The Grand Crossover RP - Pathway to Origin [IC/PG-13/Moved to NCM for Finale]

[Final Fantasy Revolution]

Sephiroth

 

It was a horrifying and terrible thing to witness, thank goodness Yachiru or any other being was there to witness such carnage. Their fighting had scarred the area itself, leaving a field of craters and smoldering land throughout. Now, the One-Winged Angel who seemed so favorable during the confrontation, was nothing more than a puddle that was slowly evaporating into the atmosphere. It seemed as though there was no other challenge for Zaraki to face, accept of course the loss of the only thing he had left to cherish...

 

“Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess. We seek it thus, and take to the sky. Ripples form on the water's surface. The wandering soul knows no rest.” Sephiroth sat up quickly and found himself not within the havoc of a battlefield, but within the calm of a large open field, lush and green with newly grown grass. Sephiroth stood to gaze at the figures in front him: Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewely, the only two he might have ever named friend. "What is this..." Sephiroth questioned, Angeal stepping up to great him. "This is...it, ya know, the afterlife, the spiritual realm, heaven, and any other name ya wanna call it." Sephiroth looked around, nothing but vast field, no buildings or anything else as far as the eye can see. "Nothing matters here, Sephiroth, nothing else you were doing matters, you died and came here you done now. Well, you're done fighting them, but since we can no longer die, there's no reason to hold back." Genesis enchanted his sword with his signature brand of energy and Angeal ready his own blade for battle, it was then that Sephiroth looked at his Masamune that had suddenly appeared in his hand. For a moment he said nothing, as if in deep thought and concentration. "Well then...that's too bad for you two..." Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal all clashed blades in a devastating free-for-all, and for the few seconds that they held their blades together, Sephiroth had smiled...

[Dad]

Killua

 

He had just gotten inside the tall stone tower.  There were an abundance of eerie blue lights and not another soul was around--at least for that moment.  A sudden crash caused him to duck, as an angel flew past his head, and then a Counter Corps member he recognized.  "Kenpachi?"  He didn't respond to Killua, but ended up dragging the angel away again.  "Kenpachi!" he called.  That man . . .he was a monster.  And if the little girl was still with him, she was in danger.  Killua had to act.  He jumped through the gap Sephiroth's body had created, and leaped out of the building.  He could barely follow Kenpachi's movements, but just behind them, he could see her bright pink hair.  "No, no!" he cried as he dashed towards her.  Killua picked her up as he arrived, examining her body.  There was a deep cut across her chest, but no vital organs had been hit.  She was badly burned all across her torso, but he could at least close the wound.  Yachiru winced as Killua touched her, and he spoke.  "This is going to sting a bit," he said reassuring her.  She did not reply, still dizzy from the damage she had taken.  He used just enough lightning in his fingertips to close the wound across her chest.  Meanwhile, Sephiroth and Kenpachi continued to fight, but it quickly became one sided.  Killua put his attention back on Yachiru, who was sweating heavily.  He placed a hand to her temple, and drew it back quickly.  There was lightning in her system.  He had to draw it out.  With a few hand movements, Killua began to draw the remaining volts of electricity that did not belong into his hands.  Yachiru sighed, as her breathing began to slow.  She was still in danger, however.  Her burns were severe, and she would need medical attention.  At the present moment, her loss of blood was more minor than it appeared, but still important.  She would be dizzy until her body rebuilt what was lost.

 

Finally, the battle between Kenpachi and the angel came to a close, and Kenpachi had set his sights on Killua.  He walked over slowly, blade in his hand, pointed at Killua.  Killua nervously set Yachiru's body back down, and kept his head low.  He could feel the pressure resonating from Zaraki as he approached.  Killua's body froze as Kenpachi got closer.  He hadn't been this afraid since he first fought Hisoka!  Kenpachi stood over Killua now, his reiatsu finally dying down, and placing Nozarashi at his side.  Hesitantly, Killua raised his head to look Kenpachi in the face.  Though his power had diminished from seconds ago, his eyes were filled with grief.  He looked down at Yachiru, and embraced her.

 

"Thank you, kid," he said holding her.  Killua did not respond, but pointed at her chest.  The wound was closed, but Yachiru was burned from Sephiroth's lightning strike.  And after all this, Kenpachi's wounds finally caught up to him.  He could barely walk now, as he fell to his knees.  His neck ached, and his head felt like a bomb had gone off inside it.  He fell to his back, and just lie there.  "I'm so sorry, little lady.  I'm so sorry.  I'll never jeapordize you again."  He went unconscious, worn from these two battles.  Killua frowned slightly, staring at the two of them together.  "He doesn't expect me to carry him, right?" he wondered aloud.  His facial expression became cross, as he continued to frown.  He groaned, and picked up Kenpachi and Yachiru as he sped back towards the stone tower.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

And With Strange Aeons:
 
"Sir, we're getting interesting readings from our current location." Lieutenant Trudge informed her CO.
"And they are centered around our cargo hold?" Vice-Admiral Roosevelt replied.
"..Yes." The blue-haired woman answered, pulling up the ship's hologram. "And they seem to be connected to the phenomena outside."
"Speaking of that phenomena, you are sure we are encountering nothing?"
"None of this material is appearing on any of our suites. According to them, we are flying through empty space, but we...I...can feel the ship dragging through it. It's trying to stick, but we're resisting it...barely..." Trixie didn't like talking about how, through her implants, she WAS the ship. She felt the strain of the impellers in their nacelles as they struggled to rend space and time around the mysterious fluid space. She felt heavy as the hull tore through the swirling pallette of colors, the shields flickering and fighting a constant battle against the space around it to keep the rest of the ship safe. And she resonated with the core, deep in the ship, the rotation of its priming rings in conjunction with the steady thrum of the Numeron Code's energy emissions, the infinite source of power the only thing capable of warping reality through the magitech constructions of the nacelles and the array of Numbers contained within the priming rings. And through this intense connection, she felt something that reassured her at the back of her mind, a small voice in her head that could only belong to the ethereal card within the heart of the vessel.
"Don't worry, Miss Trixie. I'm keeping us safe. Origin will not take my home from me."

Atsuko actually did smile slightly at the two of them, and she moved back slightly from the pair, the two Mirror Knights moving into place to keep Russell off to the side. The young woman began to chant, concentrating on her Linguamancy while the power flowed from her knowledge and mastery of the Atlantean runes, glowing green runes of which formed on the ground around Carla, similar to an Orichalcos seal, but the runes were different, and more rings of runes begin to concentrically align in the air. As this happened, a green shimmer begins to engulf Carla, causing a brilliant red soul to form at the core of her image as she was consumed by the light, and transformed into a feminine outline with her fiery spirit within, flowing up and out as her hair. Some of the runes copied off and floated to her, embedding themselves into her visage before enlarging into sections of armor, similar to the ones Lucas and Syria possessed, but more befitting of her build and body type. Wheeras Lucas' was meant to use his larger, yet older, form, and Syria's accomodated her more slender build, Carla's was...well, her chestplate was a bit more pronounced than the others, along with a few other sections of armor. Finally, her face was sealed away by a curved helmet, and the runes are finally dismissed, leaving behind a glittering silver knight, her armor polished to a bright sheen.
Carla stood there for a bit, examining herself and flexing her jointed gauntlets in seeming disbelief, before reaching up and taking off the helmet she is wearing. Underneath, her hair came free, and she felt the sensation of it brushing against her for the first time in a long time, not aware of the faintly-glowing Orichalcos mark on her forehead, matching those that her fellow knights also bear and signifying their presence as summoned beings under Atsuko's powers. Carla brought a pair of fingers to her face and brushed her skin gently, her eyes beginning to water as she gave a stunned expression, as if this is the first time she had felt her own body in quite a long time, which it had. Finally, tears gently streamed down her cheeks, and she finally smiled in delight, crying in utter joy. Atsuko, Syria, and Lucas all smiled back at that, and Carla, swept up in emotion, hugged her new mistress, embracing her charge in her silver arms and holding her close. "Thank you." She told the 22-year-old woman that, instead of blaming her for being a part of the cult that ended her childhood, gave her a new body to use to do something right. Atsuko weakly hugged back, a bit surprised at the strong hug, but happy nonetheless. Carla then let go, only to give a similar hug to Russell, adding in a strong, loving kiss to his lips that has been a long time coming, the newly-remade woman reveling in the touch of his skin against hers, the push of his body against her armor, and the scent of his very being, stimulating her senses for the first time in what seemed like forever. She was clearly overjoyed to finally be able to enjoy her love, and she whispered as she parted. "If we survive this, we are SO going to make up for lost time."
Atsuko stepped towards the portal, Syria and Lucas following, and looked to the two lovers. "Well, are you two coming?" Carla looked back to her summoner, and wrapped a hand around one of Russell's before walking towards the portal, with him in tow.

 

"And that's the last of them. The portal in the cargo hold just closed."
"Have you punched in the coordinates Foster gave you when you updated the guidance systems?"

"They seem to match our other approach trajectories that we tried before, but I am fairly certain we will actually arrive in the Ryuusei Cluster this time."

"Good. We need to get back to Stalwart and inform them of what has happened here. Hopefully, we're not too late."

"However...we might have to take a rain check on that. According to my calculations, the flight time is going to take...42 days..."

"...What?"

[Dad]

Papa Legba

 

"Hmph."  He wasn't surprised.  Kenpachi's soul had been demonized for a long time, and these were the results.  "Two kills for de big one," he chuckled.  "One for de warriah, and tree for de lady.   None for de boy yet, eh?" he was kinda of surprised.  Killua seemed to be violent enough that he would have taken down a multitude of targets by now.  But what was most surprising was the end result of Kenpachi's fight.  It wasn't the kills Papa was interested in.  It was the flushing of Kenpachi's soul.  This wasn't good.  Not in the slightest.  "I finally get to see de extent of dat powah, and it cleansed his soul, eh?"  The black aura that had been residing in Kenpachi as Papa watched the fight had been flushed of it's dark color.  It was a bright golden hue, pure, and resilient.  "Dis is not what I had hoped for," he said softly to himself.  "No mattah.  Dere's still one more I can use," he said turning his attention back to Kratos.

 

Kratos

 

Taking his time, it took him five hours to get through the crystalline pathways, until he reached a solid black, and off putting mirror.  Kratos neared the mirror, staring inside it.  Then, something stared back.  It was exactly like him, mimicking his every move.  It had a rather angered expression on it's face, one Kratos was familiar with.  Finally, it stopped mimicking him, and stood back, beckoning Kratos to the mirrored world.  He obliged, placing one leg in after the other.

 

Suddenly, Kratos was back in his mind, where he had been before.  The only difference is that he was confronting himself under different means.  He finally recognized this shadow that mirrored him.  But after having beaten it once before, in his own time, he had an advantage.  He slowly drew his Blades of Chaos, and watched as the shadow mimicked his motion, but instead bringing forth the Nemean Cestus.  They bolted towards each other, and Kratos could feel the left hook coming.  He dodged swiftly, ducking under the swing and ending up behind the shadow.  He kicked it in the back, causing it to stumble forward, and catch itself with a Cestus.  It turned around and glared at Kratos, who motioned for the shadow to continue.  The shadow made the next move, suddenly dashing into Kratos with blinding speed.  Kratos had noticed it's Boots of Hermes too late.  He was met with a gut punch, and sent crashing into a stone wall that appeared from seemingly nowhere.  But he wouldn't be swayed, not on these terms.  This was a battle he had already won.  He wrenched himself loose, and threw his Blades of Chaos to the ground.  The shadow tilted it's head in confusion, and continued to watch Kratos.  He removed the Spear of Destiny, dropped his Bow of Apollo, and set down his newly crafted Blade of Olympus, which needed to be renamed to say the least.  Then, Kratos spoke to the shadow.  "What do you want?"

 

It laughed maliciously, mocking Kratos.  "What do you want?"

 

"To avenge myself," he said matter of factly.

 

"To avenge yourself?  You mean, after killing the gods, you're still unsatisfied?"

 

"Very."  Kratos took a seat, leaning his back against the stone wall.  "I say I look to avenge myself, but the gods had little to do with that."

 

"The gods had everything to do with that," The shadow retorted.

 

"I disagree," he said immediately.  Kratos cracked his knuckles, staring at the shadow intently.  "The gods were simply a barrier.  Another obstacle.  Even with the death of Zeus, I am not redeemed," he said with a sigh.  The shadow laughed at this, nodding in agreement.  "Of course not, you fool.  But why do you suppose that is?"

 

Kratos turned his attention to the bleak, ominously colored sky above him, then back to the shadow.  "Because I haven't accepted my mistakes."  The sky cracked with lightning at this revelation.  

 

"What?"  The shadow dropped it's left Nemean Cestus, as it grew angrier.

 

"I've faulted the gods for a long time.  For my anger, for my jealously, for my wrath.  But they didn't lay a hand on my family.  Not until I did."  The sky cracked again, and the Shadow dropped it's second Nemean Cestus, now opting for Blades of Chaos fakes.  It bolted at Kratos, but came to a screeching halt as it met a wall of blue-green energy, that now boxed around the Shadow, imprisoning it.  "What are you saying!?  What are you thinking!?"  Kratos took his time.

 

"I'm thinking I understand why I chose this pathway first.  Because I cannot lie, I've grown to understand myself a little bit better," he said confidently, getting to his feet.  "The weapons I've used, they are merely tools to accomplish my own goals.  But I know where those goals come from now.  And in order to see them realized, I have to leave this behind.  I have to leave you behind."  The energy box around the Shadow grew smaller, shrinking around it.  "Shut up!  You need me!"

 

"No.  I don't need you. I've got everything I need.  I can't save my family.  I can't change the past.  But I can save myself.  And I can't do that carrying a burden like yourself," he said to his Shadow.  The energy field finally collapsed atop the Shadow, crushing it flat.  "No!  NO!  DAMN YOU!  YOU WILL SUFFER FOR THIS!!" it shrieked beneath the energy field.

 

"I already have."

 

The shadow was obliterated into pure light, and the world around Kratos began to swirl and distort.  Soon enough, it returned to normal.  He was now standing on a wooden platform, laced by an orange sky, his weapons at his feet.  Kratos picked up only two of his weapons now.  He first grabbed the Blade that Kokonoe had restored for him.  He would bless it with a new name.  Then, he reached for the Blades of Chaos, which he would also change.  He attached them to his body, and picked up the remaining Hades Claws, Spear of Destiny, Bow of Apollo, and Nemean Cestus.  He snapped the spear in half, and tossed it's remains from the platform.  The Hades Claws writhed in his hands.  He knew that Chernobyl's soul was not in them, and banished the Claws to the Pits of Tartarus, not willing them to be seen again.  He raised the Bow of Apollo, admiring it's glow against the orange sky.  He could not burn it's wooden shaft, and so he simply hurled it with all his might into the light of the sky, where he could not see it fall.  Finally, he grabbed the Nemean Cestus which roared in his hands.  With all his might, he crushed the two lion head's together and watched them burst into dust.  He was satisfied with this, and did not look for the weapons again.

 

Kratos sat now, laying the restored Blade across his lap.  It's hilt was much different, in both color and metal.  Kokonoe had mentioned Predaking giving his life for this.  And Predaking, who had knowledge of current and past members of the Corps at that time, took a lot into this blade.  It was magnificently crafted, a red lining down it's center, with a nigh unbreakable edge.  This blade did not belong to Olympus.  This was to be, "The Blade of Promise".  One he could keep this time.  He owed it to Predaking, to Byakuya, to everyone.  And last, but not least, the now former Blades of Chaos.  Their fury still emanated from them, as did Kratos' own.  There was no denying that he was still angry, but his anger was properly placed now.  He would rename these dual blades, "The Blades of Fury."  And he would channel that fury into the deaths of those deserved it.

 

Standing to his feet, Kratos observed the other smaller platforms around him and took a step onto one of them.  His feet stuck almost instantly, and he could feel the board begin to move.  The winds were still strong, but didn't sway him very much.  Suddenly he was being guided forward, as the board reacted to his thoughts.  Looking below, he could see. . . "Sparta?"  It was engulfed in flames, and lightning crashed down onto it from high atop a mountain.  He turned his attention away from it.  Kratos knew that his world was likely no more, and paid it no attention.  He breezed past hundreds of clouds, his own former appearance attempting to harm him.  They passed through him, doing nothing.   He kept his gaze ahead of him, wondering just where this pathway would end.

[Phantom Roxas]

Earlier: Onboard And With Strange Aeons

 

Arthur

 

For the first time he could remember, Arthur had a dream. Not an illusion like what the Madara had shown him, but a real, genuine dream. He had heard that demigods would have dreams like this, but he didn’t believe it. Now, he couldn’t help but see what stood before him.

 

Three black voids swirled below him, like black holes all trying to eat one another. His body was like a ghost, floating above all of them, but he was being pulled towards each of them, like they were all fighting over which one would get to consume him. He tried to turn around, but his body wouldn’t respond to him. Instead, the moment he tried to take a step, he could feel himself falling.

 

Somehow, he was underwater now. He tried to hold his breath, but his lungs still began to fill with water. He tried to swim up to the surface, but he couldn’t tell how close to it he was. That was when he heard it. When he heard them. He looked below him, and saw two gaping maws reaching toward him. They moved through the water quickly, and in seconds, rows of teeth began to close in above him.

 

 

Arthur & Eria

 

Eria woke up first. She got out of the covers, patting down her dress. Arthur’s eyes were shut, his nail digging against the pillow. Grabbing his hand, she whispered, ”Come on, Arthur. It’s… it’s time for us to get ready.”

 

The demigod’s eyes opened up to meet Eria’s. They were afraid. He was shaking, and he took Eria’s hand in his other hand. Eria frowned, worried at just how scared he looked. ”What’s wrong?”

 

Arthur paused. His lips trembled. ”Bad dream,” he said simply. He sat up, put on his shoes, and walked up to the door. ”We should go.”

 

”Are you okay?” Eria asked. ”If something’s wrong, tell me.”

 

”I saw monsters,” Arthur told her. ”I was… I was about to drown. Then one of them got me. It swallowed me whole.”

 

”Think it means anything?”

 

”Demigods like me are supposed to have dreams like that, but… I haven’t had any like that for a while. I think I had some for a little after I… after I ran away, but if I had a dream like that now… I’m scared. It might have something to do with what’s coming.”

 

The sound of Arturia’s voice interrupted them. ”Counter Corps. Once you are ready, come down to the observation deck. If need be, simply ask directions on how to get down there. Protheus Maximus is in control of the Key, and there is no doubt that he plans on using it to open the Door of Origin. Thus, the stakes are higher than ever.”

 

”We can talk about this more on the way,” Arthur suggested. ”We should get going.”

 

Eria slipped her arm around Arthur’s. ”Right. Just remember, you’re not alone. You can trust me. You can trust all of us.”

 

 

MachGaogamon, Gagagigo, Zilyana, & Kree'arra

 

”Do you seriously not trust us?” was all Zilyana could ask. Hours had passed, and it felt as though they had been around the ship at least five times over. And there was still more they didn’t even think of that hadn’t been explored.

 

”We can hardly trust each other,” Kree’arra snapped at Zilyana. ”Do not think I know nothing of your plans for that Door.”

 

”What are you planning?!” Gagagigo stepped forward, but MachGaogamon stopped him with a hand.

 

”Knowing her, she’d likely give her master an advantage. I understand that he, Saradomin, means well, but I would not trust him. Zilyana, though, is a fanatic. She would hardly listen to reason.”

 

”As though you aviansie are any better!” Zilyana snapped back.

 

”I understand we promised you this staff,” MachGaogamon said. ”And though you each have your own business, I’d be more comfortable with handing you the staff if the two of you were being more cooperative with each other. Say we give both of you this staff. Kree’arra, the staff belongs to your master, correct? Zilyana, how can we trust you, or your master, to not betray your end of the bargain?”

 

Zilyana laughed. ”What kind of coward do you take me for? I may not be fond of this arrangement myself, but Lord Saradomin is willing to allow Armadyl to have his precious staff! If Saradomin wishes it, then I will not go against his orders.”

 

Gagagigo sighed. ”We just want to be sure that we’re making the right choice in trusting you.”

 

With that, the four of them all went silent.

 

”Counter Corps,” Arturia’s voice echoed in everyone’s minds. Even Kree’arra and Zilyana heard the message, much their own surprise. ”Once you are ready, come down to the observation deck. If need be, simply ask directions on how to get down there. Protheus Maximus is in control of the Key, and there is no doubt that he plans on using it to open the Door of Origin. Thus, the stakes are higher than ever before. If we fail now, everything you have come to recognize as 'reality' will be lost... We leave in ten minutes.”

