comrades here. That should be enough to prove that we’re close to each other.”
“No it doesn’t, especially not in your case. You’ve spent a good chunk of your time with Ubica alone, you of all people are the one we don’t consider ourselves being close with.”
“Y-You… How can you say such an awful thing?”
“It’s as easy as talking.”
Tsubiri grits her teeth, she can see why Trojia’s able to get under Ubica’s skin so well.
But it’s odd, she was never this offensive, the princess is intentionally saying spiteful words specifically to anger her.
In Tsubiri’s mind, there’s three ways to handle this person. One, is to fight her on everything. Two, is to turn the other cheek. And three, is to simply stand her ground and take it.
If there’s one thing Tsubiri has learned through this whole ordeal, it certainly isn’t accepting the latter options.
She crosses her arms under her chest and puffs, “Hmph! Judging by that attitude of yours, I'm guessing you must be really bitter about being left behind.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re mad because you’ve lost.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, so whatever you’re trying to do it’s not going to work.”
“Oh yes you definitely do.” Tsubiri quickly replied.
She really doesn’t want to go out of her way to hurt someone, but Trojia’s tone of voice and the look on her face has gotten Tsubiri so riled up she’s already lost control of herself.
“I’m talking about Ubica… You love him don’t you? It’s always been obvious to everyone, but you’ve been so cold lately. So I figured it has to be for a reason and I think I know what it is.”
“Don’t say another word Tsubiri.”
“Since Ubica hasn’t told you yet, I think it’s best you hear this from me.”
As much as Trojia is putting up a strong front, the last thing she’d ever want to do is relive the events of last night; having Tsubiri put it in words is a very close second.
“I said don’t say another damn word!”
“Ubica loves me you know? He chose me, a regular girl, a lowly bodyguard, he chose me of all people over the princess of Troy. That must sting right?” Tsubiri can see how much her words are affecting Trojia in a negative way, but somehow she can’t stop herself and continues. “It must suck to know that you lost out because of your terrible attitude. Diid you honestly think that it wouldn’t show? Not only have you been cold, but you’ve been downright deceitful."
The two girls' eyes are locked in on each other as Tsubiri speaks.
"You told the others to go on ahead back at the 2nd Gate while you knew full well that Ubica was fighting for his life! How can you even look him in the eye after something like that! He could’ve died, yet now you feel like he should be yours instead of mine?? How selfish can you get princess!?”
Trojia’s face begins to contort, the delicate features of her pretty face begin to melt away like a plastic doll on fire and the green of her eyes begin to grow red in anger.
She knows that what Tsubiri said is true, she refused to help Ubica and lied to the others so they wouldn't help him either.
At the time she thought that she said goodbye to the feelings of love for him and truly felt Michael deserved a shot at revenge after seeing what Ubica did to Catherine and Margaret. Only now, after hearing Michael say that ‘you don’t realize how much you want something until it’s gone’ does her weak resolve shine through her cold facade.
The truth is, she still loves him very much.
As much as she doesn’t want to, as much as she wants to hate him, she simply can’t get rid of these feelings so easily.
“I SAID SHUT UP!!” Trojia shouts.
Her scream got the attention of the others.
“No! You’re no different than any other spoiled brat from the royal family. All you think about is yourself, and when you can’t get what you want you become a spiteful bitch! No wonder why your mother sent you away!”
Now that last sentence was the final straw.
Trojia has been troubled about what happened with Lelaine for almost a year now, and she hasn’t had anyone other than Ubica to talk to about it with. Now that Ubica belongs to someone else, those troubled feelings reach a boiling point and combine with the anger she already feels about Tsubiri’s words.
She grits her teeth and lets out an inaudible mumble before the shine in her gleaming red eyes grow cold and empty. As soon as they do; she teleports directly behind Tsubiri and begins to pull out one of her twin blades.
Tsubiri doesn’t have time to react but feels Trojia’s presence behind her, as though her lighting is triggered from her instinct to protect herself, the bolts form into a kind of force-field in order to block the incoming attack.
But things never escalate to that point. Before either of them noticed, Ubica appears right in between the two and grabs Trojia’s arm before she could pull her weapon out.
“!!”
Tsubiri looks surprised and backs away quickly. Trojia on the other hand, remains emotionless for a split second before her eyes turn back to normal and gaze up on him in shock.
She tries to jump back as well but Ubica’s grip on her arm is so tight she can’t get away.
“L-Let go of me.” she said, not fully confident in her demand.
Ubica just stares at her, a very painful look dully gleams in his eyes. It’s almost as though his heart has just been broken.
Trojia can’t stand this look and pulls her arm away with all her strength, to her surprise, he lets go without so much as an effort to contain her and she falls back down a few stairs before she catches her balance.
She takes a couple more deep breaths and looks up to him, the same look of pain in his eyes peers down on her.
“Don’t look at me like that!”
Ubica purses his lips to keep himself from speaking; it’s as though he feels that she isn’t worth speaking to. Trojia can feel it, his expression hurts her to her very core, it squeezes at her heart with the utmost intensity.
Not knowing how to react to that, she can only defend herself by saying, “So is that how it’s going to be!? You’re going to take her side!? Do you know what she just said to me!?”
Tsubiri looks away, even she knows she went too far.
