I can feel a pounding in my mind
A desperate roaring, echoing from within
Its screaming at me, crying and begging for mercy
With every swing of my sword
With every pull of the trigger
With every impact of my fists upon her flesh
I can hear it calling out to me to show her mercy.
But why?
Who is she that I must show her mercy?
She chose to stand in my way
To challenge my strength and destroy my goal
Of moving on towards a new life in this world.
What am I to her, that she would go this far
That she would be this desperate
That she would go to such lengths
To bring him back to the world I left behind?
What is there left in Terra for me to return to?
Who am I to you, that you would go this far?
Who am I to you, that you would be so desperate?
Why are-Who are you?
Moyako please! Tell me! I don’t...I don’t know why I can’t piece this together!
I have all the information, all the clues are presented right in front of me, but there is a dam built around my mind that I cannot seem to break with you!
Please, tell me who you are!
Why is it that when your blood stains my hands, I feel such dread and fear, not for my own life, but for yours.
I think...I don’t want to hurt you anymore.
I don’t want to see your face full of pain and anguish.
It hurts me to see you like this, but I can’t understand why.
Do whatever it takes to defeat me.
Destroy me completely, immobilize me, no matter what happens, break through and destroy this wall that stands between us and the answers I seek to understand who you are.
Shed all of your mercy, for I fear that with it, you will soon fall to me.
Queen Hylla…
She stared, slack jawed and terrified, at the ominous and nigh omnipotent presence of this form that Moyako had taken.
So mighty was its strength that the spiritual energy being emitted from her was even leaking into the world beyond the spatial battlefield.
But such a thing...should have been impossible!
It had been redesigned and restructured specifically to contain something of such magnitude. Scaling even to infinity so as to prevent the destructive power from spilling out onto the outside world.
Yet that was not what bothered her the most about this.
Seeing her horrified reaction, King Arobynn looked at her and asked, “Were you not aware of this power as well?”
She could only silently shake her head in amazement.
Camilla…
I didn’t know you were still hiding so much of your strength from me…
How arrogant could I have been to challenge you and think that I would win…
Seeing the look of surprise on her face, Nashandra gave her a concerned look and asked, “Considering how close the two of you were, I would have thought that you would have known about this.”
Camilla shook her head as she said, “No. No she…she never told me about this. I didn’t even think she was capable of something like this. The only people I’ve known with the power and ability to release a Seraphic state were gods or beings of similar nature. If I had made it to the next round like I had wanted-”
“You would have been soundly defeated,” Azazel confirmed with a grunt as even he looked nervous at the sight of this power.
Seeing even him acting this way made all three kings share a concerned glance between them as Camilla asked, “You are of the same nature as Raum, and he used a Seraphic form against Artemis but was beaten. What is your perspective on this form of hers?”
Azazel took in a deep breath before he turned to speak to them directly.
“Raum, Gomori, and myself were once beings known as Ophanim angels before being transformed into Princes of Hell. The soul of an Ophanim is mighty enough to obliterate a galaxy on its own. Camilla, when you fought Artemis, you managed to borrow the centrifugal force of an entire galaxy to crush her and might have become even stronger if you hadn’t given yourself an aneurysm in the process…,” He said before trailing off.
“And yet…,” Camilla said to prod him into explaining himself further.
“‘And yet’, the appearance that Moyako has taken upon herself reflects, not of an Ophanim angel, but of a Seraphim. The mightiest and most terrifying beings in all of creation that are not Primordial Gods.”
Moyako… Mother…
Why are you going this far for him?
Ruvick…
Something about this was bugging him.
Everything leading up to this moment has felt oddly scripted beyond just the arrangement of the contestants.
Perhaps the appearance of Moyako as the Goddess of Rebirth was coinciding with the prophecies of Terra and Erebus as well, but something didn’t add up.
He knew for certain that Marcus was the God of Wrath because he fit the requirements of Yeshua’s prophecy to the letter, but what about Moyako?
Yeshua had said that the one who would defeat God would be a warrior wielding their father’s sword.
Could that only apply to a single person, or did it fall in line with the prophecy engraved on the tower of Alken?
