Dantega:Volume 8 Chapter 5
(PART 5)
“STOP ITTTTTTTTTT!”
Struaphius’s shout falls on deaf ears as Mammon slowly clinches his fist into a ball and the circle of anti-matter shrinks around Aria’s head.
He’s doing it slowly as if to torment them, and once that ball fully encloses, the entirety of her head will be sent to an alternate universe.
Knowing full well that there’s nothing they can do to stop him, Mammon is savoring this moment; to a demon like him there’s nothing better in the world than twisting the emotions of humans. There’s nothing better than watching someone squirm in angst, there’s nothing better than watching them suffer.
He is thoroughly enjoying his full control over them, and has every intention to hurt them in every way possible before killing them off like bugs.
The circle gets smaller and smaller, and his thin grin grows wider and wider as the chuckle formed in his chest exits menacingly out of his mouth.
There’s no turning back now, Aria is going to die.
That is, until a ball of light the same size of the anti-matter collides with it and both forces annihilate each other and become thousands of particles of photons and disperse into the air before disappearing.
The sudden jolt releases Mammon’s grip on Aria and her limp frame falls to the ground; but before she could even make contact with it, Stauphius rushes in, grabs her into his arms and dashes off so quick Mammon couldn’t react.
“!!”
The demon’s eyes scour for the source of the sudden attack to no avail.
“I’m right here.” said a voice from behind him.
Mammon quickly turns around but by then it’s too late.
SCHHLUNK!!
“Uugaaah!”
Blood screams out of the demon’s mouth and lands onto the white robe like outfit of someone he fully didn’t expect to the see.
“Michael!!?”
That’s right, the archangel appeared at the very last moment and saved Aria by using his spear to slice across the gut of Mammon. The gash is so deep that the demon can feel his insides begin to slide out of the wound and into the open.
Falling to one knee, the demon struggles to ask, “H-How..?”
Being familiar with the very similar powers of Abaddon, he can’t believe Michael managed to escape.
“Don’t you think you ought to be worried about something else right now?”
Mercilessly, Michael kicks Mammon square in the face and sends him sliding across the snowy ground.
“Hngh!”
If the pain from the kick wasn’t enough, the feeling of his insides seemingly desperate to leave his body is enough to almost paralyze him; it’s likely that if his hand wasn’t there to hold them in there would have been a trail of guts in his wake before he stopped.
“You fuck…”
Michael confidently walks towards the downed demon as if he were actually the villain menacingly cornering his prey before cutting it down.
“I knew you didn’t want to have to fight me, your powers are worthless against mine.” The angel says, inching closer and closer. “It’d explain why Abaddon singled me out and isolated me from the others, so of course you’d be the first target I’d get rid of.”
“Don’t be so cocky pal, I’m not finished just yet.”
“It sure looks like it.”
“Hehehe, we’ll see!”
Mammon tosses his sword Ebuillo into the air, directly at Michael, and the angel easily bats it away with his spear.
“Really?” Michael asks in a belittling tone, he’s surprised that the demon would try such a pointless attack.
“Tell me, you shitty angel, what do you think my sword is made of?”
“!!?”
The black sword he had so easily knocked away has stopped spinning and is floating in mid-air a few meters away . “That’s right! Wouldn’t you figure that a solid form of anti-matter could feed off an infinite supply of light like we have here on this wonderful night??”
Michael’s face drops, he knows what is about to happen just by sensing it.
“Low energy photons coming from basic light can build over time and become high energy eventually, and having anti-matter in a solid physical form allows me to control the rate in which they both effect each other.”
He’s basically saying that he can harness the energy of both forms of matter like a battery charge, and release said energy when he pleases. If that is the case; he can better control the range, power, and the direction of a gamma ray whenever he so pleases.
“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s still light! It won't be enough to kill me!”
“That’s right, of course you can, that is, if you were only protecting yourself! I know you can’t stop light, nothing can other than a black hole, you on the other hand can only wield it!”
“…Tch!”
“What do you say I just go about annihilating this entire level of Purgatory!?”
“You wouldn’t!”
Mammon takes his bloody hands and with a reddened smile, claps them together.
URRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!
The noise of light and heat being created and expanding is heard similar to an electrical charge accelerating to its max capacity.
Michael doesn’t hesitate, if he did there is no doubt that Napoleon and the others would instantly be burnt to a crisp.
