The struggle to comprehend the insanity transpiring right in front of her astonished Mana to the point where she could barely respond to the stimuli around her. Right in front of her in a beam of sky-piercing light stood a supposed Goddess, one summoned through a ritual of a seemingly senseless ritual of murders most foul. Her appearance was unlike anything the magician had ever seen, she did not look ancient at all, in fact, she looked almost futuristic and majestic but not in a godly way. She was beautiful but her beauty was vastly overcrowded by her futuristic accessories and motifs, some of them appeared dysfunctional almost to the young girl.
"She's not a Goddess... She can't be..." Mana mumbled to herself under her nose. Her mind returned to the state it was during her infant years, being unable to comprehend basic facts and relate them to events transpiring in front of her.
It was like all those years of meditation, all that time she spent overcompensating for the mental disorder by studying and aiming to understand and relate all facts to every known transpiring event even in this crazy world of hers never happened. Her mind returned to the primal state of affiliating every matter to non-existent made up Gods and magic. Rain fell because Gods wept, lightning crashed down because they were angry, people loved each other because of magic. How was she supposed to relate any fact to any event if an actual Goddess stood in front of her?
The white armored entity examined her own body, her hands and observed her white outer shell before looking at a puddle of blood, where her brightly colored skin reflected off of it. Mana shook in the absurdity of it all. Her feet trembled before taking a step forward, then another one. Meiko glared at Mana in shock and surprise that the magician dared walk forward towards this Goddess descending from the skies.
"Kill me..." Mana spoke silently before repeating it momentarily louder and then louder still.
The Goddess curiously lifted and twisted her neck to the side examining Mana who was slowly approaching her. It was clear that the entity was more curious and stumped about the world around her than harboring any intent, malicious or decent.
"Mana!" Meiko shouted out taking a couple of hasty steps forward and grabbing the magician's shoulder rudely, trying to yank her back to her place. Back before the magician did something she usually did – stupid and unjustifiable to anyone but herself.
"If she's an actual Goddess that can only descend in pools of blood showing her the way... If that is the way Gods operate, I do not wish to bend to such Gods or live in such a world." Mana explained looking at Meiko angrily.
The blacksmith examined the tearful look of the magician, she saw her friend's face enraged and greatly saddened, overflowing with tears of sadness, almost like the ex-kunoichi regretted ever being born on such a world. Meiko was determined to do anything it'd have taken to protect her friend from such sadness and such a meaningless death.
"Yes! Yes! Show me your power, Goddess that descended from the sky!" The old crone screamed her lungs out from where she laid knocked down, unlikely to ever rise again due to her injuries. "Do that and then let us join together! I shall take the power to avenge the Syndicate for my sons! Show me your power before becoming a part of me!" The old woman shouted, the Goddess' hand lifted off and her palm extended at the old woman who answered by lifting her old crooked hands and extending them back.
A silent sound wave emanated from the Goddess' palms blasting all particles that the woman had and dispersing them away. In a frozen moment in time nothing remained of the old crone, even her blood particles vibrated so rapidly, moved by the frequency of the Goddess' sound vibrations that they simply ceased to exist. In a cruel smile of fortune, the woman was erased from existence in all but the memories of all who knew her.
"I am Melobi... And I just want to live..." The almost futuristic looking Goddess exclaimed in a loud, cybernetic sounding synthetic voice of a female.
"She's... She's not a Goddess?" Mana's eyes shot wide open as she jumped back and reached for her card pouch. "She's a..."
"Goddess or not, she hurt my friend and I'm gonna punch it for that!" Meiko shouted out finally reacting to the descent of the godly being by rushing at it with all of her speed, all of her strength and wish to hurt this divine being all channeled into a single punch. A strike like that could've punched a hole through the planet itself if it wasn't properly channeled but Meiko didn't worry, her effort concentrated into channeling all of that energy right through the Goddess and nothing more. All of that energy, all of that ill intent will only flow through the Goddess in front of her.
Grungy yet, once again, absolutely silent shockwave erupted from the Goddess' body without any of her conscious effort blasting Meiko away and sending her crashing through a multitude of buildings behind her. The shockwave passed through the entire district toppling multiple buildings over meanwhile the magician girl tossed forward a card with explosive tags which automatically detonated on impact. The explosion sent Mana flying back just narrowly avoiding the brunt of the shockwave that sent Meiko flying, anything to injure the blacksmith at the peak of her augmentation would've splattered Mana without any remains.