Ubica doesn’t shift his gaze, he’s so disappointed in her right now it almost makes him sick to his stomach. Trojia has turned into a person he doesn’t know, she’s become someone distant and far away. The Trojia he knew was always smiling, she always cared about others and how they felt, she was always his salvation from his darkness. But now, she’s become someone willing to cause harm to others and not bat an eye after doing it, she’s become the very darkness he’s been trying to escape from.
What hurts him most, is that he’s partly the cause of it all, something he did along the line made her into the person she is now.
But…
He’s no longer willing to blame himself for the actions of others.
Tsubiri has taught him that he can only control what he does; he can’t control how other people will react to it, or how they will be affected by it. That being said, he knows for sure that there is nothing he did to make her want to cause harm to someone else other than him.
He saw it clearly, she had every intention to hurt Tsubiri, the girl he loves.
For that, he cannot, and will not forgive her.
He puts his arm over Tsubiri and turns his back on her. The two begin to walk silently up the stairs as Tsubiri starts sobbing into his chest.
With her hands over her eyes, Tsubiri softly says, “I… I said terrible things to her… I don’t know why I did that…”
Ubica remains silent and lets her eat her own words. Though he doesn’t know what happened, he knows that Tsubiri was wrong as well, and judging by her current state of mind he can clearly see that she feels bad about whatever it was. He can’t do anything about it, he has her back 100% and will defend her no matter what, but he won’t help her justify any wrong doings.
“Hey!” Trojia yells, her cool has obviously been lost, and watching him walk away from her with his arm over Tsubiri churns up a really hot pressure in the back of her throat. “You can’t just walk away from me!”
The two don’t even flinch at her words.
“Damn it all! I hate you! I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you!!!!”
This temper tantrum of hers doesn’t fall on deaf ears, the rest of the group don’t know how to handle a situation like this. Rage knew that someone was bound to crack eventually but he didn’t think it’d be the level headed Trojia of all people.
Napoleon doesn’t know what just went down but seeing her in such a broken state causes him to pity her.
Strauphius can only put his hands in his pockets and shift his gaze toward the wall, he has no clue how to deal with a girl so distraught.
Aria wants to go talk to her, but doesn’t know her well enough to calm her down, so she decides its best just to stay quiet as well.
Cyrus honestly doesn’t really care how she feels; she’s not his responsibility and is quite happy she isn’t at the moment.
Sora doesn’t like infighting, and would do anything to keep the group together, but she senses that this time her newly found personality isn’t enough to tighten the already broken bonds between her and Ubica.
Niera is in shock, as Trojia’s best friend she’s seen her throw a tantrum or two before, but none like this. She truly feels that her soft voice wouldn’t reach her through her screams, so she feebly shrinks behind the others.
Daey however, frowns and walks towards her without even saying a word.
She gets within a few feet of her and...
SLAP!!!
With her open palm she strikes Trojia’s cheek with so much force it almost floors her. Trojia’s shoulder bangs into the wall and she falls to her knees.
Daey looks down on her and clinches her stinging hand before shouting, “Grow up!”
She doesn’t know of the situation at all but can see that Trojia is acting very childish.
She turns back around and grabs her little sister's arm. “Let’s go Niera, we don’t have time to deal with this mess right now.”
Before she knows it, the rest of them walk away and enter into a thick fog about fifty yards ahead and leave her behind. She can only sit there stunned at her own actions until someone walks down the stairs by himself.
“Are you happy now?” Michael asks as he leans to her level.
“Can you all just leave me alone? I’ve had enough… I can’t take it anymore…”
“It’s because of that exact reason I can’t afford to leave you alone.”
“.....”
“You’re going to give in aren’t you? You’re going to take the easy way out.”
“I’m not going to kill myself… So just go away.”
“That’s not what I mean. I fear that it’s already too late for you, but something tells me that there is still time for you to turn this around.”
“I’m not sick damn it, please just leave me alone.”
Michael sighs and replies, “I know you don’t really want to be alone right now.”
“Yes I do! Go away!”
“Fine…” Michael gets to his feet and starts walking back up the stairs. “But I hope you’re willing to face the consequences of your actions. The longer you’re alone, the less hope you have of coming out of this whole mess alive. If you’re not careful your soul will belong to someone else.”
Trojia doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but to be perfectly honest she doesn’t care. All she really wants is to be alone, even though that may not be what she needs.
After sitting in silence for a few seconds, it hits her, everyone really left her behind.
She may have thought that she wanted to be alone, but once again the words of Michael crash into the back of her mind.
‘You never realize how much you want something until it’s gone.’
Being by herself without the comfort of the others makes her understand the harshness of that statement. With no one to help her, with no one to comfort her in her times of need, what does she have to rely on? It used to be Ubica, she could always rely on him for everything, whether that be emotional or physical support. And when he wasn’t there, she could rely on her friendship with the others.
Now that she’s lost Ubica to Tsubiri, she can only rely on her friends. But when her friends turn their back on her as well, she literally has nothing.
Nothing except the darkness in her heart that’s telling her she doesn’t need them…
She throws her hands on her chest and tries to fight it, she thinks back on her actions and now has a decision to make.
It’s either give up, or fight on.