Ignoring the heat, the angel focuses on the center of the light. It’s there that he can make out the silhouette of the sword Ebuillo, from that, the giant ball of energy is expanding violently.
With the sound of Mammon laughing in the background, Michael grabs the sword and jumps as high as he possibly can, away from the others and deep into the dark sky.
It’s only a few moments later that a blast so great occurs that it lights what seems to be the entire level of Purgatory in a great white hot flash.
The bang is neither loud nor felt as a powerful explosion, instead it feels as though the explosion of such a massive gamma ray from so close makes reality as a whole almost seem empty and desolate.
All there is is white, and with that whiteness comes zero sound and complete emptiness.
It remains that way for another second when…
BBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!
A beam of energy comes rushing down towards the ground whilst another beam goes soaring deep into the never ending Purgatory sky. Surely, as soon as that beam of energy hits the surface, everything will be decimated, just as Mammon planned.
Whether the demon had ever once thought about the well-being of his comrades, or the result of his overall mission when he set forth such an amazingly destructive attack is probably lost somewhere deep within his greedy nature. He wants to take the world with him if he’s destined to die, there isn’t anything greedier than that.
The energy ray is about to make contact with the ground when it suddenly stops dead in its tracks and hovers just a few feet above it, easily melting snow and scorching the ground under it.
“What!?”
“You were right…” comes the voice of Michael from within the epicenter of that blinding form of pure energy. “I can’t keep light from shining.”
BBOOOSHHHH!
Michael lands loudly on the ground in a ray of light with the sword Ebuillo in his hand. The gamma ray shrinks on one side and seemingly morphs into the sword until it stops in the shape of a little ball of pure energy just hovering above it.
The other side of the ray that flew into the sky can still be seen making its way towards the heavens and away from them.
Michael points Ebuillo at Mammon and declares, “But I am its master.”
“That’s not just light! It’s anti-matter as well, it’s my anti-matter!! Mine! Give it back!!”
The demon's face twists in wickedness as blood falls from his mouth.
Michael smiles and doesn’t feel the need to explain how if one force that coexists with another is the stronger force, the opposite force can still be controlled by the first said force. The light portion of the gamma ray is stronger than the antimatter portion, especially in the case where one is only but a sword and the other is something that can travel through trillions of miles of open space.
“Okay then, here.”
Michael tosses the sword, along with the ball of energy resting atop it into Mammon’s lap, and the Demon of Greed takes it into his person as though a kidnapper had just given a mother back her child.
“Napoleon.” Michael said firmly.
“Understood.”
Without instruction, Napoleon uses his power to make the land under Mammon rise quickly into the sky, not giving the injured demon time to react.
Michael simply points his spear upwards towards the ascending target and says, “You’ll die with all you own.”
BBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSHHHHH!!!!!
In a brilliant display of hot colors, the ball of energy that Michael had manifested from the huge gamma ray, explodes and takes Mammon and the remnants of his anti-matter with him . Napoleons tower of rock shatters and tumbles to the ground in a domino effect before all of it crashes and reverts back to its original shape.
The two take a deep breath and look to each other.
“Thanks.” Napoleon said in a tone that didn’t seem to carry much appreciation.
“No problem. Now then, let’s see if we can take care of your friends here.”
“Can you save them?” Napoleon asked while peering over the shoulder of Michael.
Michael, with a slight look of concern on his face puts his hands over Aria’s chest and a light emits from his palms and engulfs her wounds.
“Uggah..!” Aria grunts with a pained expression.
The wounds caused by Mammon steadily fades and strength begins to return to her body; her eyes, once clasped shut slowly open and look upon the Angel nursing her back to health.
“W-Wait…” She says in a rasped tone, “Save Xavier first.”
Michael glances over to Xavier, who is lying unconscious on the ground next to them; he glances back and replies, “Just take deep breaths and worry about yourself for now.”
“N-No, please, I’ll be fine, just take care of him.”
Michael stays silent and doesn’t respond to her plea.
This prompts Napoleon to bluntly say, “You can’t save him, can you?”
Strauphius, who has been pacing back and forth nervously this entire time, in surprise he exclaims, “What??”
“Look at his wound.”
The three look over and see that they can see through the hole in his chest all the way through and to the ground his body lays atop of.
“How is this any different from Aria’s injuries?” Strauphius asked.