 

”We should go,” MachGaogamon advised. ”Perhaps you may find the staff there. If I may ask you anything, I would like you to refrain from starting anything. As important as this may be to the both of you, Protheus and his Divine take priority.”

 

 

Arthur, Eria, , MachGaogamon, Sora, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Gagagigo, Zilyana, & Kree'arra

 

Roxas and Xion joined Sora and Kairi on the observation deck as the Counter Corps slowly gathering around. Zilyana and Kree’arra arrived as well, with MachGaogamon and Gagagigo standing at their sides. Arthur and Eria entered last, Eria holding her golden staff at her side. She put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, said something to him, and began to approach Sora, Roxas, and Xion.

 

”Excuse me,” she said. ”The three of us need to talk.”

 

”This is about Ra, isn’t it?” Sora asked.

 

Eria nodded. ”After what He said to the three of you, back on the Inch of Will, I knew I could trust you. Ra was… no, He is powerful. Even split between the three of you, you still managed to use His power well."

 

”Give yourself some credit, Eria!” Xion told her. ”You know this stuff better than us.”

 

Roxas was curios. ”In our world, I think we heard of… something like your Egyptian Gods.”

 

Eria arched an eyebrow. ”Oh? How so?”

 

Sora and Roxas both looked at each other like they didn’t want to say the answer, but Roxas decided that it was up to him to speak. ”Ever heard of 4Kids?”

 

Eria shrugged. ”Can’t say I have.”

 

”KEEP IT THAT WAY,” Sora, Roxas, Kairi, and Xion all warned together.

 

Eria stuttered. ”Um… okay. So, anyway, just wanted to tell you guys that you did good.”

 

 

The conversation ended once Arturia drew everyone’s attention towards a monitor. The briefing started off simply enough, or at least what could pass for simple in the Origin War. Three Pathways - Remembrance, Truth, and Death. Past, present, and future. There were some parts of her past she didn’t want to remember, but she felt confident that she was stronger now, and could get past that. She wanted to believe that the present also wouldn’t worry her, but she considered the possibility that she’d confront a “truth” she wouldn’t be happy with. Regardless, she also decided that it would be something that she could handle.

 

It was Death that scared her. She wanted to believe that, after everything that had happened, she would be able to survive no matter what the future had in store for her, but for that Pathway to be represented by Death… well, that didn’t exactly grant her the same confidence she had when it came to the other two Pathways. Then she noticed that Arthur was holding her hand. She sighed in relief, and was about to tell him that she wasn’t scared, but looking at the way he stared at the symbols, Eria had doubts that Arthur was trying to reassure her that everything would be okay as much as he was the one who needed to be told that.

 

”We’ll get through all of them,” she said. ”I promise that we’ll both be fine.”

 

Arthur must have realized that he was looking at the symbols for too long, since his eyes blinked like he was coming out of a trance. He looked like he had only heard half of what Eria said. ”Right. We’ll be fine.”

 

As much as she wanted to, Eria didn’t exactly believe that he meant it. She wasn’t even sure than Arthur believed himself.

 

 

The ship shook a little bit, but it was hardly enough to make anyone so much as stumble. In the midst of it, a pink-haired scientist was giving out gauntlets made of golden wool and metal. Arthur seemed especially curious about it, so he donned the gauntlets made for him, while Eria did the same with hers, the gauntlets conforming to fit her arm. Once they were on, Arthur and Eria took each other’s hands again. That comforted Eria at least a little bit.

 

Arturia continued on with her speech, emphasizing the possible dangers of the Pathways. "This is the final destination. Counter Corps, if we are to fight together in this last battle, then... there is something I must tell you." Intense light appeared behind Arturia, with countless colors swirling around the Counter Guardian. Eria tried to shield her eyes, but yellow spots still blinked around her vision as she tried to adjust.

 

"I'm sure you are all aware of the chaos that Isamy Maximus caused,” Arturia continued. She stole precious artifacts from your universes, and caused so much distortions that they all collapsed into absolute hell. When we recruited you… we took a risk. By removing you from your universes, we would cause a distortion of our own that would disturb the delicate balance and thrust your homes into oblivion mere seconds afterwards. Compared to the other five million universes affected by Isamy, the dozens we sacrificed couldn't have mattered. By now, most of those must've already deteriorated to the point of barely existing, so what difference could it make anyway? In the recent past, members asked to be taken home - like BB, Kurai, Maxwell - and for the sake of maintaining the illusion, they were sent into that oblivion. In case you don't understand, all your friends are gone. Everyone you've ever known is gone. And... I do not even know if there'll be an afterlife for them."

 

 

Eria felt like her voice was no better off than the Counter Corps members who had resigned - gone. Lady Doriado. Wynn, Aussa, Hiita, Dharc, Lyna. Her mother. Her father. Everyone she could think of from her home. What Arturia had just said simply came out of nowhere. Arthur began to step forward, but Eria tightened her grip on him. Eria could barely even listen to the rest of Arturia’s speech. Eria had known the risks. She knew the dangers of joining this war. She hadn’t even heard much of the “artifact” that Isamy had stolen, yet she still joined the Counter Corps. She remembered Doriado sensing some restless souls, but Eria hadn’t thought much about it. Now, Eria understood that it must have been because of whatever Isamy stole.

 

But to think that Arturia would so callously allow the people who had join the Corps, the people who could have been saved… for them to be simply erased from existence, all for the sake of an illusion… it made Eria want to strangle Arturia. She was starting to doubt that Arturia was really that much better than either Isamy or Protheus. Water appeared, spinning around Eria’s feet. More than anything, she was tempted to drown the Counter Guardian right where she stood. Fortunately, Eria decided to settle for finding the right words to ask Arturia. The water subsided, but Eria’s voice was little more than a whisper. ”Just what the hell are you talking about, Arturia?”

 

Though Eria held herself back, one of the other Counter Corps members - Kratos - charged at Arturia. ”Arturia! You betrayed me! You betrayed all of us! You WILL suffer for this!” For a moment, Eria didn’t even feel like stopping him. It took Kenpachi, Yachiru, and some other woman - probably a new recruit - to stop him. What Arturia had just said made Eria begin to resent the very idea of working with the Counter Guardian. The Counter Corps was right, but to have Arturia for a leader… saying that it was something that Eria “didn’t like” would be a horrible understatement. She couldn’t even sympathize with seeing how much pain Arturia looked to be in when she made her confession. Arturia crossed the line. Out of what Eria had barely managed to hear, it was only Arturia’s desire to use the Door to bring back everyone who had died that made the Water Charmer decided to put up with the Counter Guardian for a little longer.

 

Lydia had asked Arturia about something called the “Throne of Heroes”. When Arturia said that Lydia’s victory over LERNA made her a candidate, Arthur muttered, ”Wonder if I’ve got a spot waiting for me.”

 

”We can talk about that later,” Eria told him. ”For now… we’ve got no better choice than to listen to Arturia.” But it was Lydia who kept speaking. Lydia talked about what she could - how she would go back and be willing to change everything. ”Arthur, you wouldn’t…”

 

”Not now,” Artur told her. ”Just… just hold on.”

 

Eria couldn’t begin to imagine what Arthur was thinking about, but everyone seemed raring to go, leaping into the portal one by one.

 

 

”Come back here!” someone screamed as one of the… very familiar new recruits jumped through the portal. Eria could have sworn it was Itsu, but that didn’t seem possible. Then again, impossibility had left the building long ago. Right now, Zilyana was running straight towards the portal, only to be stopped by Kree’arra.

 

”Zilyana, wait!” he demanded. ”We need to think about this carefully.”

 

Zilyana drew her sword at Kree’arra. ”Stop thinking that you can tell me what to do! You have no authority over me any more than I do over you! If anything, you should be the one rushing to take that Staff! Why hesitate now, Kree’arra?!”

 

”Both of you, stop it!” Sora stepped in between the two of them. ”You both want the staff. That took power that I… that Xansvita had.”

 

”Oh?” Zilyana turned her sword against Sora. ”So maybe you would like the Staff?”

 

”What?!” Sora stammered. ”That’s not it at all! I have no problem letting you have it!”

 

”And yet… Kree’arra sighed. ”It’s because of that Izumi, isn’t it? What reason does she have for the Staff?”

 

”Okay, time out.” Eria stepped forward as well, though now Zilyana and even Kree’arra seemed ready to cut her down. ”Listen. A little while ago, some of us divided into teams. Maybe… we should team up again.”

 

”And each team goes into different Pathways?” Zilyana mused. ”Divide and conquer, then!”

 

”Splitting up is the last thing any of us should be doing,” Kairi added. ”I’m going with Sora. Roxas, Xion, you’re coming with us, too.” Roxas and Xion nodded in agreement, and Kairi continued. ”We all pick one Pathway. You can trust Izumi. She’s on our side. You’ll get your staff. I don’t know when, but you will get it. I know you didn’t plan on this, but you have to work with us. We all need to take down the Divine. Together. Please. After what Arturia just said… you have to help us.”

 

Zilyana kept moving her sword around, as if she were unsure if she wanted to slash Sora, kick Eria, punch Kairi, or skewer all of them at once. Kree’arra simply stared at Zilyana, waiting for her to act. MachGaogamon and Gagagigo stepped closer, stare down not only at her, but also Kree’arra.

 

”I can’t fail Lord Armadyl,” Kree’arra said. ”You’re right, Zilyana. I should have been quicker. I just don’t know how-”

 

Zilyana’s sword fell to the ground. ”I’d say I have no choice, but… you’re right. I’ll fight on your side.”

 

Kree’arra smiled. “Thank you.”

 

”Then let’s figure out a Pathway,” Arthur suggested. His eyes were narrowed. He may have tried to sound like he was asking, but it was clear that he wanted an answer quickly. ”Don’t think about where Izumi took the staff. Just focus on where we should go.”

 

”Death,” Eria said immediately. She didn’t even have to think about it. It was the Pathway that scared her the most. ”Death sounds scarier than Truth or Remembrance. Better if we face the scariest one first.”

 

Sora and Kairi didn’t seem to question it, while Zilyana and Kree’arra looked like they were both about to laugh at the idea of death being scary. Gagagigo knelt down beside Eria, while MachGaogamon stretched out his hands, ready for the challenge. Arthur, Roxas, and Xion, though, all looked hesitant.

 

Reluctantly, Arthur said, ”Can’t argue with that.”

 

”I guess we shouldn’t have to worry,” Xion said. ”The power that all of us got from Xan… that monster… it should help us.

 

”Guthix’s power.” Kree’arra and Zilyana said together. They both took steps away from Sora, Roxas, and Xion.

 

”So,” Gagagigo said. ”We are literally heading to our deaths, then.”

 

“You almost sound happy about that,” Arthur replied.

 

Gagagigo laughed. ”Like Eria said, Death may be the scariest. If we get through that, we can make it through the rest.”

 

”That’s far from the best assumption,” MachGaogamon pointed out. ”However, it’s probably the best we’ve got.”

 

”So that settles it, doesn’t it?” Sora asked. ”We’ll face Death.” He held out his hand, nodding at everyone. ”As the Counter Corps.”

 

Kairi put her hand over Sora’s. ”We’ll fight for everyone who fought to get this far.”

 

Xion joined in. ”We’ll make sure that every sacrifice was worth it.”

 

”And we’ll make sure that no one like Protheus can use the Door,” Roxas promised.

 

”We’re fighting for our worlds,” Arthur said.

 

”We’re fighting for every world,” Eria corrected.

 

Everyone’s hands stacked over each other’s. MachGaogamon stood above the young men and women, but instead of offering his hand to them, he looked to Gagagigo, Kree’arra, and Zilyana. ”One way or another, we found ourselves caught in this war.”

 

Gagagigo stacked his hand. ”And we’re going to put a stop to it, once and for all.”

 

Zilyana offered her hand first to MachGaogamon and Gagagigo. ”I say this to all of you, but especially to Kree’arra. Knowing war for so long… I find it hard to believe that it can actually end.”

 

”Saradomin and Armadyl sent us together,” Kree’arra said. ”If everyone hopes to change their worlds, I see no reason why our being here won’t do the same for Gielinor.”

 

 

After a moment of silence, everyone raised up their hands, turning to face the portal of pure Origin.

 

”Before you all go,” Kairi said. ”Eria… can I talk to you for a second?”

 

”Sure,” Eria answered. ”But we should make it quick.”

 

”I’m going on ahead,” Sora told them. ”See you on the other side.”

 

Sora, Roxas, Xion, Zilyana, and Kree’arra all stepped into the portal, leaving Kairi, Eria, Arthur, MachGaogamon, and Gagagigo on the ship.

 

Kairi summoned forth her Keyblade, and presented it to Eria. ”Here.”

 

Eria stuttered. ”W-wait, why are you-”

 

”This is like what happened with me and Sora, isn’t it?” Arthur smiled.

 

”I helped you find Gagagigo, just as you… just as everyone helped me find Sora again. I want to repay you for that. Besides, Sora chose Arthur as his successor. I think it’s only fitting if I choose you, Eria.”

 

”I… I don’t know what to say!” Eria was reminded of why she was so grateful to the Counter Corps. Everyone was here to help each other. ”I guess I’ll start with, ‘Thank you.’” She took the Keyblade in her hand. A light shined out of the Keyblade, practically burning against her palm. Against the brand. When it settled, the Keyblade was back in Kairi’s hand again. ”So, what now?”

 

”Your Keyblade will find you, in time,” Kairi told her. ”I don’t know when, but you’ll definitely be able to use it on the Pathways. Now then, let’s go.” Kairi took her step into the portal.

 

 

Eria pouted. ”I’ve never really used a sword before. I’m more used to my magic.”

 

”You can do it,” Arthur nodded. ”Trust me.”

 

Gagagigo laughed. ”Once this is all over, the other Charmers are going to have some catching up to do. I think even Mistress Doriado is going to be a bit jealous.”

 

Eria clutched at her chest. ”Right. Soon, I’ll be able to see them again. You can see them again, Gagagigo.”

 

”Gagagigo, it’s time.” MachGaogamon gestured towards the portal.

 

”Not just me,” Gagagigo said. ”There’s also-” When he saw MachGaogamon glaring at him, he decided not to say any more. ”…Right, on my way.”

 

 

MachGaogamon and Gagagigo joined the rest of the Counter Corps on the other side of the portal. Now Eria and Arthur were among the few left. ”You’re really thinking about joining the Throne of Heroes?”

 

”It’s probably going to mean more fighting. I want the last thing I have to fight for us to be the Divine. I don’t want anyone more like them ruining our lives. Joining the Throne means throwing myself at that kind of danger all over again. I just… I need to find something I could do.”

 

Eria grabbed Arthur and pulled him in tight. ”Then don’t worry about that now. Don’t let that stop you on the Pathways. Just make it to the end. We promised each other that. Let’s keep that promise.”

 

”You’re right. Let’s go.”

 

And so, Eria, Arthur, and the rest of the Counter Corps stepped into the portal, ready to face the Pathways to the Door of Origin.

 

 

The White Room

 

Sora. Kairi. Roxas. Xion. Eria. Gagagigo. MachGaogamon. Kree’arra. Zilyana. All of them had opened the door to the Pathway of Death without a second thought. For Arthur Ancyl, though, it wasn’t so simple. The Pathway of Truth wouldn’t have scared him if it wasn’t for the fact that he was torn between the other two doors. Death and Remembrance. He should have just reached for Death, but the door for Remembrance loomed over him.

 

He was promised he would see the image of a child on the door. What he didn’t expect was that the symbol for the child would be cut apart at the neck and the waist.

 

Arthur knew his mistake the moment he made it, and kept his promise to follow those who chose the Pathway of Death.

[Maeriberii Haan]

 

-=Komeiji Koishi=-

 

No one could really understand about what Koishi Komeiji was intent on doing right now, or what was actually going on her mind. Just before she entered the dark towering structure in front of her, she suddenly turned around and dashed, and didn’t even bother to use her tentacles anymore as she flew around freely in the dark pathway, ignoring pretty much anything else that was going around her.

 

Not long after, however, she stopped, and landed back on the wider part of the pathway, finding a rock to rest her head into, and went to sleep. But for some odd reasons, for a split second, one could see that she looked completely worried, or afraid of something, before she immediately shifted back to a more peaceful expression.

 

-=B5 Death=-

 

 

[spoiler=Closed Eyes of Love]

 

 

“I see it now.

 

That voice back then, it was you, wasn’t it?”

 

For once after a long while, a faint smile formed on Yukari’s face. The fact that Koishi from all people that saved her from her breakdown was quite amusing, to say the least. She did suspect that the voice belonged to Koishi, but without any sort of lead, and because of her mind was soon occupied by something else, she didn’t think much about it later. Still, she was grateful, and now with her believing that it was Koishi that saved her, she was determined to at least offer her some of her assistance as a token of gratitude, if only for a bit.

 

When the dust settled after the dome shattered, Yukari could not find any signs of Koishi amidst the rubbles.  But there was appearently a gigantic rose-like structure in the middle of the rubbles. Of course, Yukari realized that the rose would definitely have something to do with Koishi’s whereabouts, what with all of her rose motifs and the fact that the entire labyrinth consisted of rose thorns forming the walls. As she went closer to the giant rose, she could feel Koishi’s presence more and more behind the petals, and she became more and more determined to reach her. She turned the petals away one by one, and behind all of those, a locked door was revealed to be placed at the center of the structure.

 

“I’m sorry if I’m a little bit too rough, but-!”

 

Noticing that the door was locked, Yukari pulled her recently-picked timewarp rifle from her gap, and started firing it at the door. One shot dented the lock, the next broke it, the third shot blasted a hole on the door, and the fourth shot obliterated the door, while somehow creating an explosion.

 

“…Okay, did I hit something?

 

Oh well.”

 

Casting her curiosity aside, Yukari thus entered where the door used to be located, into the red room beyond it.

 

 

How long had it been anyway?

 

Koishi thought about how many years had passed since she locked her heart away from the terrible world around her.

 

A decade?

 

A century?

 

The passage of time held little to no meaning inside the hidden chamber of her locked-away heart. For the most part, she spent her time talking with herself, or her sister. She visited her there often, somehow, and Koishi was always pretty ecstatic whenever she came to her.

 

The time of her visit is near, though, Koishi doubted that she would be able to come. After all, Gensokyo was doomed. All thanks to her.

 

As everything went into the deepest end of the sanity well, Koishi just watched on the sidelines, not even trying to help the situation despite Yukari’s pleas to her. And she believed that not only that, but she was also the cause of why everyone turned insane. She believed that her power went out of control during her fight against Flandre, and from some of Yukari’s remarks, Koishi concluded that the situation became even worse when she broke free from the prison her sister tried to keep her in after the mess she had caused.

 

“Koishi..?

 

Are you there?”

 

Her epiphany was broken when a voice called out towards her. At first, she thought that Yukari had arrived, but much to her surprise and delight, it was instead her sister, Satori Komeiji, that called her. She was there, in front of the still closed door to her room, which Koishi assume her sister had closed before she realized her presence.

 

“Sis! I thought you were..you were...!”

 

Koishi ran towards her sister, and hugged her as tightly as she could, while tears of happiness started to flow from her eyes. Satori, who was at first surprised by the sudden embrace, soon loosened up and hugged her back without uttering a word.

 

Koishi couldn’t hold back her emotions anymore. The fact that her sister was still there when she thought she had perished almost felt like a dream for her. She cried and cried happily as she shared the warm, loving embrace with her sister.

 

It lasted for several minutes before Koishi let go of her sister and wiped the tear off her face, while trying to regain some semblance of composure on herself, not wanting to be seen as childish by her.

 

“Sister, how are you?”

 

“I’m fine, I think. World’s end is somewhat annoying, but well, at least I survived.

 

How about you? You didn’t get into any mess when I’m away, right?”

 

Hearing that, Koishi went silent for several seconds. She wondered about whether her sister would know already about the actual cause of the whole incident, which was her. As she went silent, Satori looked at her with a puzzled face, still waiting for an answer. In the end, Koishi decided that it wouldn’t be good for her to just mention it.

 

“I’m also fine, yep. Nothing of concern bothered me at all right now.

 

Hey sis, guess what? Yukari’s going to visit today! But I’m not sure about when she’ll arrive. Also I heard she’s in a grumpy streak as of late, so don’t read her mind in front of her face, please?”

 

“Yukari? What is she doing here anyway?

 

...I guess. I’ll try not to blurt out what I read from her mind, just for you, Koishi.”

 

“Sweet! Thank you, sister!”

 

Just as Koishi said her gratitude to her sister, the locked door of her room exploded.