If the two prophecies were indeed connected, then that would mean that the God of Wrath, the God of Humanity, and the Goddess of Rebirth would wield the weapons passed down to them by their fathers.
Ruvick walked over to a corner of the arena that was out of sight as he snapped his fingers and The All Black appeared in his right hand.
He looked down at this sword curiously, yet could not reasonably assume that Yeshua’s prophecy applied to himself as well.
Ruvick gained The All Black when God crafted a blade of his own and attempted to kill him with it. He had stabbed him in the chest with it only for Ruvick’s power to assimilate it to his own, change its very nature, and take ownership of it from him.
Beyond that, he had no idea how God had managed to craft such a weapon.
Marcus sword, Light Taker, which had once belonged to his father Lucifer, was now in his hands.
But as for Moyako…
Her sword Kakure Sakura was apparently Marcus’s own when he lived on Terra. Before she came to Erebus, she had stolen it from his home...and came here two hundred years ago.
How...could I have not seen this before?
Ruvick began to tremble with anger and disgust, at himself mostly, but also at the circumstances at play.
This battle, between Marcus and Moyako, was obviously the deciding factor as to how the future would unfold.
That much had been certain to him.
What he did not realize, however, was that it was predicated on a fight to the death between a father and daughter.
Whatever force was at place that had put arranged for events to play out in such a manner, whatever they were, they were well and truly a cruel person to force such a battle between them.
Whatever the case, Ruvick had to put a stop to it at once.
As he turned around to face the battlefield, preparing to teleport into the middle of the fight, he found himself at the center of a vast dark emptiness.
He turned his head around wildly and confused, “W-what the…! What is going on?!”
He then heard a voice call out to him from behind, “I will not allow you to interrupt what must come to pass…”
As Ruvick turned around to see the face who had trapped him, he watched as Erebus, the Primordial God of Darkness, vanished into the void.
Then, the sight of Marcus and Moyako facing against each other came into view. Try as he might to break free of the shadow realm that Erebus had trapped him in, he could only watch as they continued to kill each other.
Marcus, a few minutes earlier…
He was curious to see what kind of power she still had left to keep the fight going as she gripped Kakure Sakura in her right hand and held it high above her head.
What kind of power could she have stored within that blade that she would make such a big deal about it…?
She locked eyes with him as she said, “With this sword, passed down from the great Ame Tenkura, I open up the field of flowers, stained red with the blood of our victims. I, Moyako Kaneko, will take upon myself the strength of all the souls imprisoned within this hidden graveyard.”
Then, with a single swing of her sword, she slashed it through the air until the tip struck the ground and the world around them changed.
The environment, which had been razed to look like an unlivable hellscape, was suddenly transformed into a heavenly scenery.
A field of flowers expanded to be as vast and as endless as the battlefield they fought within.
The dark overcast of smoke and black clouds that had coated the sky had opened up to reveal a gleaming and vibrant sunset.
What the hell is this…? Marcus thought to himself as he took in the sight of the world Moyako had dragged him into.
“Give unto me, the souls of all those slain by this sword, and give me the strength to destroy the enemy before me,” she said as she raised her sword off the ground and her body began to float into the air.
In response to this, the flowers blooming on the ground were lit aflame but did not burn. The flames lit along the surface of the petals began to spread until the entire field as far as he could see was burning.
As Moyako continued to rise up into the air, the power stored within the burning flowers began to vibrate and after images of them began to overlap as if the same flowers were existing on top of each other all at once.
Something’s not right about all this… If all of these flowers represent a life taken by that sword, then they are all souls. But there is something else. All of these flowers are vibrating within the sixth dimension. That would mean that those killed by Kakure Sakura are killed across all possible timelines. If that’s true...then every flower here represents a soul stacked upon itself infinitely.
Oh shit…she had THIS kind of power tucked away?
Things only appeared to get worse as the power coming from the flowers below were being transferred to her which caused her body to change.
Her skin began to darken as if charred black by the heat of the flames, her arms from the elbows down and her legs from the knees down began to glow as cracks formed down the length of them. From these cracks, the heat within her was venting out.
