Roaring.
Sparking.
Cracking.
Crimson vs Violet-Ereshkigal's and my opposing attacks shimmered; swirling and mixing into one before imploding into a grand display of glistering sparks, like falling stars in an open twilight sky.
Feeling a surge of her magical energy ripple up my arm from our exchange, I danced free from the smoke enveloping us in its center.
Nipping, biting through my bangs, the wind bent to my simple acrobatic movements, with each way I twisted my body to continually flip backward, evading Ereshkigal's chain summonings of the elemental souls she willed to attack me left and right.
"Ohh, Daiki," Sliding under a stone pillar launched by Ereshkigal's tremendous display of power my feet shredded across the mountain's even surface, crushing another slab of stone flying into my hands as I peered over my shoulder at the quivering spirit I stood guard before.
"Are you ever planning on tagging in, game master? You are after all...playing as... him."
Slipping from between the cracks of my fingers-Daiki levitated beside me, shadowed in my outstretched wings I unfurled to escape the scope of Ereshkigal's attack.
The outskirts of the mountain's edge fodderized and became scarred with burn marks from her lightning. Ledges crumbled to dust under our gaze, falling somewhere into the darkness we'd fought our way through to arrive at this point.
Wavering between the battlefield and me- against doing battle versus Ereshkigal or staying in the comfort of the sky, Daiki's head rotated indecisively, blowing up in a tiny puff of blue mist.
Reformed from the eyes first, the rest of his head reappeared-an improvised spiked helmet decorating on top as he transferred back the package our hands exchanged earlier, flying towards the warzone with his body a flashy collection of shimmering gold lights.
Cradling my right hand in the supportive palm of my left, the curve in my fingers straightened, unfurling.
Ishtar, snugly fit in the palm of my hand- her body frail and decayed, the bony structure of her skeleton was clearly perceptible as she struggled with haggard breaths. Final traces of life and color fled from Ishtar's eyes. The clammy cold touch of her skin registered through mine as her pale fingers randomly patted around, Ishtar's breath frosty, rigid, and stabbing like icicles as she sighed with the last of her fading strength, wrapping her right hand around the curve of my thumb.
Shit. At this stage...would it be better to let her die...?
...No...
Even if I was to let the land take her soul there's no guarantee it'd return it after Ereshkigal is defeated. Or that it could be restored if one of the Gallu devour it.
Hell this place might be, but it isn't the one I know.
All that remains is no more than to give Ishtar all I can offer her.
Caging Ishtar in by placing my free hand over the one she occupies, I formed the usual golden orb of the spell between my closed palms feeling it grow from its clay-ball-sized shape until its light shone through the gaps between my fingers as in seconds it enveloped Ereshkigal's mountain palace back to the first gate where Daiki and I met Gilgamesh.
Warmer and hotter, feeding off the flames of my soul the temperature around the battlefield reached new degrees as tiny starlets rose from the glow being emitted, sparking the soil with life in an unbelievable miracle that ceased to happen no longer than a microsecond as the golden storm cloud hanging in the air shrunk to its original spherical size, radiating a shockwave which hummed warmly across the underworld.
Hah...
Well, you can no longer see her skeleton. I'll give her this much, she's certainly a survivor.
Shielding Ishtar inside a protective barrier I rediverted my attention back to the ensuing battle after hiding her within my clothes, witnessing Ereshkigal expertly flowing between several scepters firing lasers and other ranged projectiles appearing from Gate of Babylon.
Aiming a steady hand forward, Ereshkigal launched four thin energy lances through the atmosphere.
Maneuvering throughout the open air, the four spells targeted slightly bent around two gallu, shooting forward to attack Daiki struggling to outpace the pair of adversaries chasing him from behind.
"...Riessa."
Swallowing the lances and adding the divine energy to her own, Daiki safely raced behind Riessa with the gallu not far behind as I appeared beside my dragon soul, our eyes gazing down at Ereshkigal from above as she returned my intense stare.
"I prefer to finish what I start. You and I already had our own little dance going, don't tell me you to escape from the little soiree we started?"