 

 

~BGM: The Last Remote~

 

From behind the explosion, Yukari walked into the room, and Koishi immediately noticed that she was suffering from some grievous injuries that even made her wince for a bit. But oddly, Yukari didn’t seem to mind much about those injuries that Koishi guessed would have been caused by the self-defense mechanism of her mind. The expression on her face was not exactly clearly definable aside from the signs of tiredness. Koishi turned to look at her sister for a bit, and she was watching over Yukari worriedly, as if something wrong could happen at any time with her there. And to be honest, Koishi was worried too.

 

“Koishi.

 

Please don’t hide things from me anymore. I am tired of everyone plotting behind my back, and Gensokyo had been ruined thanks to this. If you could, just…tell me everything.

 

Tell me what you know.”

 

Koishi was about to open her voice and started talking, but then, she realized that she was not still sure about what she would say. Would she say anything regarding her whole mess up in Gensokyo? Or would she just mention about her plan? She anxiously looked at her sister as Yukari waited for an answer. Satori’s seemed to understand the problem that Koishi had, but she only smiled back at her, not saying anything. Koishi took it as her sister signaling that she could handle this, and should just let things flow. Gathering her courage, Koishi then started to speak.

 

“I…the reason why I asked for your forgiveness was because...

 

because...I doomed Gensokyo.

 

I..the end of Gensokyo was-”

 

“Pardon? What did you-”

 

“…I’m sorry!

 

I didn’t mean to, but the madness, everything, it was all my fault!

 

I don’t know, I’m just…I was just…I-“

 

Koishi started to sob uncontrollably as Yukari stared at her, not displaying any emotions. Satori’s expression suddenly changed from her standard stoicness into fully panicking as she got a glimpse of what was inside Yukari’s heart now, and she immediately ran straight at Koishi as Yukari drew a blade from one of her gaps.

 

“You…

 

That’s it. Why should I even try listening to you in the first place, you monster?!”

 

Time itself felt like it was frozen as Koishi heard Yukari said those words aimed to her. Those struck Koishi deep in her heart, even after she had known that this could have happened when she talked about the topic. Koishi knew very well that Yukari had every single reason on the world to be angry at her thanks to this, but her previous demeanor gave her the impression that Yukari this time was willing to listen to her and cooperate. Koishi tried to read her heart again, and much to her shock, any signs of consideration inside were gone, replaced with pure, seething hatred towards her. As Yukari pointed her sword at her, several gaps formed around Koishi, the eyes inside of them all stared straight at her, as if they were accusing her of something

 

“Yu…ka..ri?”

 

“Go to hell.”

 

Her question was only met with a barrage of lasers emerging from the gaps, aimed straight to kill her. She still managed to erect a barrier using her tentacles to shield herself just in time despite being caught off guard, but without warnings, Yukari suddenly appeared behind her, and before a second passed, a quick strike resulted in Koishi’s head rolling on the floor.

 

“Tch, serve you right.”

 

Several tentacles suddenly emerged from the floor and attempted to strangle Yukari. Meanwhile, another set of tentacles grabbed Koishi’s head and placed it back on her motionless body as Yukari was still held back by the tentacles.

 

“Why?

 

Yukari, why do you…

Please…let me continue-”

 

“Like hell I would do that, you monster!”

 

And that was when Koishi finally realized about the futility of her attempts to reach out to others. No matter what she did, she would only be seen as a monster, as an abomination by others. Yukari’s utter hatred towards her now was the final nail in the coffin for that judgment.

 

Yukari, which managed to break free from the tentacles by using her gaps as a cutting tool, was now visibly preparing for another barrage. But unlike before, this time Koishi had decided to fight back, and now she focused her attention towards what Yukari was currently thinking, ignoring all the hatred and negative emotions she exuded. Immediately as Yukari started to bombard her again with her beams, Koishi had prepared for it, and what would happen afterwards. While she seemed to try her previous action of shielding herself from the barrage with her tentacles, this time Koishi knew that Yukari would stage a surprise attack like before, and where she would appear. Meanwhile, Satori watched over the two from the sidelines, visibly worried about Koishi’s safety, but ultimately deciding that she shouldn’t interfere for now.

 

As soon as Yukari emerged from her gap, she was already surrounded by rose thorns and petals, binding her movement before exploding on the next second. When the area of explosion settled down, Koishi looked over to see whether her attack worked or not, and she didn’t manage to find any traces of Yukari for now.

 

Probably she just escaped somewhere, Koishi thought as she prepared herself to combat Yukari again.

 

 

~BGM: Hartmann's Youkai Girl O-Life ver.~

 

Despite her earlier eagerness to meet Koishi, Yukari’s feeling was already not well as soon as she entered the room behind the blasted door, though at first she just ignored those in order to be able to talk openly with Koishi. At the very least, from what did Koishi said, she might have some sort of plan or anything, really. At this point, Yukari would be willing to listen to anything if that would help her current condition.

 

“Ahahahah….

 

Why, Yukari?

 

Why?”

 

And in front of her, Koishi stood, cackling madly, but a tone of sadness was obviously present behind all that. It was something different than the last time she confronted her, as this time, it seemed like Koishi had completely lost it for some reason. She was not the borderline sociopathic little girl Yukari faced before, she was not the voice that saved her from despair.

 

“Koishi!

It’s me, Yukari! I’ve came here just like you wanted me to!

 

You want to tell me about something, right?"

 

Koishi didn’t seem to hear nor care about Yukari’s pleas, and continued to cackle madly. Her eyes twitched as she turned her head to properly stare at Yukari. Anticipating an attack, Yukari generated several gaps around her, and started to plan on how she should handle the situation.

 

“Time is coming to an end

Everything is far too late.

My blood drenched words stick and

 

Dry against my throat, as I’m unable to breathe”

 

Her words became less and less comprehensible as time went on. And then, without warnings, Koishi’s tentacles emerged from the ground, and immediately lunged straight at Yukari, aiming to dismember her limbs. Pulling a sword from one of her gaps, Yukari sliced off the incoming tentacles, before firing a barrage of lasers towards Koishi, who managed to predictably block the attack using her tentacles. Yukari already expected it though, and as Koishi’s vision was obstructed by the tentacles and spectacles, Yukari teleported to her back, and before she could react to her presence, Yukari decapitated Koishi with a single stroke.

 

"..."

 

Yukari did know from last time that merely decapitating her would not be enough, but she still had no idea on what was Koishi’s actual weak point. And another factor would be that she had no desire to kill her, as she would need all helps that she could muster at this point.

 

Suddenly, a wave of tentacles emerged from beneath her, and managed to wrap around Yukari’s limbs as she saw another set of tentacles placed Koishi’s head back at her body.

 

“If only it were a lie, if only nothing had ever begun

 

Please, please… Give it back!!”

 

And now Yukari could notice that one of Koishi’s eyes was of a different color than before. A bloodshot red on a black sclera, staring straight at her. Just as some of the tentacles attempted to decapitate her, Yukari summoned some of her gaps on them, and immediately erased the gaps, cutting the tentacles away and freeing herself from their grasp. Taking the risk once again, she prepared a similar setup with her barrage before as Koishi’s tentacles tried to spear her from all directions. She managed to retreat to her gap moments before she was turned into a bloody mush by the tentacles, but not before she managed to fire off her own barrage at Koishi.

 

Inside her gap, she immediately realized that Koishi could very well expect the same assault as before and plan accordingly, and thus she immediately changed her plan. Emerging from her gap, she was soon surrounded and bound by rose thorns and petals, which soon exploded.

 

Expecting the explosion, Yukari quickly retreated back to her gap just as the roses started to explode, avoiding the brunt of the blast, though it did manage to sing her by quite a bit all over her body. She decided to wait inside the gap for the time being as she was still pretty cautious, and hoping that Koishi would lower her guard for once.

 

Every single bit of her change in attitude still felt absolutely jarring by Yukari. One couldn’t simply shift from being nice and honestly apologetic into being a complete lunatic within minutes. Something must’ve happened inside of her. But Yukari decided to not bother about finding the cause for now, and focus more on how to neutralize Koishi without getting herself brutally maimed or killed.

 

She decided to make a distance between herself and Koishi, and emerged on the furthest corner of the surprisingly large room, away from her. Yukari realized that the design for the room was almost exactly similar to the room she battled Koishi last time, and while it started to almost make her worry again, her vehement denial of it having anything of importance overwhelmed that feeling for now.

 

“Unable to protect my heart filled with love

Unable to open my eyes, I was killed; My heart is dead.

 

There is no more to this dream laid to rest"

 

Somehow, Koishi appeared behind Yukari just as she was still contemplating about the state of the room, and immediately surrounded her with a chain of giant roses, before disappearing again. Yukari once again was forced to retreat back to her gap as the roses exploded once again, this time creating a bigger explosion than before.

 

Koishi’s sudden emergence did manage to surprise Yukari, but she decided to chalk it down to her being distracted too much by her thoughts for now. She emerged once again on the other side of the room, this time trying to be vigilant as much as she could to not be caught off-guard by Koishi again.

 

“No matter how harsh and painful the road, one day I will forget

But my heart cries and weeps.

 

if only we had never met."

 

Once again, gigantic roses bloomed around Yukari, but before Koishi could disappear again, Yukari held instinctively her tight, which forced her to call off the explosion. She immediately responded with summoning her tentacles to try stabbing Yukari, but Yukari immediately blasted her across the room with an energy ball from her hand.

 

“Koishi, please-“

 

“Stop? You want me to stop?”

 

Hearing it, Koishi laughed hysterically. Yukari readied her stance in the meantime, expecting an onslaught to happen anytime soon.

 

“Hello, my name is Koishi Komeiji.”

 

Several wall of thorns emerged around Yukari, and those immediately tried to crush her between them, but Yukari managed to retreat just in time, before appearing behind Koishi.

 

“You have betrayed me.”

 

Thorned stakes sprouted from the floor, and if it was not for Yukari creating a barrier that managed to annihilate them, she would have been brutally impaled by those. She still suffered some injuries from ones that emerged before she was able to respond, and she was forced to retreat somewhat, without managing to strike Koishi.

 

“Prepare to die~”

 

With a completely unfitting cheerful tone, Koishi lunged straight at Yukari, grabbing her on her exposed spine, before thorny stakes and roses emerged from her hand as she attempted to kill Yukari by internal impalement and explosion. Before she could do that, Yukari kicked her hard on her chest, which managed to shake her away from her, at least for now, but the attack itself only dazed Koishi for a split second.

 

Yukari, believing that she had seen all of Koishi’s base tricks to start actually formulating something that could work, was completely taken by surprise when an octagram appeared in front of Koishi.

 

“I still have more tricks to show you~"

 

"What?"

 

"RECOLLECTION!”

 

The octagram soon expand into a proper magic circle, and started to suck in the energy from around it into the center of the circle. At first, Yukari expected it to just be some sort of rehash of her previous tactics, so she decided to simply erect several layers of barriers around her.

 

Big mistake.

 

“MAGICANNON: FINAL SPARK!”

 

It was a power that penetrated the sky, and cleared the clouds. A power that shot the moon, and pierced the stars, a power that dyed the world in its light, a power that couldn’t be stopped by anyone.

 

A sun was born.

 

A bright light, brighter than the moon and the sun was fired from the magic circle. The light travelled, destroying everything in its path without bending or stopping.

 

It was the strongest light, the final spark.

 

And Yukari was on the receiving end of it.

 

Despite all of her barriers protecting her, the light smashed through them without any problem, and proceeded to blast Yukari into the wall, which gave in soon afterwards as the light continued to drive Yukari into the thorn walls of the labyrinth, pushing her further and further away from Koishi as she slowly disappeared into the light.

 

 

The light’s intensity began to rapidly decrease after a while for an unknown reason, and Yukari managed to land safely in the labyrinth thanks to the fact. It seemed like even Koishi couldn’t maintain it for too long.

 

But the attack finally gave Yukari the answer of why did Koishi manage to keep predicting her every move, and she cursed herself several times for not figuring this out earlier.

 

Of course, Koishi was using her mind-reading ability all this time, since inside this place; her heart was still fully open. The ‘recollection’ was exactly the same thing with what her sister used as far as Yukari could remember. Though, thankfully, she copied the non-lethal version that Marisa used, instead of improvising it a bit so that it was actually able to kill her, which it would have done to Yukari if only it was set as lethal.

 

“And now, I need to think on how the hell I can make that a non-factor at best.”

 

Easier said than done, Yukari knew it. While Koishi right now was far from being composed enough to properly fight at the fullest of her capability, her sheer power more than made up for that fact. And from what Yukari had seen, Koishi seemingly could adapt well to the battle so far since she’s actually in control of her actions, which could very well be fatal for Yukari if she kept on playing around for too long. Not to mention, she herself was far from being fit, and despite her attempts to ignore those, her wounds and the big hole in her chest started to hurt like hell. It was definitely a far harder battle compared to her last encounter with her when her third eye was closed.

 

Third eye…

Closed…

“…That’s it!”

 

As she was reminded about Koishi’s closed third eye, Yukari soon remembered the nigh-impenetrable barrier that sealed Koishi’s mind from the outside world. She could try doing roughly the same thing to avoid having Koishi to read her. With that in her mind, Yukari casted a conceptual barrier around her, before gapping herself back into Koishi’s room.

 

 

The copied spell card drained most of Koishi’s strength, and as a result she was forced to stay still for a while, not even having the strength or desire to hunt down Yukari that she had just blasted out of the room. Seeing her sister at that condition, Satori ran towards her, now barely crying as she saw her sister struggling to even get back up.

 

“Koishi!”

 

“Ah…sister, I’m sorry for being too weak and making you worry like this.”

 

“Hey, what do you mean by that? Don’t say anything like that, Koishi!”

 

“…Sorry then, I promise I won’t say that again.”

 

With the help of Satori, Koishi leaned towards the remains of a pillar near her, resting after the devastating attack. The sheer hatred towards her that Yukari displayed during the fight still shocked her. It still felt completely off for her to have that kind of sudden change in a matter of seconds, unless she had lied all that time. Thinking about that made Koishi sick. She couldn’t imagine someone would be that horrible to pull something like that. While she definitely still had hopes that Yukari would end up listening to her, she realized that it was too unrealistic, since Yukari definitely aimed all this time to kill her off ruthlessly. She was really on her own right now, with only her sister being able to support her, and there was no point at all in opening her heart for others once again.

There’s no need to get hurt, there’s no need to get betrayed once again.

 

“Sis, please don’t leave me ever again, okay?”

 

"I won't, Koishi. I won't."

 

 

Koishi waited for Yukari for quite a long time already, and that long period of time without her made her suspicious. What’s more concerning to her was that even as she expanded her third eye’s focus to the whole labyrinth, Koishi could not even find Yukari anywhere. Koishi thought that would probably mean that Yukari had been killed by the blast, or just escaped from the place, especially since even inside of her gap, Koishi could still feel her heart. Sighing in relief, Koishi decided to start reconstructing her mental barrier and labyrinth.

 

“Koishi, watch out!”

 

Her sister’s warning snapped her back to her current position. At first, she wondered about what Satori warned her about, until she turned around to see Yukari was already behind her without her even noticing it.

                          

~BGM: Dark Prison Ver.OG DP~

                                                                                                         

“Getting too confident, aren’t you?

Wormhole Smasher!”

 

Several gaps suddenly surrounded her, and from them, array of lights were fired repeatedly at her, some at borderline point-blank range. This really made it hard for her to dodge the fire, and once again, she resorted to creating a protective sphere using her tentacles. When she felt the bombardment had ceased, she disengaged the sphere, only to find Yukari was nowhere to be seen.

 

The sudden appearance of Yukari shocked her, but it was soon became the least of her concerns when she realized that she still couldn’t sense Yukari’s heart even with her being right there before, that close to her.

 

"Did you really…?"

 

She soon realized on what actually Yukari did to avoid having her heart read by Koishi, much to her horror.

 

“Yukari!

 

You…

 

Why did you close your own heart just to get a chance in killing me?”

 

Yukari just snickered hearing Koishi being shocked by the fact.

 

“Because, why not? We are different, Komeiji Koishi.”

 

Yukari summoned yet several other sets of gaps, but this time, those are focused around her hands. She proceeded to mash the gaps into one, creating a sphere of nothingness floating in front of her.

 

“And right here, right now, I shall prove it.

 

Black Hole Cluster!”

 

The floor around Yukari started to crack as the sphere’s gravitational force became stronger and stronger, and then she fired it at Koishi before it could harm herself. Koishi realized that a direct impact would annihilate her immediately, and blocking it would only be an exercise in futility as it would only make her annihilation by the attack guaranteed. Even she doubted that she could normally dodge it due to the strong pull of the sphere. There was a way though, which Koishi realized as the sphere came closer towards her and started to crush her with its force.

 

Koishi smiled as her body was slowly breaking away due to the gravitational force of the sphere. A card appeared before her, and she immediately crushed it, forming a magic circle that surrounded her body.

 

~BGM: All This Time~

 

“Yukari...It's time for us to dance.

 

Heart of the Hated Person: Pariah’s Philosophy!”

 

As the attack was declared, the sphere impacted her position, creating a huge crater before collapsing. Satori immediately rushed to the crater, desperately hoping that somehow Koishi survived, while Yukari just snickered at the sight. But on the next second, Koishi appeared right behind Yukari, and promptly disintegrated again into roses as Yukari realized her presence and tried to attack her.

 

“Tch, what a coward.

 

So this is why you ran away from other’s feeling? Because you are a coward?

What a pathetic monster you are.”

 

Koishi didn’t seem to listen to Yukari’s insult towards her anymore, and instead, she closed her eye, and just like she was dancing, she appeared randomly around the room, faded her own existence whenever Yukari tried to attack her, while creating trails of bullets as she moved. The bullets soon blossomed into roses of multiple colors, which true to Koishi’s fashion, exploded soon afterwards.

 

At first, the offensive side of the attack was miniscule at best, as the trail appeared randomly and could easily be dodged by Yukari whenever it’s too close with her. But then, as more and more trails appeared, Yukari was slowly losing space to move without getting hit by the exploding roses. Even attempting to fly or gap herself away wouldn’t work, as even the airspace of the room was covered with the trails.

 

“Ugh…

You damn pretentious brat!”

 

Yukari’s was visibly annoyed right now. In disgust and frustration, she raised one of her hands, and soon afterwards the entirety of the chamber was seemingly surrounded by a sphere of energy.

 

“Pinnacle of Bullet Hell: Danmaku Bounded Field!”

 

Yukari didn’t even seem to care about getting hit by her own attack, as Koishi saw it. The entirety of the space inside the sphere was then showered by countless bullets of varying shapes and size, all fired randomly to all directions. The bullets ended up triggering most of Koishi’s roses, and the resulting explosion prematurely ended both Spell Cards as the two combatants couldn’t spare more of their energy to maintain them.

 

“Just…stop it, Yukari.

 

I beg you, please!

 

Stop it!”

 

For one last time, Koishi gave her pleas to Yukari, hoping that she would bother listening to her with both of them being too drained to continue.

 

 

I can’t make my tears fall, I can't even give a stiff smile.

 

“Koishi, let’s just stop.

 

I don’t want either of us to die, so please, cut off this nonsense and then so that then we can talk with each other with peace.

 

You don’t want to be lonely, right?”

 

Despite her attempts to make her voice reach Koishi, Koishi didn’t even react to her at all. It was as if her voice was swallowed by a void in the sky.

 

The two of them were now barely standing, facing off against each other in what was left from Koishi’s chamber of secrets. Neither of them was really in a condition to continue fighting at that point, with Yukari’s major injuries starting to take its heavy toll on her, and even Koishi, who was far more durable than she was, was definitely too drained to pull something like before.

 

In the middle of thinking on how could she attempt to reach out to Koishi, Yukari then realized the barrier she put around her heart, and how that might somehow had an effect towards her unsuccessful contacts with Koishi. So, she removed the barrier and took a risk of being completely read by Koishi, and tried to once again talk to her. At this point, Yukari thought that she had nothing to hide from Koishi after all.

 

“Hey…Koishi.

 

You were that voice from back then, right?

The one that kept me from giving up?

 

I…I want to hear that voice again, from you.

 

The voice of Koishi that loved others, that loved the world.

 

The voice of Koishi that redeemed me.

 

May I hear it once more from you?”

 

At first, Koishi didn’t make any noticeable response towards her. Yukari sighed, realizing that her effort was for naught. But then, a smile formed on Koishi’s face, and much to Yukari’s surprise, two portals appeared just besides her.

 

If all the sins I birthed could be forgiven

Then my heart in love might sublimate and finally rest

 

Two figures stepped out of the portals, staring weakly at Yukari. The figures were Ran and Chen, her dead shikigami, with their hands tied, and with an oversized belly with a huge sewn mark visible. A fuse stretched from the insides of the belly towards an unknown point in the room. This was how they died before, and what she had been fearing to see since all the callbacks to the time of her 'death' happened.