Tears begin to stream down her cheeks as she struggles to say her decision through a cracked voice.
“I’m… I’m sorry.”
“So this is the 4th Gate huh?” Ubica asks as he and the rest of the group reaches the snowy environment that surrounds the 4th Gate.
It’s still dark, yet the night sky illuminates the white snow with the reflection of a wide array of different colored clusters of stars.
But the group doesn’t have time to bask in the beautiful scenery; their worry instantly shifts to Ubica when a very cold breeze is felt blowing through them like a bucket of ice cold water was dumped on their heads.
Ubica can feel their glares beat down on him and he awkwardly smiles.
“Are you okay Ubica??” Tsubiri asks.
She was on his back the last time they were in cold like this and she specifically remembers him passing out and not waking up for 3 days. If they didn’t find shelter in Strauphius’s and Aria’s house, he certainly would’ve died because he is cold blooded.
Ubica analyzes himself in a way and shrugs his shoulders. “Believe it or not, I actually feel fine.”
“Really!?”
Tsubiri puts her palms on his face and feels his warmth on her hands.
“Whoa, you’re really warm…”
“Like I said, I feel really comfortable out here for some reason… It’s actually quite nice.”
The reason why he feels like this is precisely because of the girl holding onto his face; it’s because of her he has a human heart capable of love, instead of the darkness of Dantega sending cold hate coursing through his veins.
“Well then.” Rage interrupts, “Let’s get going, I’m sure the Gatekeeper already knows we’re here.”
“Right.”
With that, they begin walking down the snow covered stone road that leads to the small castle containing the Gate. Everything goes smoothly until Ubica spots something dark just to the right of a destroyed statue.
“Hm?”
Nobody else notices it but for some reason it has piqued his interest, so he decides to investigate. Walking past a couple broken pieces of stone, he finds a puddle of blood that has been slushied into the snow. The blood is relatively fresh, which has him believing that someone else is here.
“Hey guys check this out!”
Rage gestures to the others to stay behind but he and Michael go to where Ubica is and take a look for themselves.
“Is that blood?”
“Yeah, it hasn’t been here that long too.”
“Look at that.” Michael says as he points further out into the field of snow.
There is a blood trail that leads all the way towards a circle of snow covered statues out in the distance. The statues stand more like blocks than those that hold human shapes, it’s almost as though they are just the extra bits of stone that weren’t used for the construction of the road and castle.
The three follow the trail towards it and when the blood puddles become thicker they start to sense that something has gone terribly wrong. They reach the circled patch of stone that looks very similar to Stonehenge in England and cautiously walk through one of the gaps.
Upon entering the amphitheater like area they discover that the snow on the ground below them is dyed red with the blood of something. It’s like someone has been sacrificed in this very spot.
“What the hell is this?” Michael asks as he scours the area with his eyes.
“I don’t know… Could it be the Gatekeeper’s doing?”
Ubica was assaulted with a horrible pain in every corner of his body the moment he walked in here, his limbs begin to feel light and strength leaves his body. He falls on one knee and winces in pain, causing the other two to turn around.
“Hey are you alright??”
“There’s something about this place… This blood, if feels like it’s mine.”
“Maybe we’ve walked into a trap? It wouldn’t be too far fetched to believe that the Gatekeeper set this up as a spell to weaken us.” Rage said as he helps Ubica to his feet.
“No… I think this place was set up for me specifically, it’s like something is binding me here, telling me that this is where I need to be.”
Michael and Rage think his statement is odd, and for the most part, so does Ubica. But he finds his statement to be perfectly fitting when the weak voice of a girl is heard from above.
"U-Ubica…”
The three look up and their eyes instantly widen in shock.
Ubica’s face turns completely pale and his pupils shrink to an amazingly small size.
Nailed to one of the stone blocks overhead, is Messor.
There’s a metal nail in each of her wrists and one in each of her shins; she has obviously been cut around the neck area but blood doesn’t fall. It would seem that she’s lost almost all of her blood, which is apparent upon looking at the snow dyed red on the ground. Someone has nailed her upside down on the stone in order to bleed her out like a gutted pig.
“MESSOR!!” Ubica shouts, he doesn’t hesitate to jump up to free her.
He digs his hand into the stone to keep himself up and begins to pry the nails from her body. Messor grunts in pain but her strength has faded so much that by the time Ubica pulls out the nails in her shins, she goes numb and stares down expressionlessly.
Ubica cradles her in his arms and runs out of the circle of stones and into the field of snow. Once he left, the pain he had felt leaves and he can clearly see that it was caused by being in the presence of his mangled Idol. And now he knows for sure it was intentional, he was supposed to find her in there in such a state.
“Messor! What happened!? Who did this to you!?” Ubica frantically shouts as his hands shake nervously over her horrendous wounds.
“Ubica…”
Messor is having a very hard time speaking; she’s pretty much a talking corpse at the moment. If it weren’t for her inhuman recovery abilities she’d be long dead by now. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still on her way, if something doesn’t change she will die.
“I-It’s a trap… Damien… You all need to---“
BOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!
An explosion rips through the area where the others are and sends them flying into the powdery snow in every which direction.
“!!??”
Michael and Rage rush over to the scene to try and help but by the time they get there it is too late.