“If’s completely different.” Michael quickly states. “The piece of his body that’s missing was taken along with Mammon’s anti-matter, wherever that is, Mammon took it with him in death.”
“Tch.” Napoleon clicked his tongue in anger and looked away.
“No way…”
“Yeah… I’m sorry, but I can’t heal what isn’t there. He’s beyond the reach of any healing abilities I have.”
Aria, who is most certainly devastated, tilts her head in his direction and shoots him a very dry glare before tears start to well up in her eyes. Even while having her life saved from certain death, her emotions are still rampant with despair. Watching the life fade from the La’Juutian prince is enough to form a knot in her throat and squeeze at her heart in a way she never thought possible. What she’s looking at is the form of a broken promise to a dear friend, and a failure to grow strong enough to keep it.
How can the dying words of Luke end up meaningless? How can something she held so dear be so easily destroyed?
Her powerlessness eats at her, and the only one suffering because of it is the dying prince next to her, who is likely to take his last breath any moment.
“Luke… I’m so sorry.” She mutters as her outreached hand is pointed towards her downed comrade. “Xavier, I’m so sorry…”
As if right on cue, Xavier takes an unconscious inhale that violently jolts his body, and exhales in the distinct fashion indicating that a person has succumbed to his wounds and passed on. It’s a deep, disturbing sounding exhale, one that seemingly shakes the ground as it fades, expelling out what little life was left and replacing it with a cold silence.
All things considered, that was about as peaceful of an end someone could ask for considering the fact that he went up against one of the 7 Demons of Hell. But none the less, Aria doesn’t find solace in such an ending; instead it has the opposite affect.
She shivers for a brief moment before her eyelids start to close once more and she slips into unconsciousness.
“H-Hey, Aria! Aria!” Strauphius shouts as he leans down and shakes her shoulders.
“Relax, she’ll be fine.” Michael said calmly. “Her wounds are gone, but the stress of everything is still there. Give her some time and she’ll wake up eventually.”
“Okay…” Strauphius replied, the relief in his voice very evident. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” Michael said as he stood to his feet. He then looks to Napoleon and says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything for your prince, I know how you must feel.”
“It’s alright. This is war after all, and he participated as a fighter. I’m proud of the way he died, it was brave.”
“Even cowardly men can be brave if there’s something worth fighting for.”
“That’s right…”
Napoleon turns his back to them and starts walking towards the other battles; he has no intention of being idle just because his fight is finished.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Michael said, stopping Napoleon in his tracks.
“You’d only getting in their way, you’ve used far too much energy on this fight to contribute to anything going on over there.”
“What would you have me do, sit here and watch??”
“Well yeah obviously, didn’t you hear what I just said?”
Napoleon frowns and makes a powerful gesture with his hands to add to his stern voice when he replies, “I am a soldier, I don’t just stand on the sidelines.”
“You’re right, and as a soldier you should be more than enough of a rational person to realize that you’d be acting no differently than this Prince did before he was killed.”
“.....”
Michael’s right, Napoleon is a warrior, but by no means should he be stubborn and let his emotions take over his judgment; he’s gone against all of his training. Losing two princes under his watch has his inner self screaming for redemption the only way it knows how. However, his hardened outer self is telling him that by no means is he capable of achieving that redemption the way he is at the moment, despite how many friends die in front of him.
“For now,” Michael says as his walks to Napoleon and puts his hand on his shoulder. “You need to watch history unfold here.”
“What about you?”
“Hmm, I hope you don’t mind company as you watch?”
Napoleon’s eyebrow twitches when he replies, “You’re not in a good enough condition to fight either?”
The Archangel shrugs his shoulders and says, “In my case, it’s not about whether or not my body is able, it’s about whether or not it’s my place to fight.”
“They’re your comrades; you have to fight for them if you can.”
“In a normal case, I’d agree with you.” Michael sighs before continuing. “But look at them, each of their fights have the future of the world hanging in the balance. I fear that if I jumped in, I may change things…”
The sounds of the explosions in the distance are popping of so frequently it’s as though the ground is in a constant shake and a continuous base noise rumbles in their ears.
Napoleon doesn’t understand Michael’s logic, but for an odd reason he can’t find a reason to object.