 

“..."

 

“Yukari…please don’t come any closer.

 

I beg you. Save yourself. Get away from us!”

 

“Ran, Chen…I...”

 

Yukari turned her attention towards Koishi, feeling as if she was completely betrayed by her. This was it, this was her breaking point. Koishi had crossed the line, and she would pay dearly for it.

 

“It’s simple, Yukari.

 

I have read your memories from the time you entered this labyrinth.

The rabbits, the wound in your chest, this room.

All was taken from your memories.

 

I never actually intended to use –these- memories against you, but you really forced me to.”

 

“Koishi…you rotten..!”

 

“Bye bye~

 

Recollection: Shikigami Bomb!”

 

Tentacles appeared from below Ran and Chen, and pushed them towards Yukari, so that she couldn’t get any time to escape. As the tentacles tied the three as close as possible together, the fuses were lit, and slowly travelled to the bombs.

 

And then, everything returns to white.

 

 

~BGM: Lonely Monster in Desolation~

 

“Sis…?”

 

At the aftermath of the explosion, Koishi was lying down on the ground, staring blankly at the dark void above her now-devastated room. Despite knowing that she did manage to defeat Yukari, the victory felt completely hollow for her, for a reason she couldn’t explain.

 

She didn’t even have any idea about what exactly happened. She only recalled seeing a glimpse of Yukari’s heart once again after it was closed off by her during this battle, and then…she didn’t remember anything else.

 

“Sis, I did good, right?”

 

Satori didn’t answer her this time.

 

“Sis, don’t tease me like that.”

 

She was gone.

 

“Sis…?”

 

Worrying about her sister’s condition after the blast, Koishi rose from her position, and tried her best to move around to look after her, despite limping and completely drained of her energy. The room was completely wrecked by the explosion, and Koishi started to fear that Satori might have perished in the explosion. She frantically tried to move herself around using her tentacles, but despite all of that, she could not find her at all.

 

“Where do you think you are going?”

 

Koishi turned around, and saw Yukari was already behind her, apparently was not hurt by the explosion at all. She stared coldly at Koishi, not showing any actual emotions on her face, but beneath that stare, Koishi could really feel her seething hatred towards her.

 

“Y..Yukari..

I..I-“

 

“Stop looking at other’s heart, you monster!”

 

“But I can’t-”

 

“Then just die.”

 

Before Yukari started attacking her, Koishi panicked and started to wildly attack her using her tentacles, but Yukari just blasted the tentacles away without much effort. She walked closer and closer towards the frantic Koishi, who realized that at this point, she could not do anything else to her. With a flick of Yukari’s fingers, gaps appeared on Koishi’s limbs, swallowing them inside before disappearing into thin air, cutting the limbs in the process.

 

“It hurts…

 

Yukari, it hurts!

 

Why...?”

 

She remembered about this. It was exactly similar with her last battle against Yukari back then. As she brought in more and more details from that time to now, ending the battle with how she was defeated would really be the only possible ending for her now.

 

“…Yukari…”

 

“This is your end, Komeiji Koishi.

I will make sure that you won’t survive this time.”

 

“No…!

 

I…I don’t want to die!

 

I want to live!

I want to see my sister again…so please!

 

...Please...”

 

Koishi’s desperate pleas did not even faze Yukari by a bit as she opened up a gap that swallowed Koishi’s head inside it..

 

“Why...”

 

One closed gap later, and Koishi’s head was no more.

 

 

 

 

“There’s no light at the bottom of the abyss, and no matter how hard you try, you would still be swallowed by the darkness.

 

You have fallen too deep, Koishi.”

 

Yukari kept staring at what was left of Koishi’s body, still pretty much aware that she was still alive. Her suspicion proved to be correct several seconds later, as the body twitched by a bit, as if it tried to move and get away from her.

 

“This shouldn’t have even happened, Koishi.

If only you did not cross that boundary…”

 

In response to the slight movement, Yukari pulled out a sword from her gap, and recited a spell as Koishi’s body tried to get as far away as possible from her.

 

“Resent me if you must, Koishi.

But I will still end your suffering.”

 

Using every last ounces of her strength that was still left, Yukari lunged forward at Koishi at an incredible speed, and didn’t waste any time to start slashing wildly at Koishi’s body, aiming to completely remove any chance for her to be alive after the onslaught.

 

But, even after all that, the minced remains of Koishi still managed to piece themselves back into one, and once again tried to escape from Yukari’s range. Sighing, the youkai of boundaries gapped herself right in front of Koishi. Her sword was pointed straight at the barely-alive satori, and from its blade, the eyes from inside of Yukari’s gap was reflected.

 

“Perish like a dream!

 

End of Eternity: The Boundary of the Void!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

-=Yukari Yakumo=-

 

At the depth of the darkness on the Pathway of Death, Yukari woke up from what was seemingly to be eternity for her. Faint sounds could be heard from all around her, just like how it was in the labyrinth inside-

 

“…”

 

Yukari summoned a small light orb and used the faint light it provided to see her current condition. She was apparently still on Koishi’s body, though, she couldn’t feel her presence at all, and the third eye organ-thing had disappeared from the body. Not far from her, she noticed Koishi’s tentacles and the third eye, shriveled like a husk. Shaking her head at how Koishi ended, Yukari then decided to get up and continue walking in this unknown plane of existence.

 

…Until she realized that the tentacles were the only thing that kept her head and limbs attached to Koishi’s body, and due to it, she decided to just hold them together using a small barrier, while waiting for her regeneration to kick in. Figuring out that she could use her train to not strain her body too much, she tried to open her gap and pull it over to her.

 

Nope, nothing.

 

Yukari was surprised that she couldn’t use her gap anymore, especially since Koishi managed to do that just fine when she was the one in control not really that long ago. She tried to do it several times again, but in the end, she still didn’t manage to open even the smallest of her gaps. While at first she was understandably frustrated, she shrugged it not long after that, and chalked it to the fact that her head hadn’t become fully in synch with Koishi’s body.

 

Before she left the place, Yukari decided to take one final look to what remained from Koishi, before shifting her sight away, and continuing to finish the pathway.

 

“Goodbye, Koishi.

 

Sorry for not saying this earlier, but...

 

Thank you.

 

If only we could stand together as an ally…”

 

-=B5 Death=-

 

 

-=Tenshi=-

 

“Have a nice death, me.”

 

The name of the attack rang a bell inside of Tenco’s mind, but she couldn’t really remember about the exact nature of it. All that she knew was that she must immediately move out of the way as Tenshi’s sword starting to charge up for it. Seeing her desperately trying to get out of range, Tenshi just smiled and shifted her aim following Tenco.

 

Without any warnings whatsoever, something stabbed her in her left eye as she was about to fire the attack, and her attack whiffed while she screamed in pain.

 

“You! You’ll pay for this!”

 

Meanwhile, Tenco sighed as she summoned another sword to her hand. She had thrown one of her conceptual blades straight into Tenshi’s eye, using the fact that Tenshi’s always tried to keep facing into the same direction as the tip of her blade. Though, she didn’t really expect it to hit her eye, and more as a way to make her lose her concentration so she would miss her shot at her. Tenco knew from her last encounter with her and from what she had seen about Tenshi’s battles that direct combat would be useless.

 

The sword stabbed in Tenshi’s eye shattered when Tenco summoned another one, leaving a bloody, red hole in where Tenshi’s eye should be. Though, with Tenshi being a celestial, the sword itself only manage to damage her eye, and everything else was mostly fine, aside from her pride.

 

“Die!”

 
She slammed her sword into the ground in anger, and the ground responded by generating hundreds of stone stakes, all which could skewer Tenco easily. Without any way she could defend herself for it, Tenco ran away as the stakes kept on emerging from the ground, chasing herself. Seeing Tenco running around desperately trying to avoid getting skewered, Tenshi pulled her sword from the ground, and dashed straight at Tenco, aiming to finish her in one strike.

Though, without the sword being planted on the ground, the stakes stopped generating, and realizing the fact, Tenco managed to get herself prepared for Tenshi’s attacks at her. Parrying it would be useless, as her attacks were backed up by such a strong force that would only break her arm and sword if she tried to block it in any way. So instead of doing that, Tenco agilely dodged her attacks one by one, while trying to find an opening for her to attack. It was made easier by the fact that she had lost one eye, which reduced her accuracy immensely.

 

“Die, die, die!”

 

“Why would I do that!

 

Fireball!”

 

A small ball of fire bursted from Tenco’s palm, hitting Tenshi’s straight in her abdomen, though it didn’t leave anything in its wake. Gritting her teeth, Tenco dodged further assaults coming at her from the Tenshi, who was even more rabid than before. Despite the increased force behind her attacks, Tenco could actually feel that it became less and less organized and she was more swinging her sword wildly at her direction, making dodging her attacks easier for her. She once again prepared to fire off another attack at her, hoping that she could figure out on how to reliably dent the celestial.

 

“No one is going to stop me in becoming the hero that everyone deserved!

 

Not even you, me! I’ll reach the Door of Origin, and I will fix everything up! Just like everyone wanted it to be!”

 

“Cease this nonsense immediately, Tenshi!

 

What you did is not heroic! You…you are merely deluding yourself at this point! So, stop it, please!”

Tenshi stopped her onslaught after hearing what Tenco said, dropping her sword to the ground as tears started to flow from her right eye. This was not exactly the response that Tenco would expect to see from her.

 

“You have no idea…you have absolutely no idea, me.

 

What I have sacrificed, what others have sacrificed…

 

You don’t…

 

There’s no way in hell I’ll back down after all of that!

 

This is at least what can I do to repay them!

Rock Funnels!”

 

The air around Tenshi itself seemed to be torn apart as several dozens of keystones emerged from all around her. Expecting the rocks to be launched to strike her physically, Tenco braced herself to hopefully be able to dodge or repel the rocks. Still crying angrily, Tenshi directed the keystones to aim at Tenco, who decided to take the moment to create a distance between her and Tenshi.

 

“Fire!”

 

From the tips of the keystones, a barrage of lasers was fired in rapid succession, before the rocks themselves were launched towards Tenco, while still firing at her in the meantime. Caught off-guard by this, Tenco was grazed by some of the initial barrage, and some even scored a direct hit at her, but that was enough to make her start reacting properly to the attack, dodging the incoming lasers and rocks, all while attempting to shorten her distance with Tenshi that was made by herself without getting herself shot down, a mistake that she made. But it didn’t take long before she was slowly surrounded by the keystones, and with the distance between those and her shortening, her chance of dodging any of them became more and more abysmal. She reflexively grabbed the nearest keystone from her, and as it started to fire, Tenco aimed it at the other keystones and bringing them down before she herself destroyed the one she held using her sword.

 

“You…!”

 

“Tenshi, you can’t be a hero this way!”

 

“SHUT UP!”

 

Tenshi summoned her sword back to her hand and lunged straight at Tenco, but at that moment, Tenco had already prepared her flame and ready to cast it. She parried Tenshi’s swing, even though she knew her sword would only break soon from attempting that. But it was enough to buy her enough time to cast her own attack. Tenco raised up her right hand into the sky, as her sword started to shatter from the might of Tenshi’s swing.

 

“This is it!

 

Firestorm!”

 

Moments after her sword broke and Tenshi swung straight at her neck, a pillar of flame knocked her back, and soon afterwards, more and more flame pillars erupted from the ground, scorching Tenshi as Tenco summoned another sword again while preparing for another attack.

 

“You can't stop me like this, me."

 

While the pillars did sing her all over her body, overall, Tenshi was still fine after the attack. But before she had any chance to recover her stance, Tenco dashed towards her, and released several sword strikes in rapid succession at her, all while her sword was wreathed in flame. While normally she would be able to parry the attack with no problem, the fact that she’s blind in one eye and was caught off guard made her have to resort to withstanding the blows directly with her body.

Even with her strengthening her sword this time, Tenco’s blows did not even make a single scratch on Tenshi’s body, and even not long afterwards the sword broke from the repeated impact to the Celestial’s nigh-impenetrable body. Without wasting any seconds, Tenco immediately generated another sword, and kept on pushing for the offensive, not giving any time for Tenshi to recover and launch a counterattack. But not long after, the sword broke again, and Tenco was getting frustrated by that, but she kept on summoning her sword and striking at Tenshi, until at one point, her blows slowed down due to fatigue catching up with her, and Tenshi, noticing the drop in intensity of the attack, used the window to strike Tenco, slashing her diagonally near her chest.

 

Tenco tried to withstand the pain from the wound she suffered by the strike, and thankfully for her, it was not a deep wound. Still, she worried that she could lose her consciousness from blood loss, and the effect of the wound and her fatigue on her reflex and performance in this battle was very well apparent to her. She knew she would need to end this battle soon by either defeating or running away from Tenshi, but she had no idea how. Meanwhile, Tenshi, despite losing an eye, was still in a far better condition compared to her. Trying to continue to fight at this point would be suicidal.

 

But oddly, she was fine about it.

 

She was not sure about why, but the idea of being killed in this battle did not faze or worry her a bit, not even now, even after knowing she would face a fate worse than death by dying here. It was probably because she didn’t think of her own existence highly after all that happened to her and others near her, or probably it was due to something else. Even if that’s the case, Tenco was determined to make that her death here wouldn’t be in vain.

 

And the only thing worth dying for now for Tenco was to stop Tenshi from destroying herself with her deluded ideal.

 

“Tenshi.

 

Listen to me. What you did…

Why can you justify such killings as heroic?

Even with your ideals…there must be another way!”

 

“But there’s no other way!

I need everything I can get, to be as powerful as I can be, to be able to seize the key and…and…

I’ll save everyone and remake the entire world caught in this mess to be a better one, for their sake!”

 

“Tenshi…you…

 

That’s not what a hero would do! What you’re planning to do…isn’t it just what the Madara was trying to achieve?

You can’t decide the fate of others like that! You’re not a god, Tenshi.”

 

“Yeah, I’m no god,” Tenshi closed her eye, while pointing her swords up towards the dark sky above.

“But, that will not stop me. To make everyone happy, I shall crush everything standing in my way! Even a god!”

 

“But you’re missing the point, Tenshi!

 

And what is actually the thing that you wanted the most?

If you wanted to try making everyone to be happy, you can join us instead. We’ll return everything to how it was, just before everything happened!”

 

"I have no desire to. If I follow you, then in the end, nothing would change.

 

We will eternally be stuck in the status quo, without being able to change for the better.

 

I can't let that happen.”

 

A beam of light shot straight up into the dreary sky from Tenshi’s sword, and the sky was lit by a blazing fire. No, it was not fire. Something that closely resembled an aurora replaced the clouds in the sky, covering the sky with a curtain of light. While at first Tenco thought that it would start attacking her, in the end it was merely spreading uncontrollably in the sky, replacing the dark, dreary clouds with a fiery curtain.

 

“I..I don’t want to kill anyone, and I don't want to kill you. But, I need to keep going. I don’t want their death to be meaningless.

 

I...I am the only one that can do this, me. As a hero-”

 

“You…You are not a hero!

 

You’re merely a selfish brat, and that's it!

 

That’s what you are!

 

You are…you are just…

Argh!”

 

What Tenco tried to keep to herself came bursting out, unable to be held off any longer. Anger, contempt, frustration, or was it just the pathway forcing her to spit it out? It didn’t matter to Tenco as she stared Tenshi down, her sword ready in her left hand. She just wanted the entire thing to stop already, even without knowing about any way to do so. The words visibly made an impact in Tenshi, whether it's for the better or worse was left to be seen yet. Lowering her sword, Tenshi smiled at her, even though her eye was completely wet by tears after hearing her harsh words. A moment of silence passed between the two, before she wiped off the tears from her right eye and returning to a more neutral expression as she pointed her sword again at Tenco.

 

“Maybe I am, Maybe I am just a selfish brat after all.”

 

Yes, you might be right.

 

I am far from a hero right now. And even if I restore things using the Door, everyone would probably still not see me as a hero.

 

I am just, as you said, a selfish brat.

 

But I want to change. I want to prove that I can change.

 

I have a dream.

 

I have something to live for.

 

I have something to pursue now, something that I think is noble enough for me to fight and die for."

 

“Tenshi...you've really lost it, haven't you? ”

 

Tenshi didn’t answer her rhetorical question, and instead, as the ground around her broke and shattered, she rose up high into the blazing sky, while red particles started to gather all around her as she did that. Preparing for another incoming onslaught, Tenco braced herself to dodge.

 

“Tenco…

No, I shouldn’t refer you by your fake name.

 

Tenshi Hinanai.

 

This is it, this is the end.

 

Scarlet Weather Rapture!”

 

The aurora seemed to die out and be sucked into Tenshi as she declared her attack, compressing all the scarlet particles and the light from the aurora into the tip of her sword, before releasing a supermassive array of infinitely compressed bullets that was so dense that it looked like it was a stream of massively destructive beam, aimed at Tenco. She crossed her arms in front of her reflexively, but that alone wouldn’t be enough as the area around her was completely bombarded by the light, creating a huge crater in its impact site. Without even checking whether Tenco was still alive or not, she bombarded the area with a seemingly endless stream of sharp-edged keystones, ultimately covering the giant crater with them, not leaving any way for Tenco to survive the attack.

 

She lost her balance immediately after the attack, and as the clouds returned to the dreary sky, she fell straight into the ground below. After checking that there wouldn’t be any other potential attackers in the vicinity, Tenshi decided to see how much she had been wounded by Tenco’s onslaught. Parts of her clothes were tattered from the attacks, and some minor scratches persisted on her body, but aside from her obliterated left eye, which left a red, bloody hole at the place where it used to be. Not wanting it to be used as a weak point, Tenshi ripped a part of her apron and turned it into a makeshift bandage to cover the hole where her eye should’ve been.

“I can change.

 

I will change.

 

I will be a hero.

 

I will definitely not disappoint you, me."

 

Without looking back, Tenshi continued to transverse the pathway, seeking to end it and be closer to the door of Origin.

 

 -=C8 Truth=-

[Kingdom Xathers]

[Pathway of Remembrance]
 
||Alister Azimuth||
"... you just had to say "guarantee", didn't you, Alex...?" Alister fumed to himself.  Indeed, not even 10 seconds upon entering, Ratchet, Alexander and Bayonetta had all separated and left Alister alone.  "For f***'s sakes... and why couldn't you have gotten lost, too?" he added with a glance over at the Zurkon-Wrench.
 
"Because Mr. Zurkon loves you too much," replied the synthenoid in a snarky tone.
 
"F***.  You.  B**CH!!"  Alister quickly got over his frustration with Mr. Zurkon as he heard the sound of snapping twigs and compressed snow, steadily getting closer to his position.  Not wasting any more time, Alister's combat instincts kicked in and charged toward the sound of his approaching intruder, Zurkon-Wrench primed and ready to incapacitate (at the very least) who-or-what-ever it was.  Azimuth thrust forward, the Z-Wrench head clamping around the neck of his "adversary" and pinning them against the side of the nearest tree.  "Alright, then... who are you...?" Alister growled through his teeth as he stared down his target, even as he felt a cold pressure squeezing at his heart and lungs as he recognized the features: a yellow-furred adult male with brown stripes, long ears and a tail, donning a red-and-black suit with a light-blue accent on his chest.  "And you had better tell me quickly," Alister added, feeling almost pained to glare into the bright green eyes of the lombax before him, "because I am not in the mood to have my head screwed around with again."
 
"... wouldn't dream of it, Al.  Even if I am just a construct," replied Kaden, not even making any attempt to break free of the Zurkon-Wrench's grip.
 
"... "construct"...?" Alister repeated, now even more confused than before.  "... s... so, you're not even going to pretend--?"
 
"Well, I'm certainly not going to lie to you, Alister," Kaden responded with a half-hearted smile.  "Not then, and not now...."
 
... ... ... ...
 
"... so, uhh...."
 
"... oh, right," Alister blurted out as he hastily removed the Z-Wrench from Kaden's throat.  "Sorry, Ka... ... Kaden...."  It was difficult for Alister to say his name, especially since the Kaden standing before him wasn't even real, and yet....
 
"... Al?" Kaden uttered, a bit taken aback at seeing tears streaming from Alister's tightly-shut eyes.
 
"I'm... I'm sorry...," Alister sputtered out, sobbing as he dropped to his knees, the Z-Wrench falling beside him.  "I... I can't, I... I don't...."  Head hung in shame, he couldn't even form a complete sentence without a sob or hiccup interjecting.  He couldn't even bring himself to react to Kaden comfortingly wrapping his arms around him....
 