Standing in the middle of a cloud of misty snow is a smiling Abaddon, holding the limp body of Cyrus by the arm.
“Ain’t this perfect, we knew you’d come runnin' to that girl. Gave us just enough distraction time to get to your friends here.”
Ubica doesn’t even know where to look; he’s so concerned for Messor that he finds it hard to divert his attention. But if Abaddon’s appearance wasn’t enough to do so, the next few should.
Directly behind Rage comes a swarm of flies, and those flies morph into the silhouette of a man, and that man is someone Rage has a deep fear of.
The man that came from the swarm of flies is the 3rd ranked member of the Hiearchy, Beelzebub.
“It’s been a while Rage, sadly enough, this occasion calls for something a little more serious than last time.” He said while inching closer to the two.
Rage’s eyes widen as he quizzically turns around.
Beelzebub slightly smiles and answers his look, “That’s right… I’m here to kill you.”
In an instant, Beelzebub forms into flies and the swarm shoots at Rage before he can react.
As if the swarm of flies was a freight train, the impact is so devastating that Rage’s body is sent flying hundreds of meters away before smashing into a faraway hill.
Beelzebub appears out of out of the swarm but the flies stay over his right arm and morph into what seems to be a very long sword. Without so much as a moment of hesitation, he swings that sword and sends a churning dark green slice of energy directly at Rage’s position.
The energy makes a distinct buzzing noise before it hits the hill and explodes in a swirling plume. The concussion of the blast was so strong it causes an avalanche of snow to fall down some of the surrounding mountains.
As if that ruthless attack wasn’t enough, Beelzebub zooms down into the smoke and another explosion is heard.
This time however, Beelzebub is repelled back by a black beam from Rage’s scythe.
The two begin an other-worldly fight while flying through the air at blinding speeds.
“Well don’t that look like fun?” Abaddon said as he watches the fight with a firm grip on Cyrus’s limp body.
“You know what, you’re right about that.” says Michael. He holds his hand out and a flash of light forms into his cross shaped spear. “I never got a chance to talk to you about how you betrayed us during the battle of Armageddon… What do you say you let go of that human so we can touch base?”
Abaddon smiles and says, “There’s nothin' to touch base on, I simply went to the side that was winning. And as you can see, it was a damn good decision!”
He then pulls out a couple marbles from his pocket and puts one down Cyrus’s shirt before tossing the unconscious man as though he was trash.
“As for the part where I let the human go, that just ain’t gonna happen. Our job today is to kill every last one of these little pricks. So unless you have a mind to stop me, they’re all gonna die!”
Michael clicks his tongue and says, “Fine then… It’s about time I get back to fighting for someone other than myself.”
Michael swings his spear and lets it hit the stone road, it causes a spark and he disappears into it.
“!?”
Michael’s new power is completely new to Abaddon; the last time the two met they were allies under God, back then Michael used his flames to fill the pit Abaddon created for the Anti-Christ. Since he was expecting the same thing, the advantage of surprise goes to Michael.
And Michael takes full use of that advantage immediately.
A little snow flake so small it can’t even be seen falls gently in to the ground just above Abaddon’s head, it’s something that happens so regularly that it never goes noticed by anyone not looking close enough, and Abaddon is no different. He doesn’t even consider the possibility that such a small object is even there until that little snow flake comes in contact with the light of the three moons above and its light reflects through it.
Shcliiiiing!!
“Guaaahh!?”
That little light that no one would ever even notice reveals itself in a devastating fashion. The light from the borderline microscopic snow flake grew and shot forward in a brilliant flash and skewered Abaddon’s left shoulder.
As the shock from being hit out of nowhere blocks the immanent pain, Abaddon instinctively tries to turn around, but he’s forced to halt when he senses that there’s something below him.
Out of the light that just crashed into the stone comes Michael with his spear pointing straight up for an easy kill.
“!!!”
Abaddon barely escapes the fatal blow of the spear but his cheek gets cut at the last second.
“Ain’t this a damn surprise!? Just what the fuck was that??”
Michael stands on the stone path very sure of himself at the moment. He knows that Abaddon can only use the destruction point of an object or a person to destroy them, so as long as Michael travels through light at such a speed where he can’t be touched, there is no way he can lose.
“Can’t you tell? I have the ability to manipulate and travel through light. I developed this power specifically to counter the darkness of Dantega, there’s no way a fallen Angel as pathetic as you can defeat what can’t be touched.”
“Ohoo?” he says with a wide grin. “Thanks for the lil explanation, that sure does simplify things. looks like Imma have to pull out all the contents of my bag of tricks to take you out!”
He flings his robe open and reveals a multitude of small items. Where he normally uses marbles, the contents tied to his red robe range from daggers, to shurikens, all the way to needles.
Without so much as looking at what he’s grabbing, he pulls out something that looks to be a hand sized rock cast into the shape of a perfect sphere. He tosses it on the ground and it buries into the stone as if he dropped a bowling ball into a barrel of butter.
He then takes a five inch long rod with a pointed end and flings it in Cyrus’s direction, the rod hits Cyrus’s chest and a distinct clicking noise is heard.
The needle hit the little marble he had put down the bodyguard's shirt just a few seconds earlier.
“You ever heard of a lil thing called a black hole? How about I use the destruction point of this human here to pull that light of yours into a truly inescapable abyss?”