Watching Ereshkigal's expression become overshadowed by her hair fluttering rapidly in the frosty air. red mist swirled around her feet, working its way up to consume her body entirely as she emerged from the haze seconds later in her monstrous female gallu form.
"...Tangling with death is not something you should mock so haphazardly."
Her enlarged lance in one skeletal hand, Ereshkigal darted forward with a screaming battle cry.
The air began to condense at rapid speeds bending and warping the light sparks twinkling off the scales of my wings as I melted into the thick fog settling into the battlefield.
Circling under the first burst of energy swung from her lance, I flew around her at speeds faster than she could anticipate, spawning several smoky afterimages that converged on her from the fog.
With a wave of her hand, their forms dissipated back into the thick haze- an unprecedented updraft of wind sending Ereshkigal flying and dispelling every trace of the fog as a shrill roar tore up the ground and pierced through the air that it trembled under its strength-my exposed jaws glinting through the darkness at light speed as Ereshkigal managed to guard herself with her lance against my biting attack in dragon form by the skin of her teeth.
Shoving me back, I was quickly immobilized by five gold bars forming a tight circle around me while Ereshkigal put a few feet between us, unleashing her trap.
"I'll be stealing your soul."
Whirring nosily, like blades cleaving through the wind, they rotated, bathing me in Ereshkigal's power as she tried to steal my soul away.
"Then..." Feeling a terse sense of emptiness wash over me, waves of heat gathered in my mouth; my mind steeled to continue the fight, unbothered by the sensations the spell subjected upon me."
"...Then make sure to take the fury that comes with it."
Throwing my head up to the sky, the heat I'd been collecting turned into flames and then into elemental light with a bluish hue.
Shattering the constraints around me as easily as squishing grapes, a violent ray of light burst through the bars, descending upon Ereshkigal, its resemblance comparable to a shooting star raining from the heavens itself.
Billows of dust flew up from where Ereshkigal's ghastly form had plummeted into the ground. Newfound silence lingered in the air following the dying sounds of our heated battle, only to renew with rising intensity as the goddess of the underworld arose from the smoking crater twice her size, the shimmering remnants from the protective barrier she'd hastily conjured; every magical circuit making it up crumbling into nothingness.
"Why you... I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU RESISTING, FALL ALREADY!"
Ereshkigal's ruby eyes turned a tone darker spawning a large magic circle under her feet while she bellowed with rage. Her divine aura spiked tenfold and her body began to glow. Lightning bolts gushed out from around Ereshkigal in every direction fostering an elemental whirlwind at her feet.
The lightning field she generated with herself located in its middle sent the whirlwind swirling around the mountain's peak secluding us two by ourselves from our companions who'd taken their fight further down. Readopting her human visage, Ereshkigal spun the lance in her hand, twirling it in her grasp with poise before positioning the weapon above her head, beginning to recite an incantation.
"I call upon you, Meslamtaea! Be acknowledged of the providence of the underworld..."
Her Noble Phantasm, I still don't know the name of the one I possess to employ mine... In that case, I'll just have to counter with this!
Undoing my transformation, my right shimmered gold, then green in color as I readied my defensive plan, spiking my aura in turn.
"Come forth, the Pyrexian Shrine... This is my Kur Kigal Irkalla!"
Piercing the ground of the underworld with her lance, Ereshkigal's signature crimson lightning crackled threateningly in the sky above as red clouds formed high over my head and the ground I stood on seemed to sink.
Carrying all her fury, a current made of Ereshkigal's magical energy discharged from her lance, violently ripping up large chunks of debris as it blazed through the ground and cages comprised completely of electricity boxed me in. A faint glimmer passed by faster than a second before the charges turned red and they went off at point blank in a powerful strike of divine judgment.
Yet, even amongst the goddess's domineering show of might, I muttered the one sentence that guaranteed my victory.
"Five-Layered Barrier: Gates of Heaven, second and first layers... Release!"
The cavern became imperceptible; physical sight was all but impossible to make out and distinguish any shapes or other colors aside from the white flash that momentarily drowned out all sound, followed by the deafening bang of the explosion that erupted after.