 
 
 
"... now, how do I say this?" Kaden mused moments after Alister had cried out his apologies.  "I'm not really Kaden... but at the same time, I am."
 
"And... that's because of this forest, right?" Alister asked.
 
Kaden nodded.  "I'm the Kaden you remember, basically."
 
"I... see...."
 
"... ... ... ..."
 
"... ... ... ..."
 
"... ... so, wanna talk about anything?"

Alister sighed.  "Where to even begin...."
 
"... are you nervous because I'm a Memory?"
 
"Honestly?  Yes... a little."
 
Kaden shook his head.  "Al, don't even worry about it.  Just... talk with me like you always did."
 
"... ... alright... I'll try...."

 

 

||Bayonetta||

 

 

"You sure we'll be alright separated from the others, Cereza?" Gabriel asked as Bayonetta proceeded onwards through the trees, not appearing the least bit concerned.

 

"You and I will be just fine, Gabriel," Bayonetta replied calmly, removing the lollipop that was in her mouth to speak, "although if you're concerned for our furry feline friends...."

 

"I am, in fact," said Gabriel.  "I feel we should have all stayed together to support one another."

 

"Well, I wouldn't worry too much.  They're all adults (I think...), so they should be perfectly fine by themselves."

 

"If you say so...."

"I know so.  Ratchet, Alex and Alister are all very capable fighters, so if they run into any opposition at all--"

 

"You should be a bit more concerned for yourself, Cereza...."

 

Bayonetta's heart nearly jumped out of her chest at the sound of the voice that spoke to her.  Whirling around to face behind her, Bayonetta's eyes landed upon... "Jeanne?!"

 

Indeed, standing before Bayonetta, clad in skintight red leather with her long white hair blowing slightly in the wind, was Jeanne, alive and well.  Or was it?  "And I see you've brought a few toys to play with," Jeanne added in a slightly haughty tone, taking a glance at Gabriel and Cheshire, both of which were still cradled in Bayonetta's arms.  "Honestly, Cereza, I know you've a thing for stuffed animals, but you didn't have to bring them with you."

 

"... you've got to be kidding me," Bayonetta uttered with an incensed sigh.  "This has to be one of the sickest jokes I've ever...!"  Furiously, Bayonetta aimed one of her handguns at the Jeanne standing before her.  "Let's drop the pretense here.  Tell me who, or what, you are right now before I do like the Americans and bust a cap in your arse!"

 

Despite the obvious threat, Jeanne merely shrugged and sighed.  "I knew you'd react like this, Cereza.  Now, if you'd let me explain...."

[[Gabriel: "'K, let's just fast-forward through this whole explanation: Basically, Jeanne explains to me and Cereza that she is merely a construct created by the forest in response to Cereza's entry, crafted based on her memories and such.  Thus, the Jeanne we were seeing wasn't Jeanne, and yet was her, and blah, blah, blah.  I dunno, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, myself...."]]

 

"... and that's the story here," Jeanne concluded, having successfully pacified Bayonetta enough to get the Witch to lower her weapon.

 

"Good to know," Cereza replied, somewhat relieved that the construct wasn't inherently hostile.  "The boys are most likely meeting with their own friends as we speak, so, again, they should be mostly all right... still," she added, adjusting her glasses, "if you're a duplicate of the real Jeanne... I wonder...."

 

"Hmm?" Jeanne hummed knowingly, one eyebrow raised as a smirk played across her lips.

 

Bayonetta, too, let her mouth curl into a playful smirk.  "I'm wondering...," she spoke calmly as she placed Gabriel and Cheshire down on the ground before drawing her weapons, entering her battle stance, "just how good of a job the forest did in recreating you."

 

Upon hearing this, Jeanne flashed a grin.  "I've been waiting for you to say that," she replied cheerily as she, too, prepared for combat.  "Gabriel, is it?  I suggest you run along with Cheshire now.  The way Cereza and I intend to play, there'll be no need for plushies to be involved. Besides, I'd rather Cereza not get upset at me destroying her favorite toy."

 

"Wha-- but--?"

 

"Gabriel, I'll be all right," Bayonetta reassured him.  "Jeanne and I have done this many times before.  It's just our way of making sure we're both at our best."

 

"I... I see," Gabriel replied, understanding.  "Well, uh... I don't know how to say this, but... Good luck, Cereza."  With that, Gabriel grabbed hold of Cheshire and scurried off to a safe distance (unknowingly and unintentionally getting himself lost in the process)....

(Bayonetta's current Location: B2.  Gabriel currently headed toward D2)

 

 

 

||Alister Azimuth||

 

"HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!  Oh-oh, and that one time with the--"

 

"--the Chimp-O-Matic!  Oh wow, I almost forgot that one--y'know, I never thought the Principal was so musically inclined like that.  Oh! How about that--"

 

"--that one time you and I let those sandmice loose into the locker rooms.  Zackarie Orion would never live down that shriek he let out past graduation.  Served THAT punk right!"  Alister and Kaden had been chatting away for the past few minutes, reminiscing of the (mis)adventures they had together as teenagers.  As he had hoped, Alister had practically gotten over the fact that the Kaden he was conversing with was more-or-less an illusion.  "Heh... good times... ... ... ...."  It wasn't long before Alister began to hang his head again.  "... Kaden, I--"

 

"Alister, I don't blame you for everything that's happened," Kaden responded, knowing full well what plagued Alister's mind.

 

"... but I still feel that I've failed, Kaden," Alister continued, shaking his head in shame.  "I... I was still responsible for our home being destroyed, for so many lives lost... and all because I couldn't see the deception right in front of me... all because I didn't listen to the warnings...."

 

"Al...."

 

Alister merely gave Kaden a weak, sad smile.  "I know you are more than willing to forgive me my transgressions... ... but I fear you're the only one who ever will... well, you and Ratchet, I mean... but, still...."

 

Heaving a sigh, Kaden placed a hand on Alister's shoulder.  "Al... you can't just keeping letting the weight of your sins bear down on you like this.  You have to leave the past in the past, or else you'll be forever bound to it...."

 

"... ... I just... ... don't know...."

 

Kaden gazed pityingly at Alister, trying to think of a way to help his dear friend break free of his torment.  As if to answer this conundrum, Kaden's ears twitched as he somehow sensed something further away.  "Odd...," he uttered silently as he looked off in the direction of whatever disturbance he felt.  "Hmmm... Al?" Kaden spoke up, giving his friend a gentle shake on the shoulder.  "Could you come with me for a moment?  There's something I wish to show you."

"Wha...?  Uh... sure," Alister replied, not sure what Kaden had planned as he led the General by the hand toward another location within the forest, and yet he felt--no, knew, in his heart that he could trust in him to help him out....

 

(Alister's Current Location: Heading toward C3)

[The Warden]

|_)Red, the Arisen(_|
|_)Pathway of Remembrance(_|
 

"Alister" Red said in surprise, moving suddenly off his seating. "Wh-what, how are you here already? The Counter Corps simply wouldn't have made it her so- oh, I see" he added sadly, returning to his rock.

 

He stared sourly into the old general's eyes. "You're another memory. Just another memory" he said sadly, turning away from it to look at some rather interesting bark to hide his own disgust. "Why can't I just forget you? I have told myself so many times that at most it was meaningless. Why can't the memory just... go away?"

 

Alister heaved a sigh, shaking his head pityingly.  "Is the memory of me that painful for you?  You would rather forget the bond we've forged, despite the short time we've spent by each other's side?" Alister asked.  "C'mon, Red.  It's because of that bond that I'm here before you right now."

 

Red paused briefly, to slow think about that. "No, it's not the memory Alister, it's the future. I know full well what this war means. Look at where I am, in the Pathway to Origin. THIS is what we are fighting for; no, what we are fighting for lies at the end. And the end will involve a lot of bloodshed. And I know, as fate is a cruel thing. Eventually, we will have to battle. Either I kill you, or you will have to kill me. There is no nice way to end this. That is what I lament on most" he explained, a feeling of sickness clawing at his stomach.

 

Agreeingly, Alister nodded solemnly.  "I know, Red.  I get that.  Believe me, I don't wish for that to happen anymore than you do.  And when I say that, I mean the real me.  The real Alister sees you as a friend, or at least someone he can sympathize with on a personal level."  Alister took a brief moment to pause, studying Red's expression.  "He doesn't want to kill you.  He may even try to show you mercy, in spite of what's at stake.  The real question, then, is...," Alister added, closing his eyes for a moment, perhaps dreading what the answer may be: "... are you truly that willing to go that far?  To stain your hands in my blood so that your goal will be realized?"

 

Red turned, slowly, but certainly to look into the eyes of "Alister". Though it could not be seen, fire seemed to burn behind his pupils, igniting his yellow eyes. "Yes" he answered slowly. "You, as in, the real you, have the benefit of an unstained soul. You told me full well what you did in life, and it is perfectly justifiable to have your world's best interests at heart; even when it's too good to be true. That is admirable by any standard. But me... just look at me. I spent so many years trying to conquer my world, and what excuses do I even have? I was controlled? I was controlled because of my native lust for power and knowledge. I allowed the Sorcerer into my head. I imprisoned my friends, and tried to kill so many innocents on my fall. And to top it all off, I had to rely on a young whelp to even return to my senses. And it's STILL no excuse for everything. For my long life I have learned many lessons, and one thing I came to learn very quickly is that blood does not wash off. I have done more harm than good, and saving my world from the oblivion it faces still doesn't make up for it. If I must drown myself in the blood of others I will. I don't want those I care about to thank me. I just want them to continue living happily. Deep down, that's what I have always wanted, in whatever twisted form it took. If it should come to it, I will kill the real you. That's what this war is all about. I chose to be a Divine, and I've chosen to remain one. There is very little that will change my mind about that" he declared, his emotions masked even from the memory.

 

"... is that so?"

 

A chill ran down the length of Red's spine as a saddened voice spoke in response to his speech.  Although the voice sounded like Alister's, it did not come from the Memory standing before him.  But... that would mean...!

 

Red craned his head to face the direction where the voice came from; just a few yards away, another Alister came into view from behind another tree, accompanied by another Lombax who looked similar to the young one Red had seen before.  "Wh... what is this...?" Red stammered, baffled at this turn of events.

 

"That," Memory!Alister spoke, "would be the real me, Red...."

 

Red turned back to the memory of Alister, who had mysteriously faded away. "Ho... how are you in the Pathways already? We left you back in that creature's dimension with no way out."

 

Although Alister was at first at a loss for what to say to Red in response to his speech to the Memory, he was somewhat glad to have an excuse to speak when Red asked his question. "Well, you could say that a near-literal Deus Ex Machina came by in time to pick us up.  Honestly, I could go on and on about what happened from the time you left and right now, but... we've a more pressing issue here, Red."

 

"The other me was right," he continued, taking a few paces away from Kaden as he spoke, "I do see you as a friend, Red, and yes, I'll admit, I may very well try to show you as much mercy as I can.  I may very well try my damnedest not to kill you... ... but... you're certainly not making this any easier on me."  He took a brief moment to blink away some moisture that was beginning to blur his vision.  "How can I bring myself to put down one of the few people who ever gave a damn about me?  How can I bring myself to strike down someone I care about?"  By now, Alister's lips were quivering.  "... answer me that!  Please...."

 

Red unleashed a low guttural growl as smoke escaped his lips, clearly a point was necessary here. Standing up at his full height, he pointed his staff right at Alister. A jet of water launched out of it and knocked the general off his feet, leaving him splayed in a chilling puddle. "WAKE UP!" Red roared furiously, an explosion of mania lighting his eyes like the sun. "WAKE UP AND UNDERSTAND! This isn't about our personal relations, or what we mean to each other. This is a war, do you understand? And in a war people die. Mercy simply gives them a chance to strike you down. You think the other Divine or Counter Corps will offer the same mercy you will? You'd have to be daft or soft in the head to believe otherwise. Yes... what we had meant something. But that meaning faded away when you chose the Counter Corps. I have wrestled internally with this for so long, but I feel now what I know in my heart to be right. If I must stain my hands time and again so those I care about remain pure, so be it. I won't let my own selfish desires get in the way of the safety for others. And if I have to sacrifice someone I care about, then so be it again" he roared furiously, slamming his staff into the snow and unleashing a small nebula of electric sparks.

 

As Alister lay dazed on the ground, in the puddle that was quickly freezing around him, a scene flashed through his mind.  A memory.  He was somewhat confused as to whether it was really his, yet at the same time, it frightened and pained him deeply as he wished to block it out of his mind.  It was that scene again, the one that Sayer had tried to use against him before.  The one where he himself, in fury and desperation, had shot at a departing Ratchet, striking the young Lombax in the chest with the energy blast from his wrench.

 

"Is this...?  This really did happen...?" the thought ran through Alister's mind as the scene played on, watching as Ratchet struggled to breathe even as his life was steadily draining out of him.

 

"... it did, didn't it...?" he thought, watching as Ratchet plummeted off the platform, with Clank crying out as he, in vain, tried to catch the lombax before he fell.  "I... caused this... I killed him that time... ... and for what?  So that I could fix some mistake?  Was it really worth killing the one person who gave a damn about me?  Just so I could realize my goal...?"

 

"... ... ... I guess... we were both wrong."

 

With a deranged strength coursing through him, Alister wrested his limbs free from the frozen surface of the puddle.  "You know what, Red?" Alister spoke as he stood on his own two feet, supporting himself against the Zurkon-Wrench.  A dark glare flashed across Alister's eyes as he furiously stared down his friend.  "You're actually wrong about me.  Maybe not about the current timeline I came from, but about another instance.  You see, Red... that time, I actually was willing to kill.  I was willing to stain my hands in the blood of others, even my allies, if only because it was a means to the end I sought."  Tears ran down his face, yet all he felt at that moment was anger.  Anger not just toward Red, but toward himself as well.  "I even went as far as to kill my best friend's only son, and all because his views differed from my own.  All because he became an obstacle to my goal!  I ENDED HIM!" he cried out as he slammed the end of the Z-Wrench into the ice beneath him, shattering it.  Alister was saying all of these things not just to prove a point to Red, but, in a way, to bring his own sins and atrocities to light, to admit to himself that even he wasn't above committing the ultimate sin.

 

"... ... I guess what I'm saying, Red," Alister concluded in a hoarse voice, staring back at the stunned dragon in front of him, "that perhaps you are right... that maybe... I shouldn't let our friendship get in the way of what's to occur.  If we must kill each other just so our worlds can have a future... ... then just promise me... that we will both hold nothing back...."

 

Red's pause was only brief, before re-asserting his facade with a practised ease. Expertly twirling his staff around, he pointed the shining gem forward at Alister; it crackled with energy menacingly. The Lombax seemed so small before the great dragon, but, at this point in time: They both stood as equals. "Nothing is precisely what will be left of you" Red snarled.

[Dad]

Revy

 

There was a scuffle going on nearby, but after past incidences, Revy decided it best to avoid incidences she had no business in.  However, she was very, very close.  Getting past this mess without getting caught in it  . . . .it was unlikely.  "Tch," she scoffed.  She poked her head outside, where she could see--"a dragon?"  She quickly ducked back in.  There were a few more oddities.  One looked to be a robot of some kind, and the other?  She stuck her head out and back in rapidly.  Some kind of humanoid.  She couldn't even described the fucking thing if she wanted to, even if it was floating.  "Why do I always end up in the shits with people--and things--I don't know?"  She shrugged it off, loaded her revolvers, and came out with her guns in the air.  "Alright freakshow, break it up," she said stepping out of the tower in the middle of the forest.  She wasn't sure what to make of the situation, so she took charge--per usual--and began giving ultimatums.  "One of a few things can happen here," she said inching out of the tower and placing her back to the far off treeline, north of her.  "You can forget I was here, and we can fight later in more--shit, let's be honest here.  These conditions suck.  We can brawl later, or I we can figure out who's siding with who and let the shit hit the fan," she said rather excitedly.  If they would let her sneak past without much trouble, she would be far ahead, and with an adrenaline rush, likely cause havoc ahead.  And if she was forced to stay and fight?  Well, that's not one of her weak points.  Revy examined each thing carefully.  The dragon didn't seem hostile, but she wasn't sure.  Revy marked the dragon in the back of her mind as potentially the most dangerous.  As for the robot, it was defending this dragon.  Though the drake was incapacitated, this was where Revy's gaze settled.

 

Finally she lifted her eyes to the third one.  The phantom fucker.  This was so perplexing, that Revy lowered one gun, and scratched her head with it.  "Alright, somebody's gotta explain this shit to me," she said pointing at Shade's feet.  "After.  So what are we doin' here?" she said cocking the hammers on her guns.

 

Wesker

 

He crossed over the threshold of the opposite world at last.  Upon revealing its true nature, the barren and scarred land, Wesker smiled a bit.  "This really is truth," he said with a grin.  "From the day we are born, we begin to die," he recited as he entered the second half of the Pathway of Truth.  Someone had already been through here, he recalled that.  He couldn't make out any distinct features of the figure who had passed here, but there was a distinct lack of hair on their head.  Since the fire manipulator had given him a display of her abilities, as well as some new dna, he had no need to double back and sabotage her and her combatant's trial.  He instead turned his attention to the corroding bodies of fairies on the ground.  "Marvelous," he said sniffing the putrid air as he relished in the death of the fairies.  He proceeded forward, not hesitating to crush a fairy skull or two as he walked.  The reflected tree line was some meter away, and beyond that, the larger part of these desolate plains.  From an abundance of peace and curiosity to broken land and lives, he wondered what else the path of "Truth" had in store for him.  As he took his Sunday stroll, Wesker began to come up with a new design for his next pet.  It would have to be large, something frightening for the heck of it.  He wanted something that could propel large objects at will, but still be fairly mobile.  He began to engineer a creature who's presence was as vile as it was threatening.  The thought excited him, as Albert nearly broke into a skip.  Catching himself, he cleared his throat, as he continued towards the treeline.  

 

Papa Legba

 

He slammed a fist into a table of bones, shattering it.  "No!  No!  Dis was not in my plans," he said to himself.  He was watching Kratos conquer his shadow, and was disgusted by the results.  It seemed targeting the Counter Corps wasn't what he needed.  "No mattah," he said to himself.  "He will stumble still," Papa said staring into his crystal ball.  His yellowed and long finger nails tapped the crystal ball in anticipation.  Beside the viewing of Kratos, was a second viewing, and then a third.  The others were Revy and Wesker.  "Soon, dere paths will cross.  One will die," he confirmed to no one.  "And one will reveal de monster inside," he said ominously.  Black Dynamite, caged a few feet from Papa Legba, was stripped naked except for a loin cloth.  He was on his knees, grabbing onto the hanging cage, as it roasted him above the flames of hell.  Black Dynamite glared into the crystal ball, and muttered under his breath, "Be careful Kratos."  Unfortunately, Papa had heard this whisper, and turned his evil gaze to Black Dynamite.  Suddenly, Black Dynamite was blind, and could feel his eyes being ripped from their sockets.  He cried out in agony, as Papa began to go to work on his flesh.  Legba brandished whips, daggers, swords, pitchforks, and other torture devices.  He would brand Black Dynamite for his folly.  The old man's screams echoed relentlessly.

[Love of Ghibli]

Butlerok & Rhadamanthys: Path of Death

At this moment the two titans were now looking at each other with murderous bloodlust. Once they were comrades now they look to kill each other. They both immediately went into a flurry of slashes. They both pushed each other back and Dorian simply decided to take this fight by leaning on the wall. Butlerok thrusted his sword at Rhadamanthys face, but the specter immediately blocked the attack and followed up with a round house punch to the Kishin's face. The force of the punch was so massive that the ground uprose behind Butlerok. But that didn't stop Butlerok, the Kishin unleashed the multiple skewers of black blood at Specter and pinned him to the wall. Screech Alpha. Butlerok swung Ragnarok and unleashed a massive attack at borderline point blank range on the specter. 

Rhadamanthys let out a massive roar and plowed straight at Butlerok and managed to grab his face. The Judge of the Underworld repeatedly smashed Butlerok's head into the ground trying to crack him like an egg. Ragnarok was able to use the Black Blood to negate the vast majority of the damage allowing Butlerok to go in for a counter attack. Butlerok pulled out his ever faithful Desert Eagle and unloaded a couple of super charged shots directly into his opponent's face causing Rhadamanthys to actually detach from his assault. Butlerok unleashed his Mad Blood mode and brought Ragnarok into its Black Dragon form. How feral an... GLIDING ROAR! Rhadamanthys flew directly at him and tackled him straight into the wall. Rhadamanthys' successful attack was short lived as he was wrapped completely in purple and black thorns. Butlerok then tossed him into the opposite side of the wall. Ragnarok came out of the massive hole that Rhadamanthys created and roared. 