“!?”
Michael is very shocked, he halfway thinks that Abaddon is bluffing, but if he’s wrong and he’s actually telling the truth, it would seem that Abaddon has a firm grasp on Michael’s only weakness.
Not willing to risk it, Michael attempts to flee by jumping into a ball of light, but when Cyrus’s body floats in the air and starts spinning around in a circle surrounding the demon and angel, Michael is somehow rendered motionless.
“!!”
Cyrus is spinning at such an increasing pace; the G-forces begin to crush his body.
Luckily for Daey and Niera, they are both unconscious and can’t see what gruesome fate their beloved royal guard is about to suffer.
After a couple more rotations, Cyrus’s body begins to fall apart. As the speed continues, there’s literally nothing left of him but a blob of flesh and a trail of his blood that is circling Abaddon and Michael so quickly it’s as though his remains are a solid wall.
Without so much as a final word or a brave farewell, Cyrus is brutally massacred without even making the slightest bit of an impact. This is simply the world that he as a human has found himself in, in this world of Angels and Demons, a fragile human holds no significance. Now more than ever, that fact shows itself in terrible detail.
Michael can’t move and is being pressed against the ground, he feels himself being sucked towards the area where Abaddon’s fist sized sphere is planted in the road.
“You’re out of your mind!” He struggles to shout. “You’re going to be sucked in as well!”
“Heehahaha, exactly! In a place of pure darkness, who do you think is gonna win? Don’tchya know that I am the key holder to every abyss?? Since your light can’t escape from here, you gotta take that key from me to get away!”
“Damn it!!!”
Michael hisses as he watches a jet black sphere grow from the ground and starts sucking both he and Abaddon in. Wiith a distinct noise like water down a whirlpool, the two, along with the stone and snow under the radius of Cyrus’s blood are sucked into the black hole without so much as a trail of them left behind.
As soon as they enter, Cyrus’s blood and blended remains drop to the ground and paint a large red circle in the white snow. The red painted ground continues to rotate around the radius of the black hole like an asteroid ring that orbits the axis of a planet.
It will serve as the barrier known in scientific terms as the ‘Event Horizon’.
The point of no return.
If anyone ventures past that circle of blood, they will be sucked in as well. With no one capable to help from either side, the person who exits this dimension will be the victor.
The snow and other bits of debris that weren't apart of the initial phase that created the hole slowly get sucked in, and from above the clouds and air from the night sky all are being sucked in as well.
The reason for this is because a black hole must constantly obtain matter otherwise it wouldn't be able to contain its own mass and quite literally disappear within itself. Once the supply of clouds, air, snow, and ground from the area inside the Event Horizon is exhausted, both Michael and Abaddon will cease to exist.
Ubica, along with the others are left speechless. Their friend Cyrus wasn’t supposed to die like that, he wasn’t supposed to just be grabbed, swirled into a mush and dropped to the ground as if his essence as a man was nothing. He was supposed to make it back to Earth, he was supposed to fulfill his duties as a royal guard, he was supposed to survive.
It’s only now do they realize that the time has come where fighting together takes on a new meaning. It takes on the form of a direct path to an awful death.
“What will you do now Ubica?”
Comes a familiar voice.
The voice belongs to someone who has put Ubica through more pain than anyone else.
This taunting tone of voice belongs to Leviathan.
“A comrade of yours died like trash, are you willing to accept the fact that the rest of them are soon to follow? Now that Michael is dealing with Abaddon and Rage is pre-occupied with Beelzebub, that leaves you vs. three of us. Do you think you can handle us without having a couple more friends die?”
Ubica is still in a state of shock and there’s no way he can answer that question with any kind of confidence; all he can do is stay silent and try to build up his resolve. With Messor in such a horrid state in front of him, with Daey and Niera unconscious and vulnerable, with the others simply not strong enough to face the wrath of 3 of the 7 Great Demons of Hell, he literally does not know what option to act on first.
“.....”
Leviathan sighs and holds his hand out toward Ubica’s back. “Perhaps I just need to get things started myself.”
His hand morphs into water and bends itself into a thin sharp looking point. Though water would normally not be considered sharp, no matter what form it takes, the fact that the number 2 ranked Demon of the Hierarchy is the one responsible for it makes the menacing danger obvious.
Ubica reaches his senses and begins to turn around but it is too late, Leviathan has already shot forth his water spear and Ubica has no chance to avoid it at such a close range. The spear will rip through the chest of Ubica and he will be rendered unable to fight and be forced to use Dantega.
At least that was supposed to happen.
Leviathan is met with a sudden stop in movement and a severe electrical current rushing through his body. The suddenness of this odd feeling is enough to wipe the confident smile off his face and replace it with a rare expression of surprise.
“Don’t you dare think about laying a hand on him.” said Tsubiri as she reveals herself to their left.
She is standing in a wide stance with her arm directed towards the Demon, and sparks crackle in the area around her fingertips.
This split moment gave Ubica enough time to bring about a vicious kick that sinks into Leviathan’s gut and sends the Demon flying about twenty meters before catching his footing.
“I hit him?” Ubica asks himself, halfway in disbelief that his intended attack actually landed.