My body decompressed feeling the fight reach its end. Head thrown back, I released a warm sigh into the boiling atmosphere still trying to cool from the destructive eruption.
Still clad in my living armor of shadows, I could feel my flaming hair swinging at my ankles, burning its brightest yet while I strolled across the uneven ground.
With a simple swing of my arm, I cleaved through the gas brought by the abnormal temperature and firmly silenced the whirlwind dying out above.
Stepping into a lower elevated area, I walked through an even wider version of the crater caused by our earlier attack, stopping as I found Ereshkigal in disarray at its epicenter.
Clothes torn and scorched, hair disheveled and most unbecoming, smoke rose off her heated figure as a thin trail of blood slid down her face from a small cut on her left cheek.
Taking up her trusty lance that lay at her side, Ereshkigal's eyes fluttered between open and closed before she fully regained consciousness with a low groan, waking to find me pointing her weapon's tip at her throat.
"W-What did you...?"
"In simple words, what I did was use your strongest attack against you. I have yet to remember my Noble Phantasm, so I had to rely on some trickery and steal yours from you in a way."
"Each layer of my Five-Layered Barrier can do something unique-the first allows me to absorb any physical attack or weapon giving me the power to replicate it and return fire, whereas layer two absorbs life energy and converts it to encase me in an armor of living shadows that can eat any magic-based attacks. In step one of my plan I only used layer two, adorning my armor after absorbing the energy of Hell, from there I divided my shadows in half with each group to accomplish a task."
"Group A acted as normal, devouring your Noble Phantasm and storing the energy, strengthing the power of my shadows. Group B, however, I had approach one of the elemental-based cages used in your Phantasm. Sensing their structures were entirely made of magic, I had the shadows alter their properties, essentially making them physical in nature as they wrapped around it, becoming a physical sheath that I could use my first layer to absorb and numerous replicate your Phantasm- except an original interpretation of it boosted by my shadows."
"After copying the one elemental cage as many times as I pleased, I assaulted you with my shadow-boosted version of your Noble Phantasm, further adding to its power by releasing the energy group A got obtained from eating yours, practically doubling its power."
"A two-pronged attack using two versions of your Noble Phantasm-the original and my modified one to hit you with double Phantasms-all this was conducted in less than a hundredth of a second, in such an immediate time frame in which I knew you wouldn't have the capacity to move as well after releasing that devastating amount of power."
"A victory achieved using your power over this dominion against you."
"..."
The darkening expression that fell over Ereshkigal while she continually kept her attention away from me spoke loudly enough despite her saying nothing at all.
Missing any reservations of hesitation, Ereshkigal grabbed her lance with steady decisiveness and pressed its tip ever so slightly into her throat while leaning her head back.
"What are you waiting for, finish it! You're a god slayer, aren't you? No need to drag it out, no need to think twice...all you need to do is move your hand, so put an end to me already."
"...With pleasure."
Blood splattered onto Ereshkigal's face, blobs of it falling centimeters above her eyes that began to go dim with their life.
Despite how foreign the movement made me feel, I slid protectively in front of Ereshkigal, pointing her lance at the mysteriously cloaked individual who kept their back turned to me.
Unconcealable even in the darkness of hell, drop after drop of blood plopped onto the ground, the blade he used on Ereshkigal gleamed sinisterly before he hid it in his robe.
"Such ill behavior unbefitting of an immortal such as she."
"...How long do you intend to keep that blade aimed at me, child?"
Stepping from the shadows the tiniest source of light shone over their face, the hooded stranger faced me and dug their wooden cane into the earth, leaning their weight against it."
Eyes as dark and soulless as could be stared back at me it made me question if they were my own. An old man who looked to have barely five years left in their lifespan addressed me calmly from under the hood with not the slightest tint of expression hinting at his intentions.
"Do you consider this gesture rude? Sorry, but I've met my fair share of old people who can slaughter enemies without batting an eye. I needed her alive."
"You...needed her... or you didn't have the heart to kill her? Do not let thy words manipulate thy's emotions and keep them forever shackled in darkness as ye have continued to do, lest thy wish to destroy ye self."