“I’m not supposed to be the one to defeat Leviathan, nor am I the one to destroy Beelzebub, I won’t be fighting Asmodeus, and most certainly not Satan and Damien.” Michael pauses for a moment before stating, “My role with Ubica and Messor has ended… And I’m not going to be the one to kill Trojia either.”
“Trojia??”
“You haven’t noticed?”
Napoleon’s face is frozen in confusion, in no way, shape, or form, should Trojia’s name be mentioned in the same breath as those monsters.
“Look at her Napoleon.” Michael points in the direction of the battle between the False Prophet and the Princess of Troy. “Those two… The result of their fight may end up having the biggest impact on the world.”
It’s at this point that footsteps are heard from behind the two and they both turn around to find a blond haired girl with glowing purple eyes.
“Joan?”
“U-Um… I couldn’t help but overhear what you just said.” The Maid of Orleans shuffles her feet and looks down bashfully as though she felt guilty for interrupting. “Perhaps I can help?”
“Huff huff huff…”
Messor’s rough and strenuous breaths escape her mouth and her chest strongly compresses in and out as she tries to recover from one of Trojia’s ruthless attacks. Her wings flapping to keep her afloat are in unison with her deep breathing.
“You… Huff huff… I don’t understand this.”
The Princess of Troy has steadily gotten stronger and stronger as the battle raged; she shows no sign of fatigue or wear, unlike her opponent.
“HOW CAN YOU BE SO STRONG!?”
As if her shout were a trigger, Trojia jets forward at such a speed it almost seems as though she were a blur. A very deep base noise popped upon her pushing against the invisible wall that is the air and Messor only has time to enclose herself with her wings to fend the Princess off.
Blinded by the golden wings and expecting an impact of some sort, Messor is surprised when nothing comes of Trojia’s sudden movements; it’s then that she hears a whooshing sound from directly behind her and instinctively twists her body to defend herself.
However…
Nothing is there.
“!?”
VOMP!
“Guah!?”
From out of nowhere, an invisible force hits Messor in her lower back and her body takes an awkward jolt before shooting across the sky. Uncontrollably accelerating into the night, she is suddenly stopped by something pulling on her wings. In gravity defying fashion, her propulsion is instantly reversed and she’s sent hurling towards the ground.
BBOOOSH!
Her body crashes into the snow so hard; her entire frame plunges a few feet deep into the rock hard permafrost surface in a plume of ice and dust. If not for the durability of her wings, there might not have been a bone left in her body that wasn’t broken, but that doesn’t change the fact that her insides suffered through a sudden change in g-force and had to go through the roughness of the impact.
In a discombobulated state, Messor worries that Trojia may be relentless and crash something atop her with the telekineses ability, effectively burying her deeper into the ground and killing her instantly. Desperately trying to move her body, she slowly gets up; and to her surprise, the Princess lets her.
Instead of attacking, Trojia simply floats imposingly a couple feet off the ground, her swords and other forms of debris orbit around her as though she had the gravitational force of a planet. All of these items can be sent to and fro to skewer or bludgeon her opponent. Yet here she is, not attempting to use such a deadly force at her disposal, rather than that she simply watches as the False Prophet shoddily stands to her feet.
“Tch…” Messor hisses, tasting the blood that rose from the back of her throat and onto her tongue.
Trojia is toying with her.
At no point has Trojia felt threatened enough to end things quickly, so she is purposefully making it agonizingly painful for Messor until then.
And Messor knows that there is nothing she can do about it.
She may be angry, she may be confident in herself to the point of arrogance, but she isn’t stupid; she can see plain as day that from the start of this fight to the point they’re in now, that she is no match for opponent. Trojia is so strong that not even the False Prophet can compete, it only took minutes, but the once regular girl surpassed a being on par with a god.
Trojia is the real monster of the two.
Knowing this however, Messor can’t give up. In her heart of hearts she truly feels that if she loses, Ubica will be killed by this wretched girl standing in front of her; and no matter the cost, she can’t let that happen.
Even at the cost of her own life.
“Fine!” Messor shouts, spreading her wings and throwing her hands towards the sky in the process. “I was planning on doing this eventually anyways, so I might as well use it to destroy you!”
A black mass of energy begins forming out of the palm of her hands and swirls down her arms and then around her entire body. The golden halo on her head starts spinning as the shine steadily turns dull and takes on the form of pure dark energy; the feathers of her wings start to change into darker colors as well, and then one by one they they fall to the ground and disintegrate into black dust.
