I waited for the final blow of the sword, but I felt nothing. Do you not feel pain in heaven? That must explain it. The pain that had just ripped through my body vanished. I opened my eye and expected to see the white cloud and the sliver city itself but instead, I was met with the tip of a sword.
I gasped slightly in shock before a quickly looked around me. I was still in the courtyard in front of Cinderella's castle, but the world around me was frozen in place.
"You have not failed anyone yet, Larisa", a silvery voice said from behind me.
I turned and saw a face I had only ever seen in pictures but could recognize anywhere. A woman about my three inches taller than me stood calmly on the concrete. Her emerald eyes looked kindly down at me and her deep brown hair flowed gently over her shoulders. I felt tears welling in my eyes as I stared at her.
"Mom?", I asked, my voice cracking as I did.
She smiled and opened her arms. I scrambled to get up and ran to her as the tears fell from my eyes. My body crashed into hers and she had to take a step back to keep her balance. She laughed warmly and hugged me tightly. I held onto her desperately hoping she would stay. She must have felt I stress as her hand came up and rested on the back of my hand.
"It's alright darling. We have time but I fear it's not much."
" How are you even here?"
"The power of Spero is a powerful force, even in Death."
She pulled back and wiped away my tears before taking my hands in hers.
"I wish I could stay but one can not cheat death forever so listen close."
I swallowed to stop the tears and nodded at her.
"Zeref must be beaten here or the world will be lost forever. He was regained his full power and your power as you are now will not be enough to stop him. You need the light to finish him. "
"But I don't know what I'm doing."
"That's why I'm here. The light of Spero isn't very different than your fire. It is a part of you to use it you must stop thinking of it as it's own source of power. You are the Spero, not the other way around. You control it. You bend it. You are the Light."
"I'm the light", I repeated.
"Yes, now you need to embrace it. The world needs you and so do your friends. So pull up all your strength and go hit this guy where it hurts."
I smiled at her and did as she told. I repeated her words as I concentrated on fueling the fire within.
"I am the light."
I felt my fire grow. The heat was intense and I couldn't have felt any strong. White fire rolled over me and the air around me wrapped with the heat.
"That's my girl. With the full strength of Spero Zeref will kneel to you."
Around me, the world slowly began to move again, but it was like everything was stuck in mud as it moved.
"Our time is almost up. But I know you are ready, Larisa. And I need you to know that I love and could not be more round of you", She starting to cry.
She was unfazed by the heat as she embraced me in her arms and hugged me. I gripped her just as tight before she added away.
"I love you too, Mom", I whispered to nothing.
The world was moving again and the sound of metal hitting concrete made me turn to Zeref. His face was painted in confusion as he looked at the Arch sword embedded in the ground. His eyes slowly moved up from the sword to me standing in front of him radiating with white light and fire.
His confusion turned to fear as he recognized the white light. He quickly covered his emotions and pulled the sword from the ground and stood to his full height.
"The only way you will win here today is if I'm dead. So tell me are brave enough to kill a man?"
"For those, I love I willing to do horrible things."
" I believed that too, once."
"You and I are nothing alike."
"Are you truly that naive? We're both heroes of our own stories."
"You stopped being a hero when you killed innocent people."
He laughed coldly, " What is innocence? We all have lied and sinned that's why we're human."
"I guess some humans are worse than others", I said gesturing to him.
"This is a battle of kings not a bar fight. So let's quit the talking and finish this", He growled.
"Finally. Something we can agree on."
He charged at me sword raised and ready to strike. At this moment it just occurred to me that I had no physical weapon on me and silently panicked. Thankfully my training with Ty and the others kicked in and I dodged the straight attack.
I rolled to his left and ran behind him to Sardis' black sword that laid in the grass. I baseball slide into and rolled back to face Zeref who had quickly regained himself and was already within striking distance from me. I raised my sword just seconds before the blade stuck me.
Our blades pushed against each other in the locked position, but my Zeref place above me won him the dual of strength.
His blade sliced my left cheek before I could move. I cut was only inches below my eye and I was thankful for that.
We continued to exchange blows and cuts to one other in a deadly dance of swords and blood. Adrenaline coursed through my body as I felt nothing when the Arch swords' blade ripped through my body. With not an ounce of fatigue in my body, the scales tipped in my favor and I saw an opening in Zeref's movements. I batted away his sword then drove my sword into his thigh.
He cried out in pain but then raised his own sword and brought it down into the shoulder gap of my armor.
Even with the Adrenaline in the body that hurt like as much as you'd think a sword going into your shoulder would be like times ten.
Zeref took advantage of my pain and kicked me in the chest sending me flying back on the hard concrete. Thankful my death grip on the sword kept it with me, but the air that had left my lungs made to stay put on the ground.
Zeref stalked over to me laughing coldly.
"And the mighty warrior of light falls to the new King and the dragon bane sword of the Archs."
"You should have been a poet", I wheezed tiring to left my sword.
Zeref stopped my weak attempts at letting the sword when stepped on my wrist. Pining it to the ground.
"Today all hope dies with you", He said with a worked grin as he brought down the sword.
With newfound strength, I grabbed the blade of the sword as it came at me. The blade cut and burned my hand but I only tighten my grip. The blade glowed white-hot in the area around my hand then it spread across the sword and to the hilt.
Zeref roared in my pain as he dropped the sword and stumbled away. I stood up with the sword still in my hand and focused my power on the blade.
The blade glowed a solid white before it burst in a sharp blast of heat. All that was left of the one deadly sword was nothing but black ash that fell out of my grip.
"No!", Zeref roared when he saw the destruction.
" It's over Zeref. You've lost."
"No! It's not done till I'm dead. I won't stop till everything is mine. I am God and you are nothing but worms at my feet.", Zeref yelled.
As he yelled I got my first real look at the insanity of the black mage. He and crawled at his face and burns.
"Then you leave me no choice."
I stocked over to him and straighten my grip on the black sword in my hand. Zeref raised his hand and shot a ball of pure dark magic at me. With little effort, I knocked the black ball away and continued towards him.
Again and again, he attacked me with his magic but it all ended the same. When I reached him I grasped him by his collar and pulled my sword up and pointed at his heart.
"Any last words?"
He laughed bitterly at me but answered.
"Don't think this is the end. Even if I lost here today there are others and they are stronger than both you and I alike. There will always be evil in this world and one day the world will fall to it."
"Then I guess it's a good thing I don't age. So I can be there to stop that evil before it does."
He laughed maniacally and looked up at the sky. I push my sword into his chest but his laughing continued until the entirety of my sword was in his chest. The last of his life left him and he wore a evil grin in death.
I pulled my sword from him and his body fell lifeless to the ground.
Soon after the lifeless body without any magic left to kept it together turned to grey ash that blew away in the wind.
I looked and saw that the black storm of magic had faded into nothingness and so did the last of Zerefs creations.
The last of my strength had left me and the fatigue of the fight had sat in and I crumbled to the ground.
Athena found her way back to me and laid down beside me. Letting me rest against her red scales.
"It's over."
"Yep. Now it's really need a nap."
"Perhaps we should regroup with the others before that. Resting here may get you arrested for breaking and entering as the police are here."
" I guess we caused a bit of a scene here."
Athena laughed as I crawled onto her back.
" Let's get you out of here and maybe a shower too."