"Shackled? Your words are lost old man, they fall on ears unable to comprehend anything outside of fighting. Now, who are you?"
"...For now. As for thy name, you may call me Ziusudra. Does thy prepare to lower the goddess's lance now?"
The old man's question begged an answer, regarding the other with an intense stare Ereshkigal's weapon reluctantly slipped from my grasp and clattered to the floor out of respect for the silent conversation our gazes had held.
A tingling sensation rose in my ears for but an instant in time, yet that was all which was needed to hear it...
Breathing.
Without needing to turn back I could hear breaths escape from Ereshkigal in a steady rhythm. Reevaluating the old man, the muscles in my shoulders felt lighter, releasing a tension I didn't realize had accumulated in them.
Shifting his cane from me to Ereshkigal, the old man calling himself Ziusudra went on speaking with his monotone tone of speech.
"Always restraining yourselves by a sense of duty you two impose upon yourselves; I severed hers in pair with her bond to the Goddess Alliance. Yours, however, is an internal struggle you sacrifice yourself to time and time again, the actions you take scream it so."
"Did you merely appear before me for a lecture? That couldn't have been why you were lurking in the shadows during our fight. I told you, most words are lost on me, always have been...always will be."
"Thoust is not resigned to such a forever fate. Only time will tell what thou will become once thy chooses to finally confront thy self."
Getting the sense he had more to say, Ziusudra appeared before like a blur with only one step. Taking my hand he placed something inside as I felt his other hand retrieve what lay within my clothes.
Any brash actions I would've made were restrained by my inner thoughts as I watched him study Ishtar before imitating a cutting motion with swift nimbleness with his hand, setting her on the ground immediately afterward.
"The curse cast upon her by her sister was dispelled upon her defeat, I've taken the liberty of slicing through the second myself. Both goddesses should awaken in moments, as well as the two allies sleeping in your hand."
Vanishing without the slightest indication he was ever here, the man left saying nothing more.
Unfurling my hand, half saw what I expected-Daiki unconscious but curled peacefully in my palm and surprisingly, Typhoon whose light still shined brilliantly.
"Oh, I forgot you weren't hanging around my neck any longer."
"No thanks to you! Tossing me in those black waters and then walking off!"
"And yet you still came back...noisy as ever too."
"Fuck you!"
Sighing and shaking my head, a part of me felt content hanging the pendant back around my neck as I settled Daiki atop my head to rest.
He doesn't seem to still have Gilgamesh's soul with him. I don't sense it. He must've escaped after Daiki and I finished the fight to return to his physical body.
...He'll no doubt try to shoot us next time we meet considering I let Daiki eat him, even if it worked out for him in... the... end...
The mental brakes in my mind sparked and screeched upon being slammed on, grinding my thought process to a halt with my words failing to enunciate with their usual smoothness as though my tongue had gone lazy.
Typhoon's complaints ceased all at once picking up what garnered my attention so.
From one jagged stone protruding from the ground to the next, I hopped across the post-battle terrain which had turned the mountain into a sea of rugged rocks standing imposingly on either side; navigating my way through its ruinous middle felt like I was walking through a deep canyon after having fell in.
There sitting in the middle of the scene, buried deep in the boroughs of the land like hidden treasure, my hand reached for and dusted off a red orb similar in size to the first that held my memories.
"Mmm...? Ba...Bahamut?"
The soft questioning call of Ishtar stirring forced back the opportunity of cracking the mystery concerning which memories were sealed away inside.
Returning to give her a hand off the floor, Ishtar leaned against me, giving me a moment to see the life in her fair complexion had come back.
"Sorry, just needed that support for a sec. Eresh, you didn't..."
"Despite the tiny traces of blood on her face, she's still alive. I didn't dare touch her life."
"I...That's about what I was expecting. ...Stay with her, will you?"
"Me? And not you?" I tilted my head at Ishtar's blindsiding request as she ascended into the air with her bow in tow.
"You're the only one I can entrust such a sensitive task to. I'm the last person she'll want to see when she awakens. Ereshkigal...she'll likely be upset, so calm her down. It'll give me something to hold over her head too for a while, so do your best!"
