Malthael…
Before the battle could ensue between them, the Archdragon swept out both of his arms at his sides, extending the blades stored within them.
He then spoke in Japanese as he pointed at Light Taker and said, “Hold firm the grip you have on your father’s blades, for I will not hold back or show mercy, and neither should you if you wish to succeed.”
At the mention that Malthael knew Marcus was her father, she went still for a brief moment before her eyes narrowed and any evidence of restraint began to vanish from them.
The look within those eyes were such an incredible thing for Malthael to behold.
Only three times throughout his life had he seen such a look of feral ruthlessness from a single warrior.
Once, from a nameless warrior wreathed in shadows and empowered by the collective might of humanity at the end of Dagon’s reign.
Once more from Marcus, shortly after being revived due to Kayron’s machinations, as he looked down upon Malthael’s beaten, mangled body.
And now, once again from Marcus’s own daughter, Moyako, The Immortal, as the climax of this tragic battle between parent and child was soon approaching.
To see this look in her eyes drew out a primal lust of battle and the desire to drown his maw in the metallic taste of blood once again.
“Lets not delay any longer,” Moyako said and he nodded.
“Agreed. So I shall present you with my full might at once,” he said as he began accumulating Arcanence and releasing all of the stored power within his soul.
With the Dragon Glass body made from Marcus’s magic, there was no risk of destroying himself by releasing a Seraphic state, so he decided to go full strength outright.
Although his connection to the Shadow Realm had long since been severed by Erebus, he still had access to Thanatos’s omnipotent domain as he drew in all that he could within himself.
As if sensing the approaching calamity that would follow the release of his Seraphic state, Moyako jumped back several hundred feet and stared at him as his feet rose off the ground.
His body continued to rise up into the air as more and more of his power compressed within his obsidian body.
So dense was the energy within the stone form that it was struggling to maintain itself as cracks began to form over his body.
Moyako watched as his body began to fracture from the weight of his soul and shouted in English, “YOU FOOL! If you continue on like this, you will destroy yourself trying to release your full power!”
Amused by her misplaced concern, he laughed and said, “Incorrect. With this, I will break free from the prison of Marcus’s soul and resurrect myself to my full glory!”
After having spent time within Marcus’s body, the knowledge of manipulating matter and energy had been shared between them.
Yet even before then, when his consciousness had first stirred within Marcus after his heart had been consumed by him, he had held onto that small piece of flesh and blood that was within him in the hopes that he would rise again.
As the stone shell containing Malthael’s soul shattered, he roared out with all his might.
“NEBULOUS DESPAIR!”
Like the hand of a god descending upon the earth to wipe clean all life that would stain their masterpiece, an earsplitting thunderclap rang out across the battlefield and the ground shattered all around them.
The fabric of space was being ripped apart all around him as the overwhelming torrent of energy from his body was pushing back on creation.
As if being the antithesis of a singularity, that which drew in everything around it to be crushed by its immense mass and gravity, Malthael’s Seraphic state pushed everything around him away.
Even light itself was being pushed away from reaching him as it flowed within the warped space.
With the release of his Seraphic state, Malthael had risen from the dead so that he might fight to the death once more.
He then reached out his right hand, opening it with the palm facing upwards, as if to welcome Moyako as he said, “Show me you have the strength to end my life, and perhaps your sword may reach the Angel of Death.”
Does she have her own Seraphic state to use against me, or will she fight without one…?
He waited patiently to see what her next action would be until he noticed her turning her head in Marcus’s direction as she said, “If I am to kill you like you want, then we can’t do it here. It would be...disrespectful for us to interfere with their battle in any way.”
Before he could come up with a response, she turned to face him once again as she raised Light Taker, held in her left hand, and said, “Let the light of Takamagahara rain down upon you.”
In the very next instant, a torrent of energy slammed into him from above and sending him crashing through the ground.
The pillar of manifested light continued fall on him as he plummeted deeper and deeper through numerous layers of the spatial battlefield until it finally settled and he pulled himself back to his feet.