“.....”
Trojia remains silent and simply watches from a safe distance away while floating in the air; no telling what could possibly be going through her mind as she gazes upon the brilliant spectacle before her.
The surface below the feet begins rumbling, and trees, as though they were cornstalks filmed in a time lapse, grow from the frozen ground and twist upwards high into the sky. With no leaves present, the dark brown and black branches that appear as if they were ravaged by an eternal flame, stretch in every which direction like jagged fingers looking to snag an unfortunate passerby.
“Come forth!” The False Prophet shouts, “Come forth, DANTEGA!!”
The rumbling intensifies, and rising alongside the dark forest, comes rock, ice and dirt; all of which rises into the sky and becomes once giant mass. The sheer size of this large fortress of land blockades the lights from the moon and stars and casts an ominous shadow on the white floor below. Black waves of energy intertwine its way through the gaps in the branches and swirl about quickly in strong gusts of wind, blowing Trojia’s hair about in a frenzy. These waves of darkness are surely hazardous, and despite Trojia’s blank glare, it’s likely her instincts are telling her to avoid them at all costs.
And with that, she pushes her arms out as well and her two swords fly off into the girth of the forest before disappearing out of sight. Her legs move next, rushing forward in a fast sprint. She likely can’t teleport because of the high possibility of getting tangled in the menacing branches that look to consume her very soul.
Watching the girl in front of her close in, Messor smiles; she has effectively barred her from using that girl’s most troublesome power.
To her, half the battle is already won.
There’s a reason why she’s using Dantega’s power to create this mass of land floating in the sky, it was a gamble that proved to be correct. Dantega is a power that transcends dimensions, as evidenced by the fact that it can exist in Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and Earth. As long as wherever Trojia is teleporting to and from is in any of these places, she’d have to go through Dantega no matter what, which would essentially rip her to shreds.
This forces her into physical combat, not that she isn’t extremely capable of that, but taking away the surprise factor of appearing and reappearing suddenly in a completely different spot turns this wretched Princess into a one dimensional fighting force.
In a fight like that, Messor is confident she’ll be victorious.
The False Prophet throws her hands forward and the newly sprouted black trees that separate the two forces begin closing in on Trojia so fast it’s as though they are whips. The whipping noises each tree makes as it moves in to crush its target is almost deafening.
Not phased in the least, Trojia avoids the first branch by sliding on the ground and having it scream past the top of her head; the next branch looks to cut her off from below, but she catches a firm piece of ground and kicks off of it, catapulting herself into the air and avoiding having her legs lopped off by mere inches. After a smooth front flip, her next diabolical obstacle attacks her from her left side and she vaults herself forward, narrowing her frame so it’s parallel to the ground; the branch slides under her stomach harmlessly and she could feel the heavy wind that it caused blow her light dress as it passed.
Such incredible feats of reflexes aren’t lost on Messor, but she was half expecting things to turn out this way; which is exactly why she’s still smiling confidently.
With another wave of Messor’s hand, the dark forest behind Trojia is lit up by a greenish colored flame that rushes towards her back. The flames are excreting forth from the branches of the very trees that she had just so brilliantly avoided.
The heat felt on her skin gets more and more intense as it closes in on her. This has turned into a race of sorts, but with the odds extremely stacked in the False Prophet’s favor.
Even if Trojia reaches her, there’s nothing that can really be done whilst surrounded by the power of Dantega; Trojia either dies in the flaming inferno or gets cut down by the powered up Messor.
The battle is nearing its end just like that. What started as a complete one sided pounding has taken a 180 degree turn, and Messor has no intention of letting go of that advantage.
“It’s time we end this!” Messor shouted as she points both hands towards the incoming enemy.
The solid black halo above her head begins to spin again and the dark power that is Dantega surrounds her hands and body like static and formulate into a circular mass in front of her.
With that, Trojia will be sandwiched by two destructive powers and blown into bits, there’d likely be nothing left her. In a battle of strategy, Messor has absolutely stymied her enemy, ensuring her victory.
The circular mass of Dantega in front of Messor’s hands grows, and is about ready to scream forward in the final attack of the fight.
Trojia, still straight faced as ever, takes her hands and points her open palm at Messor as well as though she were going to try and block the oncoming attack.