Riding off with a trail of dazzling light left behind her, Ishtar left me to sit beside Ereshkigal.
My fingers danced on her weapon with a rhythmic tap as my eyes wandered back to land on her sleeping face time and time again-before I knew it I found myself unable to keep my hands off her as I softly rid Ereshkigal of the splattered blood dirtying her features.
Feeling the unnatural itch return in my hands the moment I imagined leisurely sitting about until she woke, I glanced around the mountain and its underlying area with great detail.
What an unfathomable mess...
There's nothing worse than the dread that comes with cleaning up after your battles...
Rubbing a hand over the back of my neck, I moved and scooped up a handful of soul cages scattered around in the other and officially set out to restore the land.
The ceiling shook with the power of booming thunder under disastrous quakes originating from whatever was occurring on the surface.
Minutes into the task; midway done finishing the cleanup, I felt a presence watching my movements from behind.
Hiding her face within her hood, I could make out Ereshkigal's eyes peeking through under the fabric to stare at me.
With the tiniest movement she performed with her wrist, the remaining rifts in the earth closed and the soul cages in my possession were freed from my grasp before flying off to be safely planted into the ground as they were previously.
"No one's...I...you're the first person that's ever tended to this place besides me."
"I can't sense my sister here any longer, so why are you still in this world?"
"The question isn't what I'm doing having stayed behind," flipping the goddess's dark hood off, I snaked my head to the right as I predicted she would try to do, meeting her gaze.
"Ishtar left, likely rushing to Chaldea's master and whatever she's up to...that however, isn't the important question. What do you intend to do, how do you want to proceed from where you are now, it's the question you're struggling to answer now, are you not? I can see the trouble written all over your face despite you trying to hide it so well."
"The old man, the one who sliced through you and your contract if you can remember any of it, he already exposed what you were trying to accomplish. The souls you managed to collect on the night Uruk fell, you were trying to make yourself look villainous by doing so, but realistically you saved them from sharing whatever fate happened to the others."
"It's time you let go though, don't you think-throw everything you've devoted to painting yourself as evil to the wind. You don't have to keep acting like what you're not."
"The souls trapped down here, you've kept them warm and safe in these cages you've crafted, but what about your cage? For the first time, why not free your soul from the cage you forcibly imprisoned it in eons ago?"
Ereshkigal kept her composure, tearing herself away from my prodding eyes to take in the cages edging around the mountain's perimeter, shifting to the ones lining the path leading up to it, their blue ambiance illuminating our hands and faces.
Wordlessly, clusters of souls escaped from various cages and floated about like fireflies, each of them I recognized by their scents as ones that were present on the night chaos consumed Uruk.
Gathering around Ereshkigal who picked off the ground, lance in hand, the souls flew off in the distance as Ereshkigal paused in her leave to look at me.
"Since I'm no longer bound by the nonaggression contract, I think I'd like to officially introduce myself to humanity's last master and save her from the battle she's been cornered into."
"I know I've asked already but won't you answer me with what you plan to do next?"
"Digest my newly retrieved memories. Whatever actions I take next will be fully determined by what it is I see."
"For what it's worth then, I hope those memories contain ones that will free your soul from its prison...and thanks, for the kindness you showed my home."
Vanishing into her spirit form, I waited until her presence could no longer be felt in Hell and juggled the orb I'd taken from its hiding place in my hand.
A reserved, shy goddess. A peculiar combination indeed. I wonder if I've ever met quite an immortal like her who I've forgotten about?
"Hey, Typhoon..."
"I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere yet. Let's see what awaits you inside together, kid."
Putting zero strength into my right hand, I could feel the pressure I exerted begin to crush the crimson orb. With every new crack that appeared on its glossy surface, red light escaped from them until the object was obliterated with a satisfying crunch.
Switching my mind off, I dared not think of anything as I subjected myself to witness another third of the memories surrounding my life flash before my eyes.
END.
Next: The Scuffle Against the Third Goddess: Victory Awaits Who?