When they fought before, Ubica couldn’t lay a finger on him. One reason was because he just wasn’t fast enough, and the other was because when he was fortunate enough to touch him, Leviathan materialized into water and Ubica went right through him. So hitting him, and feeling that distinct sense of hitting something solid comes at somewhat of a shock.
“This is the guy from the sea right?” Tsubiri asks as she begins to walk to Ubica.
“That’s right.”
“Then let me help you, water is conductive right? I can’t think of anyone better to help you beat him.”
Her electricity would explain why Ubica was able to hit Leviathan. With electric current flowing at a ridiculous level inside his body, he was physically unable to maneuver his water. It can be said that in that exact moment of time, he was nothing more than a regular man. If Ubica knew that at that moment Leviathan would be so vulnerable, he would have used his sword to cut off his head.
Ubica smiles, it’s as though a new surge of energy in the form of hope has taken the place of his panic.
With Tsubiri at his side, he can defeat Leviathan.
“Let’s do this, Ubica.”
“Right!”
“I knew Damien left you alive!” Asmodeus shouted as she runs towards Tsubiri at such a speed she’s leaving behind a trail of snow pluming in the air as if she were a flat rock being skipped across a lake.
With her long chain mail bracelet dragging behind her back and her tongue ring flying in the air, she looks very menacing as the gap between the two girls closes in flash.
“I’m not going to let you get in the way this time! ”
“!?”
Tsubiri’s natural reaction is to use her lightning but when she can’t produce enough to stop the oncoming onslaught of the Demon before her, she is forced to use what she can.
Lighting screams forward and at best it will slow Asmodeus down and allow her to avoid the attack. But the Demon woman does something that catches Tsubiri completely off guard.
Asmodeus jumps into the air while still screaming forward, does a front-flip in mid-air and the eight foot long chain link bracelet connected to both her wrists drop down to the ground as she flies over the top of Tsubiri’s head.
Now any kind of counter attack or defense is thrown out of the window and replaced with certain death. The chain link zooms in a straight line directly at Tsubiri’s neck, with Asmodeus’s center of gravity moving at almost supersonic speeds, the chain-mail will have such a velocity that it will send her head flying like a cork off a bottle of champaign.
“Tsubiri!!” Ubica shouts as he watches what’s about to unfold without being able to get there in enough time to help.
He unconsciously shuts his eyes as he runs forward because his body is telling him that he doesn’t want to see what comes next.
But if he had his eyes open, he’d see a sight he’d never even fathom.
Trojia literally appears out of nowhere directly behind Tsubiri and on the same height as Asmodeus.
Asmodeus sees that she’s on a collision course with the blonde girl but doesn’t even have time to comprehend it.
That’s when she is met with an open palm to her face.
“!!!”
The chain link bracelet is only a couple inches away from Tsubiri’s neck when...
VVOOMMP!!
It disappears.
Along with it, Asmodeus and Trojia as well.
Even though they vanished into thin air, the wind trail that Asmodeus left behind in her supersonic sprint is still felt and blows violently over Tsubiri’s head. The gust was so strong that it nearly floored Tsubiri and sent snow zooming dozens of meters behind her as if something was still there.
The two disappeared so fast that the laws of physics still thought that the effects of something moving at such a speed should still be making its mark on the surrounding environment. The wind trail kept going even though the source of that wind trail vanished halfway.
Up in the sky, thousands upon thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of feet in the air, appears two girls out of the fabric of space time.
One is Trojia, and the other is the 7th ranked Demon of the Hierarchy.
“What!?”
The drastic and ridiculously sudden change in everything Asmodeus perceived as reality has put her in such a state that thinking is borderline impossible. Her confused and oscillating eyes land on the girl who’s hand has just let go of her face.
Before she could even mutter a word, the girl disappears from sight with a slight base noise, leaving her alone in the sky.
Asmodeus feels her body move from a standstill, to a steady progression of falling. She looks down and sees that the area where she once was cannot even be deciphered as land, it’s just a little white speck of ground. It’s now that she realizes just how high up she has been dropped off at, even with being a high ranking demon of Hell, a fall from here with no form of protection will at least lead to a near fatal injury.
As the wind blowing from beneath her speeds up exponentially with each passing second, the anger at that human girl hits a point so hot in her mind that the cold air pressing against her skin from all around her begins to feel like flames.
“DAMN YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!”
Trojia reappears right to the side of Tsubiri before the plume of snow powder left in Asmodeus’s wake even settled. However, she didn’t just arrive here as though nothing happened, she lands on her feet but slides a few meters before coming to a painful looking halt.
The reason why she landed so roughly is because the calculations needed to teleport from such a height safely is virtually impossible.
Teleporting to the high point for someone like her is easy, there’s a vast amount of sky to pick and choose from which results in the final answer to a calculation ending as a moot point. It basically doesn’t matter where she ends up because she can’t blow it and end up crushed in a rock.
That being said, teleporting to the ground is very tricky, especially from that height. In some form or another, she is still bound by gravitational pull; just because she reaches point A being the sky to point B being the ground in less than a second, doesn’t mean that the same physical effects of travelling between those two letters was never there to begin with.