The power and heat being emitted from her body was so immense that even the magic keeping her armor together was too weak as it was torn apart and burned away.
Her torso, which was revealed by her destroyed armor, was transformed into charred cinders and ash, with cracks forming along her abdomen and stretching up to her breasts.
At the center of her abdomen, a deep black chasm opened up in which a π letter burned within it.
But then, from her back that was now open as her armor had been destroyed by the release of her own strength, three pairs of wings stretched out, another pair wrapped around her waist, another trailed behind her, and finally a sixth pair seemed to dangle around her legs.
These wings, comprised of ash and feathers, burned with such luminous intensity that it would have been enough to chase away the night sky.
As she locked eyes with him, he saw that they were hollow save for the sight of a vast universe burning with blue flames being contained within them.
The eyes of a Primordial God.
Yet as absurd and as magnificent as her power was, as mighty and terrifying as her power was to witness, something else seemed to occupy the forefront of his thoughts.
As he took upon the sight of Moyako, gleaming brilliantly with such power, he head a woman’s voice speaking from within him.
“Lucifer…, and Gabriel as well? B-but how-?”
He knew not where this voice had come from or who it belonged to, but for some reason, the sight of Moyako in this state had been enough to draw its attention.
As if in response to this, his mind began to overflow with information as he began to contemplate who Moyako truly was to him.
His eyes widened slowly, his mouth trembled, and the grip on his sword and twin blade loosened until they fell from his hands into the field of flowers.
He took two uneasy steps towards her until he felt his knees collapse from under him.
“M-Moya…,” he said quietly under his breath, and although he was certain she could still hear him, she showed no reaction.
Is this...my daughter?
Yukino…, is she our child?
You and I...we created this perfect miracle, didn’t we? You gave birth to my child. To our child, didn’t you?
Marcus’s hands shook as he looked up at his daughter with wonder in his eyes.
Even as the woman’s voice within him seemed to regain awareness of what was going on, as much as she screamed at him and tried to block out his thoughts, he could do nothing but think about his daughter right in front of him.
As if to wash away the thought of all the sins he had committed, of all the lives he had taken, the singular thought that he had helped created such an incredible, wonderful life, was enough to drown out everything else in the world.
She’s...perfect Yukino. She looks so much like me, from her hair, to her eyes, and even to her face, but I can tell that there is a part of you in her, right in the center.
How...how could I have been so blind?
As he stared up at the sight of his daughter, she looked down at him and asked, “Do you have nothing left to say?”
The only words he could think of that could have been appropriate for her to hear came so easily to him that it felt like he had been waiting his entire life to tell her.
“You are...so beautiful…,” he said to her as tears fell from his eyes.
Hearing this, Moyako looked at him, stunned by what she had heard, as she seemed to grasp that he had only just now realized the truth.
He tried to wipe the tears so as not to look so pathetic in front of her only to feel the stickiness of blood clinging to his skin.
As he felt the blood smear across his cheek, he felt a sudden sense of disgust and horror at what he had done.
Is this...Moyako’s blood?
This entire time, I’ve been trying to kill my own daughter?
W-Why?
Why am I doing this?
What could have possessed me to do such a horrible thing to my own flesh and blood?!
He grit his teeth as he tried to contain the swelling mass of bile that threatened to erupt from his throat at the thought that he had been repeatedly murdering his own child to satisfy his own selfishness.
He would have gone so far to kill his own child so he could abandon the life he had before to build a new one here in this world.
Marcus leaned forward, prostrating himself before his daughter to hide the shame he felt as he was horrified by his own actions and cried into the field of flowers.
He pulled himself up so that he could face her once again.
She looked down at him with worried eyes, yet with a hint of hope present in them as well.
Hopeful that he would surrender before the fight could go on any longer.
And he intended to do just that.
“Moya…,” he started.
“Yes?” she replied.
“I-I...I ye-,” he tried to say, but another woman’s voice called out to him, interrupting him.
It was Selene’s voice as she shouted to him from amongst the audience.
“Don’t give up Marcus!”