Disgraceful parasite! How dare you bare your fangs at me! Butlerok came out of the hole with eyes eclipsed with rage. Sreay owt sreay owt... Butlerok mumbled . What? The specter replied slightly confused as Butlerok was immediately incased in flames. Wait...did he just use that bankai thing? Rhadamanthys thought. At this point the intense heat of the sun was beating down on Rhadamanthys as his rage face was being replaced by confusion. He knew his surplice would be able to handle an attack of this level but it seemed like his opponent was a little more out of sorts than normal. Butlerok swung his sword down and even though he knew he could probably take the attack head on he dodged it and watched as the entire side of that wall literally melt. He noticed that he wasn't fighting someone wasn't thinking straight. Butlerok waved his other hand and a surge of heat came at Rhadamanthys. The surplice took on the heat but he was still  unable to move. He was powerless as the black fiery blade landed on his armor. The massive explosion at point blank range would've incinerated a weaker man but Rhadamanthys would never be called weak. Rhadamanthys used his Cosmos to twist the flames of Zanka no Tachi into a purple Wyvern that was a symbol of his aura. I see what this is about. You've been bottling up your hatred for me.

The fiery wyvern self destructed blowing both of the parties back and Rhadamanthys flew down and yelled straight at Butlerok. ROAR OF THE WYVERN! A massive sound wave came out and Butlerok counterattacked with another Screech Alpha! The two energies combined and made a small vortex that began to suck in the two combatants. Dorian just stood there with his eyebrow raised and his tilted. Oooookkkkaaaayyyyy. Inside this vortex. Butler actually noticed that he was actually inside his own Mad Blood. Somehow the white Rukh from the Captain Commander had taken over. I see this is one of the con's to the White Rukh. And I see we have reached one of your many issues. Butler raised an eyebrow at the old man who had materialized himself on his right. We have come to lay your burdens to bare. Spoke Hades who appeared on the other side. Oh come on! I was having fun with all of his madness. Ragnarok said as he just cartoonishly came from the side.

 

Silence parasite! Came a voice from the distance. Butler tensed up ever slow slightly as he watched Rhadamanthys make his presence known. What is this? Butler said as it was quite clear that this was an intervention. Time for you to come to terms with Rhadamanthys here for what happened to Dorian after he died. Butler's eyes widened the anger was taking over again and black Rukh were emanating from him. I forgot I told you about what we did to Dorian after his initial arrival...I don't apologize for it! If anything it has made him a much better person. He died and went to Hell it is the only logical conclusion, you should be happy that he has ascended mortality in the manner that he has. Butler's eye twitched as he was restraining himself from unleashing his fist on this specter. But that is not the problem...is it? Genryusai responded rhetorically. Butler stopped twitching and entered into a minor slump. Someone knew the truth. The problem is that, as a protector you failed your job and now those close to you have suffered for your inadequacies.  It is a situation that everyone here can relate to. The past is in the past, now that you have gotten some aggression out of your system we should get back to the battle. While he didn't say any words Butler was on board with all of this. Granted he had cleared his head through that first confrontation already, but this was something entertaining...an intervention. What an novel concept.

Dorian just looked at the floating sphere of blackness and then he snickered. Well it looks like whatever they were doing is done. As he finished his statement Butlerok and Rhadamanthys floated to the ground Butlerok revealing his Alpha Stigma and Rhadamanthys revealing his fangs ready for battle. Well I see you didn't go the whole killing each other route. Dorian unsheathed his zanpaktou and rested it on his shoulder. Don't worry, I think I can take care of that for the both of you. 

 

Ending Location: C9

[Reinforce]

Chandra

Pathway of Truth - C3

 

With Jace's reply, Chandra started to walk forward as she removed her hand from his shoulder. Walking a few steps foward, the fairies started to swarm around her again, as they started to speak once more.

 

"Why are you so interested in his continued well-being anyway, isn't he an enemy?"

 

"My home might just fall apart without him even if Arturia succeeds in her mission."

 

"Even so, just what is he to you?"

 

"That's ..."

 

Chandra stopped speaking, unable to respond at all, before whispering out a slight response.

 

"I don't know."

 

-----

 

Darcy

Pathway of Death - E3

 

The dark witch stepped onto the wooden pathway, purple flame continuing to light up the bridge enough to see the path in front of her as she walked forward. Around her, an ominous pressure started to build, coming from the darkness all around her as the voices built up to a level where she could identify specific voices and words. All six of her worst enemies, those damn fairies who called themselves the Winx Club, were among the voices, taunting her failures. Mixed in with them, were taunts from her sisters, as well as the disdain from Darkar, Valtor and Tritannus, and more surprisingly, mockery coming from Riven. As she continued on, forcefully ignoring the voices sounding around her, they continued to build to a pitch, finally forcing a reaction out of her.

 

"Will you people shut up already, it's getting annoying now."

 

The voices actually withdrew for a moment, before bursting back into life even louder than before, as the shadowy voices finally deigned to reveal themselves and attack, causing a whole heap of shadowy balls to come flying at her from all around. Narrowing her eyes, the darkness that was around her expanded out, becoming a shield around her to block the dark energy, and surprisingly absorbing it rather than destroying or reflecting it. As more shots fired, a small smirk started to appear, the balls of dark energy charging up her shield rather than draining it down, though it did seem to be slowly taking on the feel of the area around her. Eyes suddenly widening in alarm, a flick of the hand blasted the shield out as a shock wave of energy before it could attune too much with the darkness of the pathway. It also served to take out all three of the evil villains she'd once worked with, along with her former boyfriend, and knocked away both Flora and Techna as well. With only six left to fight her, the four remaining Winx and her sisters, they seemed much more cautious about attacking her as she strode forward. Eventually, the remaining members of the Winx charged her, hands enveloped in energy only to get burnt away as a vicious smirk preceded the purple flame she still had sending out a jet of fire into each. Taking advantage of their demise, the flames turned and rushed towards the last two shades before they could react, putting down the last of them and the voices along with them. With the smirk remaining fixed upon her face, she walked forward once more, following the pathway on towards the building ahead.

 

Ending Location: E7

[Kingdom Xathers]

[[Alister Azimuth]]
(♫♪"An Intense Situation"/Kingdom Hearts 1.5 ReMIX OST♪♫)
"Al!" Kaden called out to the General from the edge of the clearing, the concern evident in his voice.
 
"Kaden, I'll be fine, just get to someplace safe!" Alister responded to his friend's shade.  "This is something I have to do, alone."
 
Though partly unwilling to comply, Kaden relented as he nodded understandingly.  "Just be careful, Alister...."  With that, he ran off into the woods, though not to find shelter from what was about to unfold....
 
 
[[Alexander Zenith]]

(♫♪♫)

"... I just had to say "guarantee", didn't I?" Alexander uttered out loud, silently cursing himself for jinxing the group with his earlier statement.

 

"Hey, it could be worse," Umbris spoke as he materialized from Alex's shadow.  "Then again, I don't wanna end up making your jinx any worse by saying how."

 

Alexander opened his mouth wide to retort, but stopped himself from doing so when he caught sight of a Lombax-like outline further off in the woods.  "Oh, hang on," Alex exclaimed, a relieved smile crossing his face, "I think I see one of the others over there.  Hey, Ratchet?  Al?" he called out to the figure while waving an arm in the air.  "Hey, I'm over her--MMMMMPPHHH??!!"  His cries were muffled as Umbris clamped a hand over his mouth.   (BGM abruptly stops)

 

"Alex, are you crazy?!" Umbris hissed into the lombax's ear.  "For all we know, it could just be a trap left by one of the Divine!  Especially if it's another of Sayer's tricks!"

 

"... ... okay, didn't consider that," Alexander admitted sheepishly.  He and Umbris then hurriedly assumed defensive stances as the figure began to approach them.  As the figure came into view, however, and its features could be seen, Alexander began to relax his body as a feeling a familiarity washed over him.  Umbris, while still suspicious, also shared in Alexander's feeling of relief as the lombax calmly approached the figure.

 

(♫♪♫) [sTOP at 0:45]

"... you sure you can trust him?" the Neo-Spacian asked, despite feeling that he already knew Alexander's answer.

 

Alex's lipped curled into a calm smile, one that was both joyful and sad.  "Of course... ... I've always been able to trust him," he answered Umbris as he continued to stare at the figure before him.  "Right... Dad?"

 

In response, the fatherly lombax nodded his head, appearing almost as teary-eyed as Alexander.  "Of course," he replied as he and Alexander proceeded to hold each other in comfort....

 

 

 

"Alex, please understand," Artorius began sometime later, after calming his son down, as well as explaining about the forest's power.  Both he and Alex were seated on a fallen tree log (or a fallen branch, given that it was a lot smaller than the surrounding trees).  "I would not have wanted you to put yourself in harm's way, even if it was to protect me--"

 

"--but I could have helped, Dad," Alex interrupted.  "I could have helped to drive your assailants out of the house--"

 

"--and gotten yourself killed in the process," Artorius added bluntly.  "And for however long I would have lived after that, my life would have been tainted by the failure of protecting you, as I was meant to.  For what it is worth, Alexander... I'm actually glad that your power sent you to another location away from home that day.  That was what allowed you to survive."

"Yeah... and for what...?" Alexander questioned, his head hung low.  "I lose my father, my... my sanity... and then I end up losing a friend after that...."

 

"None of which was your fault, Alex," his father tried to reassure him.

 

"But I had still lost so much in that short time," Alex continued, growing closer to tears.  "I even lost my memories, and that was because I wanted it that way... they were just too painful."  He gave a sad chuckle.  "And the funny part of it all?  I would eventually become so hell-bent on regaining those memories, despite not knowing what lay within them.  And when I did recover them?  All I felt was regret... I thought that my whole life between blocking my memories and gaining them back had been one huge lie... and deep down... I think I had always known."

 

"... why are you so focused on what you've lost?" Artorius asked calmly.  "Yes, you've lost many things that you can never get back, and yet you've also gained so much more, Alex.  So much more."

 

"Your father's right, Alex," spoke another voice, this time coming from a recently-arrived brown-furred lombax with heterochromic eyes, wearing medical garb.  "Whether you know it or not, and no matter how actively you may secretly deny it, there's no denying that you've encountered many an individual that have grown to respect you, care about you... even love you.  And that's because, even back when you had a fractured identity, you've always done your best to be true to yourself and others."

 

Alexander blinked a little at Galen, still unsure if his memories were talking about the same Alexander.

 

"Alex, come ON~!" Umbris jumped in, grinding his knuckles into Alex's temples.  "These two are trying to help and encourage you and your still acting like a total EMO!  Jeez, was that whole nightmare sequence all for nothing after all?!"

 

"Gah! Umbris, stop that!"

Galen couldn't help but to chuckle a bit at the display.  "How cute.  You two are very much like brothers...."

 

"Indeed, they are," Artorius agreed, a happy smile forming on his face.

 

 

 

[[Ratchet]]

 

"... frackin' Alex... just had to say "guarantee", didn't he...?" Ratchet grumbled to himself in frustration as he stomped through the woods, with Clank being strapped to his back and forced to bounce with every rough step.

 

"Ratchet, this is not something to be angry about," Clank spoke reasonably, hoping his friend would calm down.

 

"I know, I know... we're only lost right now because of me," Ratchet admitted in a half-hearted manner.

 

"I didn't mean it that way, Ratchet.  I simply meant that, regardless of what our group did, we would have ended up separated anyway."

 

"If you say so--AACK!!!"  Ratchet stumbled backward after bumping into something-or someone-causing him to fall on his backside.  "Ah, crap, sorry about tha--"

"Hey, how's about watchin' where you're go--?"

 

Ratchet fell silent at the same time as the figure he had bumped into, a long-eared male humanoid whose wild green hair was held up by a pair of goggles worn on his forehead.  On his shoulder was an orange-and-yellow otter-weasel... thing. He and Ratchet stared blankly at each other for a few brief seconds, with the occasional blink here and there, before they both shouted at each other in aggravated disbelief:

"OH NO NOT YOU AGAIN!!!"

 

"What the hell are you even doing here, Jak?!" Ratchet questioned, his wrench grasped tightly in his hand.

 

"Why is that any of your business, furball?!" Jak retorted, armed with his gun staff.

 

"Well, you two certainly don't miss a beat," spoke a third figure that had just arrived: a tall, lanky humanoid raccoon dressed in a blue shirt and cap, a brown bag strapped to his back and left leg respectively and a hooked cane clutched in his right hand.  "Although, I can't say I'm surprised in the least," he added in a suave, sarcastic tone.

 

"SHUT IT, SLY!" Jak and Ratchet snapped in unison.

 

Pinching at the bridge of his nose, Ratchet let out a frustrated sigh.  "Alright, seriously, though; how are you guys even here?" he asked of his two rivals.  "I mean, I don't remember either of you being picked up by a Counter Guardian, or even Kokonoe or Rodin, for that matter."

 

"Hmm... hey, Clank?" Sly Cooper spoke, addressing the tiny robot.  "You might wanna fast-forward through this part; I think this explanation has been overdone at this point."

 

"... wha--?"

"I am on it, Mr. Cooper," Clank replied as he pressed the fast-forward button on a remote that conveniently appeared in his hand.

 

[[NEXT SCENE]]

 

"--and why you remember me as the far-more tolerable one," Sly Cooper cheerfully explained.

 

"Yeah, I oughta "tolerate" you, alright...," Jak grumbled under his breath while cracking his knuckles.

 

Ratchet, meanwhile, was left reflecting on the details, feeling somewhat depressed.  "... so... you two didn't make it, then," he said solemnly, actually feeling sorry for the real Jak and Sly Cooper.

 

"Hey, stuff happens," Jak shrugged.  "Honestly, if me or Sly were in your position, we'd feel the same way you do about this."

 

Sly nodded in agreement.  "Besides, Ratchet, your being here means that you've got a role to play in the End Game to follow.  What that role is, though, I can't tell you for certain.  Everyone's just gonna have to find out when it happens."

 

"Sounds about right," Ratchet agreed.  "Still, I assure you guys that--"

"What're ya assurin' us for?" Daxter cut it, hopping from Jak's shoulder and onto Ratchet's.  "We're just memories, remember?  Not gonna do us any good, just you."

 

"Daxter is right, Ratchet," said Clank.  "At this point, we can only promise ourselves of what we hope to accomplish, that being the restoration of the Multiverse."

 

"Yeah, listen to the tin-can!" Daxter added, succeeding in irritating Clank.

 

Ratchet gave a kind smirk as he placed a hand on Clank's head.  "I always do...."

 

"Ratchet?" a new voice spoke out, causing the others to jump in shock before taking a defensive position.  Ratchet and his memories became confused when Kaden entered the clearing.

 

"Huh?" Jak blurted out, turning to face Sly.  "Wait, this guy... is he...?"

 

Sly shook his head.  "No, I think he's someone else's memory."

 

"Dad...?!" Ratchet stammered in shock.  "Wh... what are you doing here?"

 

"I wish I had time to explain, kiddo," Kaden replied, placing a hand on Ratchet's shoulder.  "But right now,  Alister needs our help."

 

 

[[Alister Azimuth]]
 
(♫♪"Destiny's Force"/Kingdom Hearts 1.5 ReMIX♪♫)
Cutting short on his threat, Red stabbed his staff into the snow in front of him and unleashed a blast of water. The snow and water flared up as an arctic smokescreen that masked Alister’s vision. Taking the opportunity, Red unleashed a burst of flame that cut through the snow screen straight at the Lombax general.
 
Alister’s ears picked up on the sound of an oncoming attack, and decided to employ a bit of ice-based defense of his own; thinking fast, Alister threw a Cryomine grenade onto the ground which erupted upon contact, causing the expanding snow and ice to form into a jagged frozen barrier, just wide enough to intercept the flame burst that was sent his way as he himself hurriedly back-stepped.  “Come on, Red,” Alister called out as he glanced toward the snowscreen that was cloaking the dragon.  “Hiding yourself from sight? I know you have at least a bit more honor than that.”  Not waiting for a response, Alister swung around the Zurkon-Wrench, firing off a energy sawblade from one of the ends and into the snow cloud, hoping to use Red’s hiding place to his advantage.
 
Knowing his flames failed, Red cut it off as the snow cloud slowly dissipated, an ice structure having clearly blocked his assault. He snorted loudly as he noticed Alister peering from beyond it. “How cute, the rat calling the cat out on hiding with their tail between their legs. Only a coward would hope to goad like that when comparing to someone far superior to them” Red boasted proudly, unawares of the saw-blade as he slowly dipped into a mini-rant. Hearing the buzzsaw however, he quickly reacted by moving his wings as a shield, and by a bizarre twist of game mechanics, the buzzsaw boomeranged off his wings back at Alister. And as his wings retracted he quickly sketched a lightning bolt symbol into the air. “SHOCK!” he commanded. A lightning bolt burst from on-high not at Alister, but at his ice shield. The energies from the bolt exploding the barrier, scattering sharp ice debris in all directions.
 
Hearing the odd “CLANG” sound ringing in the air, Alister guessed that Red had somehow blocked his sawblade.  What he didn’t expect was the sight of said sawblade coming right back at him from the thinning snow cloud.  A simple fix, through, as with another swing from Alister the Zurkon-Wrench simply caught it again (“Thank you for returning Mr. Zurkon’s ammo, stupid dragon alien!” gloated the Z-Wrench as the sawblade was drawn back inside.). Sensing that the returned attack was a mere distraction, Alister prepared for another attack to be directed at him.  He would be proven wrong, however, as Red’s electrical attack was aimed not at the General himself but at the frost barrier he had erected seconds before.  Before his eyes, the structure erupted into numerous shards which scattered every which way, mostly in Alister’s direction.  Once more, Azimuth reacted with very little time as he spun the Z-Wrench before him, blocking the majority of the shards.  A few, however, had slipped through near the start, grazing against the sides of the lombax’s arms, legs and torso, causing a few minor tears in his uniform in the process.  Despite this, Alister shrugged off the pain as the barrage of ice ceased.  “Alright, wise guy,” Alister growled to himself as Red slowly came back into view, “you wanna try some misdirection?  I can play that, too….”  Using the Z-Wrench’s momentum, Alister shot off three energy blasts at once, all sailing toward the dragon.  While still spinning, Alister unleashed yet another sawblade, this time appearing to fly off haphazardously into the forest’s canopy.  “Oops!” Alister blurted out at his supposed blunder, trying to save face by throwing out a second group of energy blasts in Red’s direction.
 
Red sneered as his little ice bomb seemed to have succeeded. The rat was out in the open now, and pressure was required. While it would have been simple to block the blasts with a barrier, Red found it more prudent to crouch down quickly, before leaping through the opening in the treeline afforded by the clearing into the airspace just above the treeline. His proud wings beating fiercely as the blasts sailed underneath him, and with the sawblade out of reach, he felt free to unleash another blast of flame, this time making sure to put more energy into it to scorch everything around Alister, as well as the general himself.
 
“Oh, he would…!” Alister groaned aloud as he saw Red effortlessly jump over his barrage.  Upon realizing that Red was attempting to burn the surrounding area, he just about panicked a bit, but managed to keep his cool long enough to make a leap into the air, using the Z-Wrench almost like a po-go stick to give him an extra boost.  He was out of the flames, for now, as he landed on a nearby branch, but he knew that Red would simply redirect his stream of flames to follow the General’s path.
 
The faint sound of something falling from above reached Alister’s ears, and he couldn’t help but to smirk a bit to himself.  Glancing upwards, Alister could see his wayward sawblade from earlier, now rapidly descending toward him on a return trip.  Instead of catching it once more, Alister opted to strike at it with his wrench, sending the buzzsaw sailing toward Red, hoping to interrupt the dragon’s assault once more.
 
Red’s neck was straining immensely to keep his flame going, but it was easily seen that his stores were rapidly depleting. He cut out again mid-flame, but was paused by an onset coughing fit. Clouds of smoke escaped with each cough as he pounded on his pained chest. Breathing heavily, Red’s watery eyes only managed to see the buzzsaw that had been launched at him. Sparing no thought he unleashed a wave of electricity from his staff that struck the blade, causing it to overload and explode. Danger averted, Red wheezed loudly as he wiped the tears from his eyes. Alister was making no effort to hide, so he was easily noticed. However, what interested Red more was the sheen on the floor of the forest. His flames had melted much of the snow. Sensing opportunity, he scrawled a V into the air, energy accumulating around him. “CYCLONE!” he screamed; his body spinning in the air like a mad red top, unleashing a purple cyclone headed straight for Alister, the magical winds whipping around wildly. And Red’s eyes were spinning too as he unleashed the assault, having not performed that particular spell for some time.
 