It takes an inhuman level of concentration to be able to slow herself down in the other dimension and reach the ground without suffering the effects of falling from point A to point B. If she wasn’t careful, she could have teleported herself into a pancake. She would have appeared out of nowhere, and snow covered ground would have exploded as though it just took the brunt of an object falling from thousands of feet in the air.
Trojia shakes her rough landing off and stands astute, she then turns to Tsubiri and bows.
“Eh..?”
Naturally, Tsubiri is taken aback. Both by Trojia’s sudden bow and also by what had just happened.
“I apologize for my behavior.”
“M-Me too?”
Even though Trojia was the cause of the fight at first, Tsubiri still feels really bad about what she said, so it’s nice she can get that off her chest as well. But still, 'me too' is a horrible reply to such a serious sounding apology.
Ubica runs to the two, he’s taking fairly big gasps of relieved air. It was only a second ago that he thought he’d see the girl he love’s head roll on the ground, the emotions he’s feeling at the moment cannot be described in words.
“…Thank you Trojia, thank you thank you thank you!” Ubica yells as he repeatedly bows to her.
In a way, she doesn’t like being thanked so excessively for saving Tsubiri, in a matter of fact, she hates it. She can see in his face just how much he cares about her, he’s barely getting the color back in his skin after witnessing that close call.
Perhaps still feeling guilty about what she said earlier, she turns her cheek and replies in troubled fashion.
“It’s nothing.”
“Whoahoo! Did you just teleport??” Mammon asked as he slowly floats down from above, riding atop one of his spheres of antimatter.
Ubica’s relief is short-lived; he almost forgot just how dangerous of a situation they are in. To his right is Leviathan, who’s just recovered from the electric shock and the kick, and to his left is Mammon. He’s surrounded by enemies who have every intention to kill the people he cares about.
“Do you mind me asking where you took her? I sure hope you found a way to put her in the base of a mountain or something, cause she’s gonna be pissed when she comes back.”
Trojia, not intimidated by the least coldly replies, “She’s not coming back… In one piece that is.”
That’s when all of them here Asmodeus’s voice from above shouting, “I’LL KILL YOUUUUUUUUUU!!!”
Falling at an incredible pace is the Demon of Lust, no doubt that once she lands she’ll explode from the impact.
At least, that’s what everybody thinks, except for Mammon.
He chuckles a little bit and pulls a black version of the unique circle shape sword he calls Ebuillo out of the sheath on his side.
With a flick of his wrist, a bubble of antimatter forms directly between Asmodeus and the ground and intercepts her collision course. She disappears into it and the bubble immediately retracts and pops.
After about a second or so, another bubble forms just a few feet above the ground and Asmodeus gently falls out and safely lands on one knee.
“!!”
“You’re pretty similar to me girly, but can you stand up to someone who owns a whole other dimension? I’d like to test you out.”
“Don’t even think about it.” Asmodeus spits. “This bitch is mine.”
Mammon laughs and starts floating towards Trojia. “Too late, you’ve lost your chance. I’m gonna---“
He’s interrupted by a snowball hitting him directly in the face. He doesn’t even get a chance to figure out who threw it when,
BBBAAAAAAAAAMM!!!
An unbelievably big explosion engulfs him and he’s sent flying off his ball of antimatter in a plume of smoke.
With senses completely out of whack, the next thing he feels is a very dull pain on his left side caused by a large block of solid rock stretching out of nowhere that hit him so hard he’s sent flying off in a different direction.
The impact was so fierce that his bones are heard cracking as though every piece of his insides have been shattered. Once he brutally lands after being leveled by that rock, he struggles to move.
“What the fuck!?” He yells, blood falling from his mouth on to the floor.
“Your fight is with us.” Napoleon said as he swings his arm and the block of solid rock makes its way back to him and sinks back in to the ground.
“That’s right, we can’t have you ganging up on one of our friends.” Aria chimes in as she molds another snow ball in her hands.
Because of her ability, the last snow ball she threw was turned into a bomb stronger than a grenade.
Strauphius cracks his neck and does a couple stretches before saying, “We’ll teach you that we’re not just some weak humans you can ignore.”
Even Xavier is there, standing in the face of danger with determination written all over his face. "I won't forgive any of you for what you've done to our comrade."
Mammon shakily gets to his feet and frowns, just the fact that a human could even touch him is enough to boil his blood in anger. “Alright then! Come at me!!”
As if that was a trigger, the humans begin to face off against a high ranking demon of Hell.
Explosions immediately begin to concuss, the terrain begins to bend and shape into weapons, and balls of antimatter begin to form in the hundreds.
Asmodeus doesn’t even look back at her comrade who’s just been ambushed. Her eyes are only fixated on the girl that would have been the death of her if it wasn’t for Mammon.
“You… I’m going to kill you.”
Trojia clicks her tongue and pulls out her two twin blades, with an emotionless expression she replies, “You’ve said that already.”
Trojia teleports and Asmodeus moves at a speed so fast that her figure literally vanishes from sight. That’s when the sound of metal striking metal is heard out in the distance.
Princess Trojia of Troy, vs. Asmodeus the demon of Lust.
Leviathan sighs and it grabs the attention of Ubica and Tsubiri. They both turn to guard themselves as a knee jerk reaction but the demon isn’t coming at them.