“Are you stupid? You know damn well that isn’t going to work!”
The ball of energy is mere moments from shooting forward when Messor triumphantly shouts, “IT’S OVER!!”
Trojia’s hands ball into fists just before the final moment and…
SCHLUNK!
“!?!?”
A small sword slams into Messor’s left side and skewers her all the way through.
Before she could even react properly, another small sword enters right under right armpit in a downwards motion and impales her through and exits out of the area just above her left hip.
SCHLINK!
“Khaah!?”
This entire time, while avoiding the physical attacks from the branches, being chased by an intense flame, and closing in on a power that’d no doubt kill her from the front; she has been weaving her only weapons through the forest towards the False Prophet without her knowing.
Such levels of concentration under fire have likely never been seen before. Trojia has taken a step into a level no human has, or ever will reach; she’s transformed what’s capable of the human body and is now on a pedestal of her own. Though it is very likely she has already been on top since the beginning.
However, Messor’s advantage still hasn’t been taken away just yet; even despite her near fatal injuries.
The mass of Dantega is still in front of her hands, and the green flame is still nipping at Trojia’s back.
But it has become painfully obvious that the moves Trojia’s made to this point had no intention of taking away that advantage, in fact they were made to use that advantage against her. Which could only mean one thing, Trojia had no intention of getting out of this alive.
She knew that she was going to die here, but she’d be damned if she didn’t take Messor down with her.
“Damn it…” Messor said while blood fell from her mouth. “If this is the way it’s going to be… Then fine!”
The two girls have resolved themselves to death, just as long as the other dies alongside them. The determination and hate between these two carry more than just malice, it holds a special connection the two of them will both perish with that can’t be put into words. Such a connection will make a victor of their battle indeterminable, yet it can’t be considered a stalemate either. Perhaps it may be easier to consider them both losers, and also the victors, having both killed their enemy successfully, yet at the price of their own life.
It was destined to end this way from the moment the two met.
No…
Even before that, from the moment they were connected by their feelings for a certain boy, they were both destined to lose.
But even so, this defeat is bitter sweet, so much so that Messor can smile with blood running down the edges of her soft lips as she shoots the ball of energy forward.
GOOOOOOOOOSSSHHH!!!!
Messor’s arms go limp, and her black wings can no longer keep her afloat and begins to phase out like dust in the wind as she falls to the floor.
But through blurred vision, Messor watches, she refuses to die before watching that awful Princess ripped to shreds.
The mass of energy is mere feet from hitting Trojia when Messor sees something fall out of the sky and land right in between the two.
“…!”
Even Trojia reacted to the sudden appearance.
“What… Is that?” Messor asked as she struggles to make out the form of this rod like item and the letters printed on the cloth hanging from it.
‘Jhesus Maria’
“Huh?”
GGGAAAGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
The black mass of Dantega is halted by an invisible force and the shaking of the two forces pounding against each other makes a noise so deep and loud it’s like two planets are colliding.
The fire behind Trojia is all but blown into oblivion along with the entirety of the forest by the deflecting force of the banner. And the Princess isn’t immune to it either, she is tossed into the wind like she were trash and sent flying out into the sky.
Dantega however, isn’t so easily stopped and is fighting its way forward, even while pieces of it are chipped off like old armor under constant duress. It only takes a few moments until that little piece of Dantega is blown back into the sky and rips the entirety of the floating island to pieces.
Messor can only watch on in horror as her victory was torn from her in a flash; her limp frame tossed into the air along with the remnants of her power that was meant to be used to defeat her enemy. Instead it looks to become her grave as the two fall towards the snowy ground below.
Messor can’t even think, she can only zone out as she descends.
She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes when everything goes black and she feels nothing.
The insane amount of land that formulated the floating island hits the Purgatory surface and sends a massive plume of dust and vapor from snow into the air and blankets the dark sky in soot. The rumbling and crashing noises go on for what seems to be minutes as the sheer level of destruction can slowly be seen as the smoke clears.
Looking upon such devastation unscathed by its wrath is Trojia, her blank stare accompanied by a desire to move forward to find out if she had accomplished her mind’s mission of killing Messor.
Nothing is to be said nor felt for her to start drudging her way through the shin deep snow.
“Halt there!” The shout of a girl is heard from behind.
Trojia turns and sees someone standing in a battle posture with a long black sword; little does she know, this girl is Joan of Arc.