Alister was somewhat thankful that Red stopped his attack, even if it was just to clear his throat.  He cursed under his breath, however, when Red proceeded to blast his sawblade into dust.  Deciding to take a different approach, Alister began to bound his way from tree branch to tree branch, figuring an attempt at a physical assault would help to open up more opportunities for other attacks.  As he got closer to Red, however, Azimuth was swept away by a miniature-yet-strong tornado, yelling out as he was helplessly spun about.

“Dammit, I need a moment to focus…!”  A simple thought, yet it had an immediate effect, as Alister triggered a brief slowing of time around him.  No longer being spun around so harshly, Alister readjusted himself as he peered up through the eye of the storm, taking note of Red spinning in slow-motion above, the dragon apparently having dizzied himself in the casting of the spell.  Directing more power into his Hoverboots, Alister rocketed himself out of the cyclone and towards Red, just as time resumed its normal pace.  Taking the opportunity, Alister zipped around the dizzy dragon and, with one end of the Z-Wrench morphed into a rocket-hammer, struck Red from behind, causing the dragon to sail into his own cyclone.
 
Red could barely see anything in his dizzied haze, and he certainly hadn’t seen that now obscenely fast moving Alister juke behind him. It was the shock really that hurt him more than the rocket hammer to the spine. Not that he had the time to consider what hurt more as Red was sent sailing downwards, his grasp on his staff unfailing. He passed through the Cyclone spell, as it had no effect on the caster, because, if it did, that would be rather silly. He smashed through several layers worth of branches, before crashing with a belly flop onto the small pool of water that coated the forest floor. He groaned in agony as his spine was on fire, and it felt like he had been punched in the stomach by a golem. Thankfully, due to the rocket hammer, his front had taken most of the beating, leaving his wings relatively unharmed by the assault. His pride wasn’t looking too good however. He groaned again, creating small bubbles in the pool of water as he didn’t actively try to pick himself up.
 
“The dragon is down,” Mr. Zurkon chimed as Alister slowly descended back through the opening in the canopy.  “Now is the time to strike, General.”
 
The synthenoid was right, Alister knew this.  And yet… he just couldn’t bring himself to strike Red while the dragon was apparently defenseless.  “... hey, Red!” Alister called out as he landed on a nearby branch.  “I know you’ve still got some fight left in you.  I’m not continuing until I know you’re ready.”

“Seriously, General?” Mr. Zurkon blurted out, a hint of incredulousness actually evident in his otherwise monotonous voice.  “Why must you let honor come before reason?”
 
“Why not?” Alister responded, still keeping an eye on Red.  “Just because we’re enemies now, doesn’t mean I can’t show him some respect.”
 
“That respect,” Mr. Zurkon replied, “will only reward you with a sneak attack.”

“And you think I hadn’t considered that?”
 
Red’s neck strained, as if he was trying to lift it. It was doing a very poor job of it, as his head couldn’t break free from its little pool. Eventually, it just gave up and went limp, Red’s head tilting to the right as the slow and steady stream of bubbles petered out. Red’s hand let go of his staff, his limp hand resting above the water as the polished staff rolled slightly away.
 
“Hey, Red, c’mon!” Alister called out again, almost starting to become impatient with the dragon’s sluggishness.  “Red, this isn’t the time for….”  As he watched Red go limp, however, a cold grasp closed around his own heart.  “... Red…?” the lombax uttered hoarsely, the fear evident his his voice as he continued to stare down at the dragon’s limp body.
 
“... huh.  Guess we didn’t have to do much, after all,” Mr. Zurkon spoke up, breaking the tense, deathly silence.  “Shame.  Mr. Zurkon was looking forward to some more action… but I guess this dragon alien was nothing more than hot air--”
 
“--this isn’t right,” Alister quietly gasped out, shaking his head in disbelief.  “... no, this can’t end… not like this….”  He wanted to check on Red, to see for himself if the dragon was truly….
 
“You’re making a big mistake, General Fuzzy,” the Z-Wrench spoke warningly.  “You said yourself that you’ve considered any possibility of--”
 
“WILL YOU SHUT UP, ZURKON?!” Alister shrieked at his weapon, his emotions starting to get the best of him.  “SHUT UP FOR JUST ONE F**KING MINUTE!!  I… I refuse to believe that Red is dead!  I just can’t!”

“Then what are you going to do about it, General?” Mr. Zurkon snapped back.  “How are you going to make sure that this dragon is still with life without forfeiting your own?”
 
“... … … …”  Wordlessly, Alister called up another CryoMine in his hand, glancing briefly at Red’s Staff, still within the dragon’s reach.  Still without a word uttered, Alister tossed the grenade at the Staff, hoping that the explosion would freeze the weapon within the pool in which it lay.
 
The blast from the CryoMine flung Red’s hand away from his Staff, but he wasn’t exactly moving from his sad little puddle.
 
Seeing no reaction from Red, even with his Staff now frozen into the puddle, Alister gave a dreading, shaky sigh.  “... fine.”  Tightening his grip on the Z-Wrench’s shaft, Alister made a leap from the branch down to the forest floor.  “Get ready, Mr. Zurkon…,” Alister quietly hissed to his weapon as he slowly crept closer toward Red’s limp form, making sure to approach from the back.  The end of the wrench closest to the ground began to crackle with electricity as Alister aimed it at the tip of Red’s tail.  “... … … SURPRISE!!!” the General shouted out as he then jabbed the Wrench head into Red’s tail, delivering a shock into the dragon’s body.
 
The spasmic shock was enough to break the charade, but was performed from a poor position, as Alister hadn’t considered the reach of that tail. With a swift and painful movement, Red’s tail swung up and struck Alister with incredible force in his good sons. As the Lombax fell to the ground in pain, Red rose slowly like a phantom from his pool. Water dripped from his scales as he stood up unsteadily, his right leg trembling under his own weight. A weight that slowly lurched towards the downed Lombax. With a good stomp, Red crushed Alister beneath his left foot; forcing the weight of his body down onto the Lombax. Red’s eyes were flushed red with strained veins as his neck craned down so he could stare Alister in his pained eyes. “That was NOT... a polite thing to do” he said hoarsely, his foot applying a good deal more weight as he spoke.
 
“Y… You’re… one to talk…!” Alister croaked out as best he could in spite of the pressure on his chest cutting off the air circulation in his lungs.
 
“What are you complaining about?” Mr. Zurkon chimed in from his discarded position a few feet away from Alister.  “It’s not like you are going to have any children anytime soon--”

“ARGH, F**K OFF ZURK--AAAAAAAAHHH!!!” Alister’s retort was cut off by his own pained cries as he began to feel his bones crack under Red’s weight.

 

 

[[Meanwhile....]]

 

"... AAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

 

Ratchet and Kaden stopped in their tracks upon hearing a pained cry resound through the forest, with Jak and Sly following suit.  "What was that?" asked the raccoon thief.

 

"Oh, Gods, that was Al...!" Kaden uttered, dreading what could have happened.  "We've got to get to him before Red does something--"

 

"--wait, "Red"?!" Ratchet cut it as his group continued to make haste.  "Isn't that Alister's dragon friend?"

 

"Yes," replied Kaden, "but I'm afraid they've resolved to put that friendship aside.  I hope I don't have to explain what for...."

 

"Hmph.  Some friend," Jak snarked as the group hurried toward Alister's location, hopefully before the worst could happen....

 

 

[[Alister]]
 
That was enough, Red felt. The Lombax had suffered enough, and he clearly wasn’t going to continue being a threat at this point, not with the extent of the damage inflicted on him, although….. Regarding Alister carefully, Red lifted his foot so he could grab Alister with his right hand, his taloned fingers gently curling around Alister’s body to grab him, and apply a bit of pressure to his chest whilst also pinning his arms to his body. “For posterity, Alister,” Red said darkly as his fingers released Alister’s right arm so he could grab it with his left hand, specifically at the elbow. With a wee bit of pressure using his index finger and thumb, there was a very audible cracking sound as Alister’s right arm was broken.
 
Alister’s pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks as an excruciating pain shot from his right arm to the rest of his body.  For a moment preceding the snapping of his arm, his consciousness seemed to have partially detached from his body; he didn’t even recognize his own voice, his own screams.  Mr. Zurkon, too, was at a complete loss for words as the Wrench looked on at the Lombax spasming within the dragon’s grasp....
 
 
“Ah..! A… Alister…!”

“Kaden…?! Ah! No, are you alright?”

“I… I’m fine, but… my arm….”

“... Kaden, I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have taken us onto this path….”
 
"No, it's fine, Al... our parents are gonna kill us when they find out, though."
 
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of."
 
"... still... this was pretty fun.  Thanks for taking me along, Al...."
 
 
“AL!!”

(♫♪"Them's Fighting Words"/SkullGirls OST♪♫)
The sound of a familiar voice crying out of his name and the sound of an explosion snapped Alister back to the present.  Through his pain, he could make out what was happening; Red struggling to break free of the ice that had enveloped the left side of his face.  Coupled with the explosion he heard seconds before, Alister came to the conclusion that a CryoMine had been detonated against Red’s face… but how?

“Alister, hang on!” cried out another, younger-sounding voice.  This was followed by the sound of what could only be assumed to be a rocket being launched; seconds later, said rocket struck the frozen half of Red’s face, erupting in an explosion that shattered the ice, lacerating the dragon’s face with ice shards and rocket shrapnel.  This had the added effect of causing Red to hastily drop Alister, the lombax falling like a limp ragdoll for a few feet until he was caught again by the giant metallic hand of Giant Clank.
 
“Alister, are you alright?!” a third voice called out as Alister heard hurried footsteps approach him. Alexander’s face came into view as Clank gently placed Alister into Alex’s arms.  “... he did this to you…?” Alexander asked in a semi-rhetorical manner, his worried eyes frantically scanning Alister's body.  The concerned look quickly gave way to anger. “... Umbris!!”

“Got it!” Umbris replied, transforming his cape into a large disembodied hand before delivering a punch into Red’s stomach, sending the dragon sliding back a few yards before slightly bumping against the side of a tree. He had hit it from his side, sending a shooting pain up his back. His hands were multi-tasking as he was gripping the left side of his face and his stomach lining in agony.
 
His one good eye finally managed to focus on what had attacked him: Alister’s allies. This was a bad position right now; he had taken too much unnecessary damage from the sneak attack, and there was no room for Plan B. With quick finesse he sketched an = sign into the air. “Move” he whispered.
 
The frozen staff disappeared in a cloud of particles, reappearing in his hand a second later. “Till next time” he said as a mild threat as he drew an O in the air. Comically, he was covered in a large red egg roughly half his size marked with a diamond pattern not unlike his Light Gem. It picked up speed at a rather unusual rate as it sped through an opening in the forest and out of sight.

 

"... yeah, some friend you've got their, Alister," Umbris chided the General as soon as Red had Yoshi-Egg'd his way out of the clearing.

 

"Umbris," Ratchet began, "this really isn't the time for... huh?  You guys hear something?" he asked as he looked up toward the forest canopy, the others following his gaze as they all witnessed two figures plummeting through the opening, screaming.  With a thunderous crash, the two individuals slammed into the ground, creating a shockwave that knocked the lombaxes and their memories off their feet (except Alister, of course).  As the dust settled, the lombaxes got a better look of who caused the crash; Bayonetta posing victoriously whilst straddling a downed Jeanne.

 

"Ugh... heh... congratulations, Cereza," Jeanne moaned painfully, a bid smile on her face in spite of the thrashing she had endured off-screen.  Her smile quickly dropped, however, upon realizing that she and Bayonetta had an audience.

 

Bayonetta, also, found her own celebratory mood deflate upon seeing the lombaxes and their memories, all gawking at the two Umbra Witches posed in such a lewd fashion after having done lord-knows-what.  "... did we... miss something...?" Bayonetta asked awkwardly, catching a glimpse of the severely injured Alister in Alexander's arms.

 

"That's what I'd like to know!" Daxter blurted out, blood running from his nostrils at the sight of the two Witches.  Jak's only response was to backhand the ottsel off of his shoulder and into the side of a nearby tree....

[The Warden]

|_)Red, the Egg(_|
|_)Pathway of Remembrance(_|
 
As the egg rolled through the woods, Red was replaying that battle over in his head. Was that really him? Is this what he has reduced himself to? To simply be who he was before? Was he really no better for himself? These thoughts weighed heavily on his heart as the egg hit a rock. It launched into the air and shattered on impact with a tree. Red was left smacked into the tree and collapsed upside down, his tail hanging over his head as it lay in the snow. "That's a good look for ya" a whithered voice snapped.

 

Red groaned as he tilted sideway, landing hard on his side as he lay splayed before Elder Titan. The old dragon was staring at him imperiously, tense fingers on his staff as he gave Red his best look of disapproval. "Elder Titan" Red groaned, a claw on his belly where Umbris had punched him. It had been turned black by bruising, and probably whatever Umbris was made of.

 

"Don't talk to me like I'm refuse boy!" Titan snapped, his withered features displaying such uncharacteristic fury. "It's bad enough you had to go and break my heart. But now you've done the same thing again. Only this time you tried to break him a long with his heart!" he chided, an accusing finger pointed at Red.

 

Red looked away like a guilty child, refusing to make eye contact with Titan. He was intently trying to make the memory go away, and despite the pain his body was suffering, the mirage was just as real as ever. "What? You've got nothing to say to me? No apologies or anything? Not even a 'oh I'm sorry friend, I didn't mean to go completely insane with jealousy and power. And I am deeply sorry for kidnapping and attempting to kill you all'. Oh don't worry, that's fine, perfectly acceptable actually. And I'm sure it's perfectly fine to try and crush and break your best friend, but I wouldn't know about that, since you're the expert here Red" Titan continued.

 

It was remarkable really. His face was on fire, he felt completely nauseated, his back was screaming in agony and he was growing certain that he couldn't feel his right leg. And yet, Red could still feel the disgusting pit of guilt that curdled within him. It was a sickening and grotesque feeling, and was the most likely cause as to why he wanted to throw up violently. In fact, he did. Disgusting yellow bile mixed with red surged from his mouth, melting the snow around the pool. Elder Titan rolled his eyes crudely at the sad excuse of a dragon. "Pathetic, you're absolutely pathetic Red. We all had such high hopes for you. And now look at ya. You've lost an eye, and will probably need a cane for the rest of your life. And for what? To prove a point? To prove that you are still the black hearted degenerate you always were? Come on Red, answer me that: What was so bad about TRYING to be friends with him?" Titan demanded.

 

Red's claws dug deep into the snow as they turned to fists. His feelings were boiling over into a sickening tsunami as tears streamed down from his good eye as he finally chose to face Titan. "EVERYTHING, ALRIGHT?! Everything was bad about it. What did it matter Titan? What did it matter if I made any friends or allies at all. After this war is over, we each go our separate ways, never to see each other again. He chose to become a Counter Corp, as much as it pained me that he did. He chose to become my enemy... because the people closest to him are already here. If I don't win this war Titan, I will NEVER see any of you again. And... I won't see him again. I will be alone forever, because all I hold closest to my black heart will be lost to the void or gone off back home. We might both be sinners, but at least he has a prize, a chance. With all hopes there will be an in-universe way to save his race. And, he will have friends and family to go back too" Red cried, his voice breaking as his bad eye slowly shed tears of red. "I don't have that luxury. I promised myself I will do what I can to save you. To ensure you can all keep on living your lives. I don't care about mine. I'm prepared to kill because I'm prepared to die Titan. I will kill whoever I can to save you all. Because... you all mean more to me than any amount of power in the world. I value you all more than the Door's power. That's why I can't afford to lose here. That's why I can't afford to make friends. Because they will be lost in the end. They will go back to their worlds and I will never see them again. Or they will die, and I will never see them again. It would be just as bad... as when I hurt you Titan" Red finished quietly, his shame burning his face crimson as he lay on hands and knees before the withered Dragon.

 

"So, you're going to give up all happiness in life to ensure we can keep living happily. Do you think that would make any of us happy? To know our happiness came at a cost? How do you think I'd feel about this? You think some stupid gesture would be enough to make me forgive you?" Titan demanded.

 

Red sat quietly, he didn't really have the answer to that one. Well, he didn't have any that weren't completely self-serving in any case. Titan sighed in exasperation as he turned his back on Red. "Even with all your age Red, you are still such a brat. You aren't worthy to wield that gem you know? I told them that myself but the others were too quick to forgive, all because you conveniently knew a spell the Sorcerer was stupid enough to teach you. Nice to know your worth was based on one stinking spell Red" Titan remarked sarcastically as he left into the woods.

 

Red's jaw was completely numb as he lay in the snow, a lone claw gliding along the deepest laceration in the scales on the left side of his face; and he felt himself the fool.

 

Position: B6

[Kōsuke Ueki]

The Pathway of Remembrance, Tsunugai Tamashī

 

There were no words spoken by the Paladin for a while. The cold was far too much to bear that he couldn't speak. However, he was still able to keep moving forward. And he hadn't dealt with so much snow and extremely low temperatures since he tried getting the Opalagon Society on his side.

 

Having on such heavy armor didn't help either. In fact, that made him even colder. But his will to pass through each Pathway is what allowed him to keep moving. Protheus had to be stopped at all costs.

 

Unlike Richard, Tsunugai was traversing the harsh frozen wasteland much quicker. He had reached the halfway point after about an hour later. However, as Tsunugai took another step, he realizes that he kicked something that was within the snow itself. Whatever he kicked, it was visible through the snow now. Kneeling towards the item, he picked it up to get a better look at it. What he saw nearly stopped his heart. It was something that only he knew about. He never told this to anyone, not even his own allies back when he was fighting for Emeralda.

 

It was a sphere as large as his palm. It was glowing with dark energy. Tightening his grip on it, he was almost moved to tears. "I guess...I haven't put it behind me after all."

 

And so, came one of Tsunugai's deciding factors that allowed him to live, but at the cost of the life he believed he would always have...

 

Sapphiria, Emeralda, 15 Years Ago

 

Whenever there are benefits, there are also risks that needed to be taken into account.

 

However, at age 10, young Tsunugai Tamashī could not bear the thought of losing the life of his "parents", compared to the thought of losing his own life before he had the chance to have one.

 

In the city of Sapphiria, there were rumors of a deadly plague slowly spreading, possibly to the point where all of Emeralda could be affected. How the plague came about was unknown, even to the most knowledgeable of alchemists and mages. But it continued to spread nonetheless, taking many lives over the course of two months. Since nobody knew how the plague was spreading, or if it was contagious, default precautions for epidemics such as this were taken. But even then, it seemed as though nobody was safe.

 

Known reports about the plague describe a purple fog that surrounds a specific area, usually someone's house or a building that is visited by the public daily. When anyone comes in contact with the fog, they tend to die within a few hours. To make matters worse, any form of contact with the fog puts anyone in a paralyzed state, so they can't escape the fog. It's similar to poisonous venoms that paralyzes your body, and then slowly shut down all the main functions in your body one by one. And once everyone within the fog breathe their last breath, the fog fades away into nothingness, waiting for its next victim.

 

Living in a small isolated village within Sapphiria, Tsunugai was asked some time ago to fetch some produce from the local marketplace by his "mother". Well, he did so. And when he returned, the sight before him brought forth a horror never seen before in his life.

 

The house has become consumed by the purple fog. And although he was risking his own life to save his "parents", he didn't care.

 

Kicking down the door with strength he never knew he had, the vapors of the fog had immediately came in contact with his skin. Seeing his "parents" in full paralysis, he tried to get them to move. He was in tears, yelling for them to get up.

 

It was then the vapors of the fog were fully absorbed into his body, and the paralysis came over him as well. Still in tears, Tsunugai screamed in his mind since he couldn't speak. Please...somebody...save me...save my family...

 

"How much are you willing to sacrifice to save those you love...?"

 

A voice came into his mind, one unfamiliar to him. A figure came before him, seemingly unaffected by the fog. In fact, it seemed as though the fog was dissipating around him to prevent being paralyzed like all the rest. He couldn't make out any featureas from what he can see. Rather, the figure seemed ethereal in appearance.

 

With the fog encompassing Tsunugai now gone (But still surrounding the house altogether), the figure could turn him on his back so he could look at the child face to face. "For a child, your will is strong. I like that. If you want to live, if you want to save your mother and father, you will work for me. You will speak of this to no-one, and you will be obliged to answer my call when the time has come." The figure knew that Tsunugai couldn't physically respond to him, so he took another initiative to ensure his words were heard. Do you understand? he said telepathically to Tsunugai.