For a good couple of minutes, Mana's world was all pain. The magician looked at her shaking covered in blood hand and felt warm streams of blood running down her face and sticking her hair together in clamping strings. Grunting and crying out in pain, Mana flipped over revealing to herself a couple of small rocks that dug into her flesh painfully, the kunai that had been fired at her was now lodged even deeper and gushed with blood momentarily before the pressure of the blade stopped it. By now it was clear that a single yank of the knife out would've opened up a wound that'd kill her in moments.
Never in her life has the magician felt so powerless, so completely blown away and unable to help her friends at all. Even in the face of defeat such as when she fought the Demon of Kirigakure she managed to damage the young man's armor assisting her friends in his defeat, even when she was attacked by Sugemi in the arrest house Mana managed to wound him helping to calm the old friend down and wear him out. Now one of her best friends could've died right in front of her and the magician had no idea what happened nor did she stand a way of helping Meiko.
"No more physical chakra... No use in redirecting or dodging anything... No logical angle of this to analyze... I'm so useless..." Mana grunted slamming a rocky chunk of debris in front of her.
"I went at her with all of my speed, all of my strength, all of my chakra augmentations kicked up to the max..." Meiko's faint voice emanated through the ruined remains of a building that both girls ended up in. The magician crawled painfully to her collapsed friend and looked at Meiko's devastated armor and broken body, her arms, and legs laid in awkward positions – likely broken. When Mana tried to lift the redhead's head up to look her in the eyes Meiko shrieked out in unheard of pain. It was like the entire body of her friend was broken in just one careless backlash of the white and purple Goddess descending onto the beacon of blood.
"I didn't even break through her aura. The chakra of that thing is so immense, so immeasurable that it radiates this... Aura of chakra pressure... I didn't even get past the pressure of it with all of my strength. She hurt you Mana, she hurt a friend of mine and I just wanted to punch it because that's what I'm good at. I don't deserve to hold that Box..." Meiko teared up, Mana hadn't seen this sensitive side of her friend, not since the last time that the redhead screwed ninjutsu and chakra control up.
Mana carefully placed her sunken in blood hand on Meiko's bent and peeled off shoulder plate leaving a couple of bloody prints on it.
"You tried to punch a God because it hurt my feelings? Some would say that is worth the journey we've traveled all by itself..." Mana tried to smile, she faked a smile because she knew how hopeless the situation was. A loud rumbling sound alerted Mana forcing her to stand up. The magician saw a pillar of ice being erected further away – that could've only been Shimo!
"You said she wasn't a God?" Meiko asked as Mana began instinctually stumble forwards towards the battlefield.
"No. Melobi is a name of a Lesser Demon. An ancient remnant of Ten-Tails' first rampage and the immense chakra it irradiated during its lifespan before it was split into the nine Tailed Beasts." Mana looked down watching as her blood slowly dripped onto the messed up and demolished district. The girl felt countless itchy wounds on her body that must've been infected, her chances didn't look too good but Mana wished to at the very least do something about this Lesser Demon before confronting her own human mortality.
A powerful shockwave shook the ground beneath Mana's feet. The girl cried out in pain and fell on her knees, her cracked ribs and knees had no chance of withstanding quakes, she just wondered what could've caused this violent rupture. She had no chance to beat this thing, Meiko got knocked out instantly and the entity wasn't even trying. With a single conscious effort, it could kill them all and destroy their entire world. Lesser Demons were much weaker than fully powered Tailed Beasts but they still were too much for anyone except ninja of legendary power. A team of Sannin or Kage level ninja perhaps, skilled jounin maybe...
The magician screamed out seeing the sight of the battle, Melobi had broken out of Shimo's pillar of ice trying to freeze her solid and held a tall suit wearing and shoulder length hair having aged man of cruel facial features in the air in some translucent shockwave of pure sound. Melobi's hand twitched sending ripples through the soundwave that tore the man into smallest pieces forcing Mana to shout out and get the demon's attention before it could go on and kill Shimo. Melobi extended her hand but before the devastating wave of sound could splatter Mana all over the pavement leaving a deep drilling hole and disappearing in the vacuum of space the magician felt Shimo's hands wrapping around her and moving her away from harm.
"I know this won't make you forget what I've done and that we're still far from the friends we've once been but... That girl right there is Notasa. She can decipher the sphere." He whispered in her ear.
"That man..." Mana's lips shook in the overwhelming sensation of a girl who swore to protect all life but now saw them being casually taken left and right.
"He's not dead, he's a freak of some sort and he can reform using chakra to create bonds between his tissue and cells, sort of like a bubblegum man, like the stretchy chewy candy..." Shimo explained before pointing at the white and purple entity asking for an explanation without uttering a word.