Much to his shock though, he could feel a large portion of the Arcanence he had compressed within himself getting stripped away by the mysterious light.
From what he could sense, it was not the same kind of light that existed naturally, but rather was the result of a god’s influence unknown to him.
In spite of this, it was ultimately inconsequential as he simply summoned more of Death’s power into himself and turned to face against Moyako once more.
Both Kakure Sakura and Light Taker were held out at either side of her as she walked towards him, and a new voice began overlapping her own as she said, “We will continue the battle here. This way, we can kill each other with the kind of reckless abandon I am certain you would welcome.”
He smiled as he asked, “You carry within yourself the presence of gods I am not familiar with…not unlike Marcus does with Ender. Although, he created that entity from his own force of will. These five gods I sense within you…, they are different are they not? They originate from your homeland in the East?”
“Correct, but for you, one god will be enough,” she said as a blueish green mask with demonic features covered her face and a blue robe with lightning patterns adorned her body over her armor.
“This feels all too familiar...,” Malthael muttered as he paced around her while she did the same, watching his every movement like a hawk.
Then suddenly, Moyako stopped her pacing as she turned to face him and Malthael did the same in response.
He watched patiently to see what her next move would be and how she intended to do battle with him.
Then, sparks began to burst into the air all around her body as a pillar of flames licked the surface of her body.
The heat of the flames began to intensify and condense around her until it took on a deep blue color.
The flames then continued to condense until it started to appear jagged and forked, matching the lightning patterns on the manifested cloth.
Upon seeing this, Malthael was confused as he figured that her mask allowed her to manifest the power of the eastern gods like she did earlier.
The power of Izanagi, Izanami, and Amaterasu was clearly shown as being able to manipulate creation, death, and overwhelming destructive power. They were distinctive from Moyako’s own flame magic in their own way.
Yet as he continued to observe her change in power, he felt that something was different about it. He could not feel the presence of a god influencing her magic despite the clear change in appearance that usually followed donning that mask.
Curious, he asked her, “Child...what god are you manifesting now?”
“Raijinn, the God of Lightning,” she said as the overlapping voice started to fade away.
From what Malthael could gather from Marcus’s memories and knowledge of Japan’s pantheon of gods, he could say with absolute certainty that there was no such god being manifested within her.
As her blue flames continued to flow around her like lightning, the cloth that appeared and the distinctive designs on the mask started to fade away as well, yet her flames did not cease and only grew in power.
It was clear to him that Raijinn was not at the forefront of her mind when she thought of lightning.
Though her goal was to manifest that god to aid her, the result was more radical than even the Archdragon had expected.
The form of Moyako’s flames had unconsciously changed to resemble her father’s lightning.
Realizing this, he chose to say nothing so as not to risk the disruption of her power. It was too entertaining not to see just how much she took after him, even in the midst of battle.
He smiled and said, “Enough delay! Show me your strength!”
Dean…
He stared, slack jawed and wordlessly, at the sight of the blue lightning sparking around Moyako’s body as she fought against the newly resurrected Malthael.
Marcus was the only one he knew of with that power, yet she had replicated it as if it was natural to her.
Then, before he could muster up any kind of logical thought on how to process what he was seeing, the dragon and the assassin charged at one another and their clash was like nothing he had ever seen before.
They both moved so quickly that it was near impossible for his eyes to keep up with what he was witnessing.
The flame lightning from Moyako struck everything around her with such force that it burned masses of land the size of continents to ashes.
The impact from their clashes shattered what would have been tectonic plates, causing ash and dust to erupt into the sky and block out the light from above.
Even Malthael, with such power it warped and fractured reality, was being matched by her as she used Marcus’s lighting-
Marcus’s...lighting…
At this thought, Dean’s breath was caught in his throat as his mind worked to process the likelihood of what he might have considered an impossibility.
“Is Moyako...his child…?” Dean muttered aloud.
He had been there to see their first interaction when Marcus took her sword away from him as he claimed it belonged to him.
He had heard him proudly say that he was the head of the ‘Kaneko family’ that Moyako belonged to.