“I cannot let you leave here with such evil intentions.”
Trojia doesn’t bat an eye and ignores her by turning around and preparing her slightly battered body to teleport.
“I said wait!”
GAAASHH!
The snow next to Trojia rips as though a great wind tore through it, the warm gust blew her blond hair all about until for a brief moment when it suddenly stopped. Trojia again turns around, and finds Joan in a battle position, her black sword heated to such a point that when the cold air makes contact with it, it’s turned to steam.
“I cannot let you further harm that girl; my angel has warned me that the consequences of such an action will be dire. Even if I have to do it by force, I will stop you from going down the wrong path.”
It’s obvious that the girl in front of her has no intention of letting her pass without a fight, and Trojia has no intention of allowing some random presence to get in the way of her revenge.
The ground begins to shake as the two forces prepare to collide. These two girls were once just regular humans, who happened to come upon great power in their short lives; it couldn’t be more fitting that the two of them would square off. There is likely no one else in the history of humanity who can compare strength with them.
However, men and women of great strength always have a weakness in some form or the other, and one of those very weaknesses darts in between humanity’s strongest and immediately puts a halt to their fight.
“!!”
“What are you doing, Trojia?” Said Daey, huffing and puffing as though she had just ran a marathon through the snow to reach this point. “Just who the hell is your damn enemy!?”
Trojia’s stiff face softens slightly at the Eiyalazonian princess’s loud words.
“This girl is not your enemy, and neither is Messor!”
“…?”
“Don’t you understand? The people who are killing our friends are the ones you should be fighting!”
“Messor…” Trojia half way mutters through her gritted teeth. “Messor did kill my friend… She murdered Niomyo..!”
Daey obviously didn’t know this, and to be honest she is quite surprised; she’s never seen Messor as anything but a comrade until just recently. But she still manages to keep her stern glare and press on with logical remedies to Trojia’s woes.
“Is revenge really worth the death of the rest of your friends?”
“.....”
“Look around you, Trojia, everyone is fighting to defeat the enemy so we can all go home together. But you… you’re just fighting for yourself!”
It’s now that Trojia’s gleaming red eyes start to revert back to their natural green color and she starts to gaze upon her comrades; all of whom are engaging in other worldly battles, whilst some of whom lie dead in the snow. Throughout all of this, she has been solely focused on Messor, and didn’t even notice their struggles, and never once paid any heed to their deaths.
Yet something deep inside her doesn’t care, not even in the least. There’s something dark growing in the pit of her chest that only cares for one thing, and she feels that she truly can’t care about anything else until that singular objective is fulfilled.
Her eyes again begin to take on the color red.
“Trojia please…” came the voice of her dear friend Niera.
The next thing she knows, she’s being embraced from behind by the younger princess and squeezed by her shaky arms.
“..!”
“Don’t let yourself succumb to it… Don’t become someone I don’t know!”
“But..!”
“Don’t let my vision come true…”
Niera saw the result of Trojia’s hate, and what she saw was an ending where no one smiles, where no one walks away from this snowy battlefield. She saw the absolute end.
“If you kill her, everyone dies! You can keep that from happening! Don’t go Trojia, please!”
Niera saw an end where Trojia kills Messor, and the unity of the group crumble as each one of them is killed off in a horrific fashion. She’s under the firm impression that it is a domino effect, brought on by the aftermath of Trojia’s and Messor’s battle. If that result can be avoided, perhaps the rest of that horrible vision can be too.
This is extremely difficult for Trojia, even though she could easily brush off the fragile body of Niera and teleport away, she fears that if she goes down that path, there will never be friends and happiness at the end of it.
And at this point, it’s almost something she’s willing to sacrifice.
Yet her nearly frozen heart is yearning for the opposite, it is telling her she must protect them, not destroy them, despite what her clouded mind desires.
“Kkhhh…!”
“Uggh damn, how many times am I going to have to do this in one day?” said Daey as she takes powerful steps through the snow toward the subdued Trojia.
SLAP!!
With an open palm, Daey hits Trojia with all her might, sending the Trojan princess’s head askew and causing her hair to jump over her eyes.
Trojia has never felt a more thunderous pain in her entire life; the stinging sensation on her left cheek pulsates all the way into her head and makes its way down to her entire body.
“Grow up, you selfish brat.”