Mana saw Kouta further on passed out. She rushed at the knocked out young man, Melobi stood in her way but the magician didn't care, the boy she promised her attention and time, the boy she loved laid there knocked out without a sign of life!
Curiously enough Melobi turned aside and let Mana pass, observing the limping and stumbling magician curiously. The girl's hands wrapped around Kouta's unconscious body with her blood sticking all over his innocent peacefully asleep face. Mana saw the paleness of his skin and the bags around his eyes – he was short of chakra just like it happened to her in the archives during the first big mission she was in.
A rumbling noise alerted both Mana and Melobi towards it, Carnefici reassembled himself from just the faintest cells into a pool of oil before taking his gooey and slimy shape. After the reformation was complete the man began panting heavily on his knees, reassembling himself from just smallest particles must've required emulating endless bonds and completely wiped out his own chakra reserves. A young girl who was apparently the Notasa they were looking for, according to Shimo wrapped her hands around the man's neck and ran in front of him shielding the tired man from Melobi's sight.
It was so strange... So far Mana has not seen Melobi attack or purposefully try and kill someone, always attacking in response to being triggered. She certainly had the power to do so, she could've destroyed the planet multiple times over before any of the surrounding ninja villages formulated a response team and sent it over here to defuse the situation. This was so peculiar that from deep within her chest curiosity arose and pushed Mana's sadness and despair aside. There was no chance fighting this entity, perhaps the magician could learn to, at the very least, understand it?
"You love this young man?" Melobi asked first before Mana could utter a word.
"I... I think I do." Mana replied looking back at Kouta and urging herself to stand in front of his body so that she could shield all of Melobi's scary strength if the entity decided to kill them both. "No! I know I do!" Mana replied much more firmly, without the fear that standing in front of alleged Goddess invited into one's heart.
"I'd like to love. I've only been alive for moments and I haven't felt much of anything... I'd like to love someone one day." Melobi replied with strange warmth in her voice.
"Wait, what are you?" Mana asked curiously, she asked the question that was intended to be asked the whole time before Mana was interrupted.
"I am Melobi, I was born when Ten-Tails was born from the bridge extended between Earth and the Moon by the Princess. The Progenitor of the Tailed Beasts that was born of the mightiest of all bloodlines and the mighty Princess' spruce connecting Earth and the sky. I was born of the Progenitor's roar, the chakra in that sound emanated through the universe connecting and bonding with every sound ever to be made since that point. Thusly, I became the embodiment of sound." Melobi explained.
"But... You said you were born just now, the Ten-Tails first roared centuries ago and was soon split into the Tailed Beasts." Mana's eyes began feeling dizzy and her body shook almost falling down onto the ground. Melobi's curiosity only grew seeing the magician's condition.
"Are you dying, human girl? Please do not die, being born is such a happy feeling, I wish to share it with everyone" Melobi's face shifted into what closely resembled the way humans smiled. Her face did not shift, her muscles didn't twitch. Melobi's mouth simply disappeared on her purple synthetic skin and reappeared shaped into whatever she felt at the time, similarly her eyes stopped glowing before changing their shape while being dark and enlightening again.
"That is not... Something I have control over..." Mana replied as she fell to her knees feeling the powerful draw to pass out, she must've lost too much blood. Pity. There was so much she still wished to know about Melobi, about the world really... So many promises she still hadn't fulfilled: the promise to lead Meiko to the Box, the promise to go out on a date with Kouta once this whole Box journey has concluded... She still hadn't forgiven Shimo for what he did in Takigakure... Dying while holding grudges was a bad omen, that was how ghosts came to be and Mana despised ghosts.
Melobi's hand extended into another shockwave, it enveloped Mana and began glowing salad green. The magician felt her wounds closing up, she felt her chakra resources resurging and suddenly Mana felt like newly born. This was just like that tale she told Meiko of medical ninja in Otogakure using sound ninjutsu to heal people instead of the usual medical ninjutsu. Melobi must've functioned with the same principle, she controlled sound itself because the Ten-Tails chakra infused roar fused itself with all of the universal sounds.
She could mold chakra and strengthen the technique's intensity by strengthening the sound wave. She could've blasted one with all of the sound vibrations emitted by a supermassive black hole or used a healing wave of the same intensity. The kunai lodged in Mana's body got disintegrated into smallest pieces and scattered in the wind as her ruptured blood vessels patched themselves together with Melobi's healing soundwaves.
"There. Isn't being born better than dying?" Melobi smiled like an infant, in all meanings of the word she probably was.