He had also heard the words she said to him before the fight began as she pleaded with him to surrender and ‘come home quietly’.
If that alone was not enough, they both looked so much alike that it would be natural for anyone who didn’t know them to assume they were related.
The signs were too apparent for it not to be true.
With this knowledge in mind, he bore witness to a battle in which a father and daughter was fighting to the death.
Malthael…
He was ecstatic.
Even though Moyako’s scorching lightning was burning away the Arcanence fueling his Seraphic state, even though his body was slowly turning back into flesh, even though her swords were carving him up with every clash of blades, he was overflowing with excitement.
Perhaps it was because he had become so much weaker compared to his prime, but in this lesser state he could enjoy the thrill of battle and the pressure of death weighing down on him once again.
He could once again indulge in the joys of war and bloodshed with this outstanding warrior of a woman!
This child of Wrath!
Blood of Lightning and Rage, and of Hellfire!
When the fight between the two had begun, their respective ability to control a field of omnipresence around them was at odds.
Malthael with his dominance over the Arcanence, and Moyako using her father’s sword Light Taker.
But as the battle continued, her flames and lightning wore his power down and she began to conquer everything around her.
As the fight was approaching its climax, Moyako appeared behind him and swept both of her blades through their air, and slashing both of his Achilles tendons.
While still clinging onto the tattered scraps of power he had left, controlling a field of omnipresence only a few dozen feet around him, he forced his body to spin around to stab where she had struck him.
His bladed arm slid down Light Taker’s edge as she held it up to guard against his attack.
She then shifted her weight and hold on the sword ever so slightly as it slid harmlessly out of her way and she used the resistance of it to swing her sword at him once more.
Light Taker came hurtling towards his neck, imbued with her burning lightning, and he knew that one more hit from that power would be enough to destroy him.
At the last second, he pulled up his left bladed arm to deflect her sword away. When it struck Light Taker, he extended his arm blade even further to destroy her mask.
Failing to react in time, she pulled back her head just as the his blade split her mask in half and cut a large vertical gash into her face.
As her shattered mask fell away from her, he felt a rush of excitement at the sight of her face as she stared at him with the utmost intent to end his life.
The blue flaming lightning that surrounded her sparked even from her eyes as she locked eyes with him.
With one final attack, he summoned the last scraps of his power into his blades as he crossed his arms and swung them through the air to split her in two.
Yet as he did, his legs fell out from under him as he lost control over his omnipresence and his ankles could not support his weight.
He started to fall backwards as he swept his bladed arms through the air to end the fight.
Just before his blades would have reached her, rather than use Light Taker’s omnipresence to evade it, she jumped into the air, tucking in her legs against her chest, and crossed her arms around her just as Malthael did.
Blue flaming lightning gathered in both her swords as she slowly fell through the air above him.
Malthael looked up at her, seeing the murderous look in her eyes, seeing the lightning that sparked within them, and laughed with glee.
The last thing he saw before his head was removed from his shoulders was the sight of her blades sweeping through the air as he thought, Like Father, like Daughter it seems...you are a magnificent warrior Moyako Kaneko…
Perhaps you might conquer the Angel of Death after all.
Moyako…
As Malthael’s corpse fell to the ground in front of her, so too did Akio’s as Marcus arrived and took Light Taker back from her.
He looked around at the destroyed landscape that resulted from her battle with the Archdragon, whistled, and said, “It looks like Hell on earth here… He must have given you quite a bit of trouble from the looks of it.”
She smiled, feigning confidence as she said, “Not really. It was just an evening stroll to me.”
In reality, her fight with Malthael had been exhausting and already it felt as if more than half of her strength had been spent.
Yet when she looked at her father and tried to gauge how much power he had left, it felt like it was just barely less than her own.
If things continued like this, they would end up exhausting their reserves before either one could gain the upper hand.
Both of them were functionally unkillable, which meant that unless one of them lost consciousness before the other, the battle would end in a draw.
But that was not an option for her.
If worst came to worst, she could always use Kakure Sakura’s real power…
But she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.