“This has all turned out to be little different than I expected. I figured all eight of us would just go on a killing spree before any of the real fighting started.” Leviathan said with arms folded in a disinterested fashion.
“All eight of you?”
“That’s right, I’m surprised you haven’t sensed it yet, but Damien and his father are here also.”
“Satan is here!?”
“Though I don’t know where they are… Come to think of it, Amon is missing as well. I wonder where they ran off to?”
Out about a mile away from the Gate is Damien, Satan, and the demon of Wrath, Amon.
The three can hear the sounds of their comrades battling with Ubica’s group but Damien holds no sense of urgency, it’s as though he doesn’t even care.
“I thought you had something to show me before the priest showed up in Ubica’s group.” Satan asks, the frown on his face signifying that he’s not happy being so far away from the action.
Amon looks confused and interjects before Damien can answer, “I think it’s odd too.”
Damien, wearing his usual confident smile replies, “It doesn’t matter what you think Amon… You have no business being here.”
“My job is to protect Satan, wherever he goes, I go.”
Damien chuckles, “Hahahaha, so you’re the only one left who’s willing to follow such a weak man?”
“What?”
“You can’t see it? Really? Everyone has given up on him, they believe he’s unfit for the title of the Devil.”
Satan stays quiet and shoots Damien a glare that can kill.
Amon on the other hand is offended enough for the both of them.
“You’d dare say something like that in front of your father!?”
Damien doesn’t address Amon when he replies, he just looks his father straight in the eyes as he continues, “My father is a man obsessed with the world of humans. Every move he makes stems around the lives of the worthless. He’s even gone far enough to move half of his being into the vessel of a human man just so he can control their world.”
Damien’s smile grows more confident now that he’s pointed out that fact. It’s adding fuel to his arrogance because he knows that the Satan before him is only half as powerful as he normally is.
“My father is a man who’s forgotten his purpose as the leader of darkness. He’s forgotten his role as God’s enemy, he’s forgotten what the Devil truly is.”
".....”
Amon looks from the silent Satan and back to Damien a few times before he realizes that Damien’s words are solely directed towards his father.
“He is a man of many failures. He’s lost to God, he’s lost to Jesus, he’s lost to Ubica… But what is most pathetic about him, is that he’s lost to the humans. He continues to lose because he refuses to grasp the power within the reach of his grimy fingers, he refuses to see that the power before him is enough to destroy Heaven. He does so because his only wish is to be worshiped by God’s creations.”
Satan takes a deep breath and finally speaks, “That power… Are you referring to Dantega?”
“I am.”
“My poor child… You are the one who’s been blinded by an obsession.”
“Oh?”
“You just can’t accept the fact that Dantega is not a power we can control. It’s not a power that belongs to anyone but Ubica. You despise him for that… You hate the fact that he is the one who has the power to create a new world but he refuses to use it.”
Damien’s smile fades and sinks into a frown. Satan’s words are beginning to affect him negatively.
“I’m sure you say to yourself, ‘If I had that power, I would…’ You’re such an optimistically foolish child, you got that trait from Rosemary.”
“You’d be wise not to mention my mother’s name again.”
“Ahh, look at you. My fair child, I can see it now. You’ve always been the one person I could never understand, but your face is enough to reveal yourself to me. It’s all for her isn’t it? That would explain your hate for me, I mean, I did make you kill her after all.”
“.....”
Damien is fuming.
“That would explain your wish to make Dantega your own… Didn’t I overhear the promise you made to her? Oh what was it… That you would find a way to change the world?”
The roles switched from the mere mention of Rosemary Halloran’s name.
“I’m disappointed in you Damien, you’ve grown soft. Leviathan told me that it was her who introduced you to Dantega all those years ago. Did you ever stop to think about why she did that?”
Amon takes a couple steps away from the two, he knows that at any moment, a ferocious battle will break out. If he wants to throw himself into the fight between these two monsters, he can’t afford being blown away on the first strike.
That’s just how powerful these two are, even with half of Satan’s power being on Earth.
“Do you honestly think that a simple nun would know of the existence of such an immense power? Could she really have found a way to come down from Heaven just so she could lead you there?”
“Get to the point.”
“The point is that you have been blinded by the delusions of the world you want to create. There’s a reason why I haven’t been able to control Dantega, and there’s a reason why Ubica is the only one that can. You see, by us fighting to gain that boy’s power, we’re falling right into the trap laid out by the real puppet master.”
“..?”
“This is why we must destroy that power to throw a wrench in his plans, this is why I must kill that priest as well. We have an opportunity to completely foil his schemes, we have an opportunity to use his arrogance against him. So let me tell you the truth about Dantega and that boy, let me tell you the truth about what he really is. Let me enlighten you so we can join hands in destroying it once and for all.”
“I refuse.” Damien coldly answers. “It’s far too late for reasoning. The other demons are no longer your allies, and they fully expect me to return to them as the new Devil.”
“You’re not going to win against me, my fair child.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, I am going to destroy your pride and prove to everyone that Dantega can be controlled. And with it, I will change everything… I won't accept the mere destruction of God's plans and consider that to be enough. I won't allow myself to become complacent with such an idle accomplishment. I refuse to allow the world to remain the same. I am going to change everything, down to the very fabric of existence itself. It will all change... Including the one you call God.”
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