"Thanks but... My friends are all also hurt, could you maybe help them as well?" Mana asked trying to determine if whatever line there was between her and the Lesser Demon was not overstepped, after all, she had only met the Nine-Tails before and that monstrosity was in no helping mood.
"I can heal everyone in the vicinity... I could probably heal everyone in the world and on the Moon... I could maybe make everyone who's dead reborn again! That'd be glorious!" Melobi shrieked in excitement clapping her hands and forming a heart shape of her appendages present on her head.
"Wait! A vibration of such immensity would tear a black hole open and kill everyone, it'd consume our entire system. Let's just... Help anyone nearby, okay?" Mana asked calmly trying to contain Melobi's excitement. The Lesser Demon nodded and another pleasantly harmonious shockwave of chakra infused sound erupted from her body passing through everyone and into the horizon. The magician saw the building further away explode from the pressure with Meiko jumping out from under the debris and rushing to where everyone was and the elderly man which Notasa tried so hard to protect standing back up and examining his newly resurged strength.
Hands tied around Mana's belly firmly holding her in place, the magician's heart froze before realizing it was Kouta hugging her from behind.
"I was so worried..." He whispered into her ear.
"Just this once, I didn't screw everything up and helped someone..." She smiled in excitement. After remembering about the kids which were used by the old woman Mana looked around only to see them scattering, they moved differently, this time they were afraid. They had emotion behind them which must've meant that whatever tricks the old religious woman used to force them to do her bidding must've been undone.
Melobi knelt to the ground and felt the dirt beneath her feet. She looked so sour and disappointed.
"Why did you kill that old woman, Melobi-san?" Mana asked uncomfortably, to her all life was precious and she didn't want to ruin this moment but she did really want to know why of all people the Lesser Demon murdered the woman that ended up summoning her.
"When the Progenitor first created me, rather the mass of evil anomalous chakra I came to be from, all I wanted since then was to live. You see, the bridge of the Princess was malevolent in nature, it was gracious in its intentions but the Princess felt anger and hatred towards the Moon people so deep in its core the World Tree was rotten, that's why the Progenitor was evil in its nature, why its voice was evil and why I formed in a cosmic mass of evil chakra. Like a planet being born of space dust, my conscience opened itself in absolute evil. All I wanted since that moment was to live free of my roots, free of the evil of my origins... All I want for is to live!" Melobi's face once again changed into that of sadness, as she spoke the appendages on her head began letting streams of air escape from its crevices at the tips. The escaping air formed a sad and lyrical melody, it was the most harmonious and yet longingly sad sound Mana had ever heard.
"And the old lady wished to imprison you again by becoming your Jinchuuriki," Mana concluded the thought freeing Melobi from having to speak those words. Poor Melobi was such a tragic entity, she was born from the voice of ultimate evil the world has ever known, she was confined to just be a consciousness inside all of the world's sounds, from the musical melodies to the screams of death and begs for help.
She was labeled a "Lesser Demon" before having a will of its own to earn its demonic label. Her very birth process included the need for countless murders to draw the beacon of blood so that Melobi could concentrate her efforts and take shape where the beacon was drawn. She was not malevolent yet her entire existence was wrapped in evil and she needed evil deeds to even be allowed to be born.
That left one question in Mana's mind – the monk which the old lady mentioned. Someone with such deep extending knowledge of mythology and history of the world to know who Melobi was, to know how to give her birth, something Mana would've never known. Who could've been this behind the scenes mastermind playing the old woman and why would Melobi's birth serve his needs? Everywhere Mana and her team went there seemed to be deeper mysteries and questions that raised only more questions!
"Your appearance is odd, it is not primal, you look very different from other Lesser Demons or Tailed Beasts. No Lesser Demon I'd seen appears so... Synthetic, cybernetic and attractive by the human standards." Mana remarked observing Melobi's attempts to feel the dirt beneath her feet by filtering it through her fingers.
"My looks are representative of music. They are what music currently represents, I thought by choosing such synthetic and visually pleasing look I'd appear casual to people highly educated in musical crafts at this moment in time." Melobi sadly explained. There must've still been something that troubled the entity.
"You sound really sad, is something the matter, Melobi-san?" Mana wondered carefully.
"It's just... I am now alive and yet I can feel nothing, no love, no pain, no sadness and the happiness of my birth is fleeting away. There is no meaning to my existence if I cannot feel. Perhaps being evil is my nature? I feel great jealousy of living things, maybe my nature is to destroy all living things? If I cannot truly live, no one should be able to!" Melobi declared with the volume of her synthetic voice rising higher and higher.