Daey embraces Trojia’s head into her bosom and tenderly strokes her hair.
The pulsating pain is replaced by the warmth of the embraces of both Niera and Daey and tears start to fall down her cheeks.
With a couple sharp and deep breaths akin to someone trying to quell their emotions, Trojia gives in to their warmth instead of the cold in her heart and says,
“I’m sorry…”
Rubble piles up a hundred yards high, whether it be broken pieces of trees or rocks, all jagged forms protrude out of the mountain in a way similar to a graveyard. And lying atop that mountain of rubble, still with two swords protruding from her sides, is the False Prophet Messor.
And next to her is Joan of Arc’s banner, sticking triumphantly on top of the crest as though it were a country’s flag put there by the winning side of a war.
Messor pays no mind to it as her eyes struggle to stay open, the only thing she notices is the broken up black mass she created crawling through the cracks of rubble and entering back into her body through her wounds.
If not for this power returning to her, she knows she’d be dead.
“Dantega… Ubica… Again you are here to protect me, just like always.” she said as tears well up in her golden eyes.
But she fears that this time it may not be enough to save her, between the injuries she sustained earlier and the ones she’s suffering from now, there’s very little doubt that she won’t recover. And even though she doesn’t know for sure, she’s confident that Trojia is still alive, which means she failed.
She failed to protect Ubica, and this breaks her heart.
“Why does it have to be this way?”
Instead, Dantega is trying to protect her, just like it did when she was bound and thrown into the sea by her mother, just like how it did when she was trapped in the eternal like of fire, just like how it has been healing the horrible wounds she suffered during her battles here on Purgatory. She’s so frustrated that she could never do anything in return, she has nothing to show of her gratefulness except the fact that she tried.
And therein lies one of the problems, she’s always tried.
And she’s always failed.
Her whole life since meeting Ubica has been an attempt to be of use to him; and after everything that has happened, she can’t confidently say that she ever was. Sure, she is the False Prophet and helped Ubica rise to power back on Earth all those years back, but when it came down to crunch time, she was unable to prevent any of the bad things that has ever happened to him. Instead she had become a burden; to this day she continues to be.
She’s been a thorn in his new found love life, a crutch in battles with Damien and the others, and has handicapped his choices on multiple occasions.
What worth is Messor the False Prophet?
“Damn it, I’m so useless!”
She doesn’t even remember the last time she had cried, it may have been all the way back to the day she first met Ubica as a frightened eleven year old girl about to be sacrificed; but it is happening now as her final moments rapidly approach.
She’s filled with regret, and it instills a great pain in her chest.
“Why?? Why is it that I’ve only wanted one thing, but have never been able to do it!? What was I even here for? My body? Or was it only my talent of persuasion? Just what was I worth, only to die like this!?”
She covers her eyes with her forearm and cries, but each time she takes a sharp inhale, the pain from the swords in her body intensifies and steals her breath.
“Ubica… I don’t want to die like this, not without being able to protect you.”
Yet with her body the way it is, her desire is not feasible. She’ll die in the snow, alone, sad and broken.
However, Dantega is with her, and it makes its presence known by desperately trying to repair damaged tissue and torn muscles and ligaments, numbing her pain and warming her freezing body.
If only it wasn’t wasting its power on such a fruitless cause…
“!!!”
Then something hits her, and like an electrical charge to her body, she sits up quickly, ignoring the pain of her wounds.
“That’s it! This isn’t the end, there is still something I can do.”
She remembers the deal she made with Damien that allowed her to escape the pit.
“If you wish to return to the Anti-Christ, you’re going to have to return to him what you borrowed...”
She shoddily stands to her feet, all the while her delicate knees are shivering like teeth in a cold breeze; her arms and shoulders hang limp and sway as she takes slow steps of determination forward through the thick snow.
“Despite the fact that that bastard asked me to do it, I know for sure that things won’t go as he planned.” Messor’s movements get slow, then pick up speed, and then slow again as she walks. “I know how strong you are, and how much of that strength you’ve sacrificed for me… And I know that once you get it back, no one will be able to stop you, not even him!”
She faintly smiles: she finally sees a proper ending to her tragic tale.
“I am worth something damn it! My body, my soul, my will… How stupid of me to forget what you said to me all those years ago… I am you, and you are me… There’s no longer a need to be afraid!”
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