 

Tsunugai wanted nothing more but to ensure the survival of him and his "parents", so he responded in his mind as follows: Do what you need to do...

 

The figure smiled, kneeling down towards Tsunugai, touching his forehead. Suddenly, he felt his eyelids slowly closing, signifying that he was being put to sleep. "Rest, now. Soon enough, you'll awake, alive and well, your family included..."

 

And with that, Tsunugai fell asleep, hoping the ethereal figure would make due on his promise...

 

Hours passed, seemingly, and Tsunugai had awoken, fully capable of movement. The fog was gone, and it seemed as though his "parents" were alive, trying to wake him up. The three were reunited, grateful to be in one another's presence.

 

Later that day, Tsunugai went into his room, still very happy that his family was alive. However, he noticed something in his room that wasn't there before. 

 

A glowing orb the size of his palm. As he glared at it, he began to hear voices. That voice was that of the figure who saved his life. "Do not reveal this to anyone. This is a symbol of your obedience to me. Always keep this with you, but have it remain hidden. Otherwise, showing this to anyone will signify that you have disobeyed me before what I have planned for you has come to pass. You are the only person that I have ever gave this opportunity, and you must never disobey me. Ever. When I call on you, you will obey. The consequences of going against me will be...apocalyptic."

 

Tsunugai was utterly speechless. Either he made the biggest mistake that he could ever do, or he took a risk and came out on the winning side. Either way, he has no choice but to make due on his part of the deal, even though he had planned to ignore it altogether. But now, he can't.

 

This choice became the moment where Tsunugai's life would change forever, before it would ever truly begin...

 

The Pathway of Remembrance

 

Tsunugai's mind continued to be riddled with the scarring sounds and memories of what came about making a deal with him. From sadness, to horror, to fear, to rage, the Paladin could not bear it. He thought he was passed it, but even now, it still haunts him. All the blood he had shed against his own will, the lives he had taken, the people who have suffered and lived in fear of being next on his list to kill. He hated death, but he was forced to look it straight in the eye for nearly two years.

 

But he knew one thing. "Even though I was too late, I eventually had to cross the line..."

 

Sapphiria, Emeralda, 7 Years Ago

 

For the last two years, one man has struck fear into the hearts of all the denizens of Sapphiria, and even in other areas of Emeralda itself.

 

A contract killer, known for his blood red hair, blind right eye, and crimson left eye. His stare peeks into your soul, but also leaves a mystery. Even though you are chilled to the bone in complete horror by his stare, you won't know if he makes you his target until it's too late.

 

This contract killer, is what led to Tsunugai's path to near-destruction, not only physically, but emotionally and psychologically...

 

It was nighttime. Like almost any other night, everybody was scared. Daylight seemed to be everyone's solace, as the night is when anyone can succumb to the swift and painless death of this killer.

 

Unfortunately, two people who were not apart of this contract were at the wrong place, at the wrong time, especially since the killer didn't come to realize that they were there until after the job was done. He could not see their faces, as they were in the dark for the whole time. But of course, there can be no witnesses.

 

With two quick slashes to the couple's chests, it happened so fast that the two were incapable of screaming to any degree. Seconds later, they were left as lifeless corpses, but also brought into the light. Suddenly, the killer's blind eye came to life, taking on an iris that was not his own. It was Tsunugai's eye color. The change came about when the killer saw who the former witnesses were. They were Tsunugai's "parents". Next thing the killer knew, his body began to twitch violently, uncontrollably. His appearance had began to twitch between that of himself...and Tsunugai.

 

That's right. Tsunugai's body was used as a vessel for the contract killer.

 

This was the first time that Tsunugai ever attempted to subdue the dark entity that would take him over at night, and was successful. But at the greatest of costs. The day that he would finally break his bond with the dark entity that saved his "parents", was also the day when his own body was used to take their lives instead. But for the time being, he was finally free from his bondage, even though it was already too late.

 

All Tsunugai could do was fall to his knees, tears flowing from his eyes freely like a raging flood. Words could not express the feeling of loss that he had experienced. He sacrificed his own free will to save his "parents", but it was a fool's errand in the end. The darkness that he grasped at to save them, would eventually take them away from Tsunugai, permanently. The consequences truly were apocalyptic in its own right.

 

"How......how...how could...you do this to me........YAGATO!!!!!!!"

 

Tsunugai then cried the hardest that he could, his face buried in his arms while laying on the very remains of his "parents"...

 

The Pathway of Remembrance

 

Sorrow and rage filled the heart of the Paladin, whose mind had been twisted and manipulated for the longest time. He no longer shed tears. The time for sadness was over. He had plenty of time to grieve back when he remembered this terrible moment in his life. He had all the time in the world back then to let all his sadness and sorrow out. But even if some remained, he can't let it get to him again.

 

His grip on the large sphere slowly tightened. His rage was urging him to break the object, even it was deemed unbreakable. It wanted him to shatter it, to end everything right then and there. The past would be no longer a part of him, and he could be free from any other hold on his life.

 

However, he knew that it would be worse that the past be separate from him...

 

"No more... No more tears..."

 

Suddenly, the dark energy from the sphere slowly began to dissipate, replacing itself with light energy, sort of like it was being purified from its core.

 

"No more pain..."

 

The sphere once filled with the darkest intentions, was now filled with the desire of a man who fights to protect whatever light remains. The sphere was now pulsating with bright yellow energy, somewhat representing the power he has.

 

"No more fear."

 

Tsunugai then let the sphere roll off his fingers and fall to the snow. The sphere had become so brittle, it shattered upon impact of the soft snow. It then faded into nothingness. He then stood up from where he was, the feeling of the cold coming back to him.

 

"Yagato Kuroichi...you no longer have any control. Years have slipped past me as I was forced to do things against my own will. But now...there are no strings to hold me down..."

 

And so...the Paladin continued his journey, now with the desire to keep moving forward.

 

Many hours passed him, as he finally passed the dreaded snowstorm, and entered the densest forest he had ever seen, the storm ever escalating. In light of all this, he also heard the sounds of both enemy and ally, as if they were fighting in the distance. However, he thought little of it. Whatever reasons they have for doing so, other than the fact that this is still a war, he will let them have their way. But Tsunugai had to keep moving.

 

He just...had to.

 

(Location: D2)

[Dad]

Killua

 

He had just reached the rickety bridges again.  Kenpachi and Yachiru weren't heavy, but carrying them over something so dangerous would prove to be a task.  He couldn't risk leaping past the bridges, not with those dangerous spirits about.  Taking a deep breath, Killua re-positioned himself, and situated Kenpachi and Yachiru on his back.  Taking his time, he began to recross the treacherous bridge over darkness, slowly.  He could sense a commotion going on some ways away from his current location, but couldn't pinpoint it.  Killua would do his best to avoid getting sidetracked and bewildered by other activities.  Moving his Nen around, and transferring it to his eyes, he gave himself slightly extended vision in this darkness, allowing him to see any spirits or ghosts or demons that would attempt to attack him, with time to avoid such attacks.  He proceeded with extreme caution, carrying his allies to safety.

 

Kratos

 

There, just on the horizon.  Kratos could see what seemed like an endless flight of stairs.  They ascended farther into the sky, beyond his view.  As he drew closer, Kratos put his remaining two weapons away.  Besides the Golden Fleece, they were all he would need from now on.  After arriving at the stairs, he jumped from the wooden platform, and patiently began the long climb upwards.  He felt strange, after overcoming everything he had just been through.  Kratos rolled and relaxed his shoulders as he climbed the stairs, sighing contently.  Thinking back on when he became apart of the Counter Corps, Kratos realized how far he had come.  Initially, he had begun making his debut by mistakenly attacking Predaking, perceiving him as a threat.  It was only moments after, he had leaped away and saved Camelot from an erupting mountain, following a spat with a machine that had other plans.  After breaking apart a mountain, he was whisked away into a fairy tale world where he would fight a warrior whose attacks consisted of flower petals, only to discover this warrior was originally one of the Counter Corps' own.  And not an hour later, he was flung into another fight, with a creature whose power rivaled his own, and should have been from Kratos' own universe.  But what had weighed on him the most was the murder of Black Dynamite.  Having been blinded by his own rage and a sorcerer's spell, he wound up killing a member of the Counter Corps.  But still, he had come this far.  Not on his own of course.  Thanks to the courage Arthur, the rallying cry of Arthuria, the aid of Hades, and the sacrifice of many others, the Counter Corps and the Divine managed to get past a being so absurdly powerful, that he was manipulating space and time.  Kratos had many people to thank, many to avenge, and many still to kill.  The deaths of his comrades was indeed painful, but he was finally able to forgive himself for his mistakes, and use their deaths as a means to continue on.  Kratos stopped for a moment, looking higher up the staircase.  It reminded him of the climb--"Hmph."  He shook his head, dropping those memories of the past.

 

As he approached the halfway point, Kratos began to wonder how far others had gotten on their own pathways.  He smiled, as Kenpachi and Ed crossed his mind.  Then, Kratos became slightly flustered as Revy crossed his mind as well.  Was she alright?  Did she make it through yet?  But most importantly, why the heck as he asking himself these questions?  It seemed the pathway of truth had revealed more things than he had expected.  He hardly knew this woman, but he could clearly see her plum colored hair and snarling face in his thoughts.  Only now, he was hoping to see her again.  This urged Kratos to break into a sprint.  He wanted to see his allies again, all of them.  He still had so many questions, so many things to say.  He still owed a fight to Kenpachi.  He still wanted to better befriend Ed, and get to know Elsa.  He was curious as to the mystery behind Arthuria.  He wondered who Tsunugai really was and where he was from.  And of course, he wanted to grow closer to Revy, even in his confusion of emotion.  And with these thoughts running through his mind, Kratos didn't notice that he was nearing the top of the staircase.

 

Atop it, the only thing Kratos could see was an enormous, clear crystal.  He examined it from afar at first, circling it, before returning to his starting point in front of it.  Kratos placed a hand on the crystal, hoping for a reaction.  At first, nothing happened.  Then, there was a shudder in his brain, as a message broadcasted to him from seemingly nowhere.  

 

‘Are you content with your present self’?

 

Kratos thought about this.  After fighting with his shadow, getting over the loss of his past, murdering an innocent, and all the hell he had been through, he truly wondered what the answer was.  But, looking down at his empty hands, Kratos noticed something.  The chains that once bound him to the Blades of Chaos had dissipated.  His load of equipment was lighter, but so was his mental burden.  He was so much more free now, and it felt wonderful.  Kratos nodded, saying nothing initially.  He sighed again, before speaking.

 

"Yes.  I am now."

[Love of Ghibli]

Gyouken Ren: Path of Truth

It seemed that Gyouken was pretty happy with the whole experience in the desolate wasteland that was this new path amongst her golem ride. Maybe she had her grand moment of self reflection already and maybe she was just killing time. What was interesting was that she noticed an odd number of black Rukh floating around the area and she wondered what this development would be. She stopped her massive beast she looked down to notice that there were two figures in cloaks blocking her path. She tilted her head when the two cloaked being revealed themselves. Oh Judar and my son...I think I should have seen this coming. The two boys looked dead at their opponent and leapt at her. You know I actually wondered what happened to these two. Granted these are some random constructs...but they may be a good indication of what my future holds. It was at this moment she had to wonder if Judar could have some manifestation in this path what was it that Butlerok ate? Interesting...interesting.

Ending Location: B8

[Dad]

Wesker

 

There was a dim light in the distance; he could see it even through the ripping winds and dust.  Passing the halfway mark, Wesker had reached the peak of the largest hill in this mirrored version of the Pathway of Truth.  Everything was going smoothly, and Wesker was confident in himself.  He felt no tension, and with a lack of foes in sight, completing this pathway would prove to be easy.  Fortunately, as he climbed down the hill, the winds lessened ever so slightly, enough for him to wipe his shades clean and not be 'blinded'.  That was when Wesker's first challenge appeared.  There was a heavily armored figure waiting for him at the bottom of the hill, some two meters from the source of light.  Wesker scoffed, as he approached the armored figure, noticing the halls in the distance.  They mimicked the halls he first crossed as he entered the pathway.  He stepped to his left, and the armor did so as well.  It seemed that simply ignoring the figure wouldn't do.  Cracking his knuckles in his right hand only, Wesker prepared for his first real duel in nearly a decade.  The iron clad mystery wielded a broad sword in one hand, and a pistol in the other.  A strange set-up, but Wesker didn't expect this to be a very straightforward fight regardless.

 

As the two met 'face to face' at last, Wesker did not move.  The figure raised it's sword high, and brought it down with a powerful swing, but Wesker easily dodged it, moving slightly to his right.  The figure raised it's head from looking at the sword, to Wesker, as it turned its pistol on the trench-coat wearing evil man.  Firing three shots, the pistol rang out, but so did Wesker's senses.  Dodging the three shots at impeccable speeds, he understood that the figure was trying to get a grasp on exactly what Wesker was capable of.  However, he wasn't going to reveal himself so easily.  Taunting the armored assailant, Wesker now stood very still.  Suddenly, even in extremely heavy iron armor, the figured vanished from sight, reappearing beside Wesker, with its blade readied.

 

Ending Location:  C8

 

Killua

 

The two weren't heavy, but the air sure was.  In darkness, everything seemed to carry more weight.  Still, Killua was marveled at what he had just witnessed.  He had never encountered fighters much like Kenpachi.  Not to mention that angel he was fighting.  They had crashed into the tower Killua had only just entered, and were gone again, with Kenpachi wielding the angel's body.  The next thing he knew, the angel had vanished without a trace.  Whether the angel was truly dead or had taken a leave, Killua wasn't sure.  But as big as Kenpachi was, he must have done a lot to see no sign of the opponent, and still be unconscious.  The only other time Killua had been so distraught by what he had seen was when . . .

 

Gon.  He had become this. . . supremely advanced super human.  He had forcefully transformed himself into a fully grown adult.  His power was advanced hundreds--no, thousands of times further.  It was incredible, and frightening.  This made Killua's mind wander for a moment.  How was Gon fairing?  Not that he should worry, but, what would Gon decide to take as his first path?

 

Ending Location:  B3

[Maeriberii Haan]

 

Kazuya was mildly surprised that another people arrived to near the tower, and not long after, a dragon-like creature decided to join in and slammed straight into the tower. He almost laughed after seeing the last one, but decided that it would be improper for him to do that.

 

But not long after, before he could actually greet them, the two left, leaving Kazuya to be alone once again in the open. He decided that he would need to get going too, and without even checking what lies inside the tower, Kazuya left the opening and back into the forest. Along the way, he thought about her meeting with “Naoya” back in the opening, and wondering about what would that supposed to mean to him. And even with all of Naoya’s annoyingness, Kazuya somewhat missed his company, as the walk down the shades of the forest felt really lonely without anyone to accompany him. He could’ve just summoned his demons to have a chatting partner, but that’d only boil down to Garuda and Amaterasu, and even then, he couldn’t really afford to waste magnetite and battery just to have a chat.

 

“Hey, Kazuya! What are you doing here alone? Maan, I’ve been looking around for you for quite a while. You’re making Yuzu dead worried, don’t you know?”

 

“Atsuro? What are you doing here?” As a familiar voice called for his name, Kazuya turned around to find Atsuro was already behind him.

 

“Hey, don’t be too tense like that. You’ll end up as Naoya that way.”

 

“Ugh, I met him earlier, and as always, he’s being a vague jerk again. Suddenly attacking me for no reasons, dropping several vague words, before vanishing into nowhere.”

 

“Well, that’s kind of expected from him at this point. Hey, let’s look for the others, shall we?”

 

“Sure, yeah. That’ll be nice.”

 

 

“It seems that the voice will never stop ringing in my ears. This is starting to get annoying.”

 

While she had no idea about where she was actually going, Reimu kept on moving straight forward, relying completely on her ‘intuition’ to eventually reach the end of the seemingly infinite darkness of the pathway. She still found it to be quite unnerving that the bodies of people she knew could be seen littering the pathway whenever she turned around her yin-yang orbs’ light but after what she had seen in the fake Hakurei Shrine, they didn’t manage to faze her anymore, and she was able to ignore those bodies as merely constructs that the Pathway generated to try breaking her down. At this point all those bodies could do was only strengthening her determination to reach the Door, since she knew that everyone in Gensokyo was already dead anyway, and the bodies were simply acting as a reminder of her goal there, of what she aimed to accomplish.

 

Though, something still bugged her somewhat. For something dubbed as a war, “The War of Origin”, as Yukari said about this race towards the Door, the fact that she stumbled into neither opponent nor allies so far made her start to question whether she got lost inside of the darkness, but her faith in her intuition ended up overpowering those doubts, at least for now. She had no idea on how deep she had gone into the darkness, where the exit would be located, and this road was seemingly endless and ever-stretching, and there was not even any single noticeable change at all so far along the road, save for the variety of the bodies around it, and she even thought that she was going in circles at this point.

 

But around fifteen minutes later, a welcomed change manifested in front of her. The road she was treading was slowly replaced with a narrow pathway, hovering above what Reimu guessed as something quite close to a bottomless abyss. But thankfully, the narrowness of the pathway was not really a big problem for her since she was floating slightly above the ground all this time.

 

Just as she proceeded into the area, she noticed a blonde-haired woman was walking on all her lonesome not really too far off from her, the distance between them was approximately around fifteen meters. Suspecting an enemy, Reimu prepared her orbs and amulets, and approached the woman silently, but without any intent to attack at first, despite her preparation. She just wanted to make sure that she could defend herself against a potential counterattack from her. Much to Reimu’s annoyance, her attempt to silently close in to the woman failed, and the woman managed to notice her presence.

 

“Hey you. Stop stalking me, thank you, unless if you want to-“

 

“…Yukari? Is that you?”

 

As the woman stating her awareness of Reimu’s presence, she was surprised to hear Yukari’s voice coming out from the woman, despite her wearing a completely different dress than Yukari would usually wear, and not to mention, the fact that she seemed to be shorter than Yukari that she knew. And, it seemed like that this “Yukari” was quite surprised in seeing her too.

 

“Reimu? Why and how are you here?”

 

The “Yukari” turned herself around to face Reimu, and she immediately noticed several things that were off about her. While she have Yukari’s face, she realized that the outfit she wore was that of the satori youkai that closed her own heart, Koishi, or at least, quite close to it. Intrigued, Reimu decided to come closer to her without answering her question just yet, but when she was close enough to get a closer inspection on her, what she saw made this “Yukari” even more unnerving to Reimu. She realized soon afterwards that it was not really Yukari wearing Koishi’s clothes, but it was Yukari’s head and limbs barely attached to Koishi’s body, with the connecting points still disturbingly visible. That definitely explained why she was shorter than Reimu remembered. While it didn’t seem like her head and limbs would fall off anytime soon, it’s still quite disturbing.

 

“Uhm..who are you actually?” Reimu asked cautiously. After what she had seen there, Reimu was concerned that this “Yukari” might be a byproduct of the bizarre pathway, or a construct that someone made from the bodies littering the pathway. Her orbs and amulets were still ready if this “Yukari” would happen to be her enemy.

 

“I am Yukari Yakumo, but please ignore my current body for now. I can explain things to you while we continue on this path, but be prepared; this would be quite a long story. But, first thing first. I’m glad to see you still alive and well here, Reimu, even if I have no idea about anything about why either of us are here.”

 

 

“I am sorry to say this, Lady Yukari, but I’m afraid I’m not the Reimu from your universe. While our circumstances are oddly quite similar, I am here by the order of another Lady Yukari, in order to participate in this “Origin War”. Though, from what you’ve described to me, you yourself were not of the Divine or the Counter Corps, am I right?”

 

Just as Yukari was halfway on telling Reimu about how she was stuck in her current form, Reimu quickly noticed that this Yukari was not the Yukari she knew, but another Yukari coming from an alternate universe. And it seemed like she had absolutely no idea about the Origin War, acting here as a lost neutral third party player, and probably not someone Reimu would need to be too wary about if not the fact that she’s still Yukari, a dangerous person to oppose due to their resourcefulness and cunning. Reimu started to weigh in about whether she’d let this Yukari know about the entire conflict, or whether she’d keep her in the dark.

 

“I honestly have little to no knowledge on what those means, aside from some guesses I have constructed from what I could gather from Koishi, so may I ask for an elaboration of this ‘war’? And, may I also ask about your own circumstances?”

 

But, despite everything that she risked at this moment, Reimu’s inability at hiding facts or lying immediately came into her mind, and she soon realized that if she attempted to lie or hide the fact about the war to this Yukari, it would just end badly for her in potentially several ways. After minutes of consideration, Reimu uttered her answer to Yukari’s question.

 

“Sure thing.”

 

 

“That’s quite a lot of information to think about, but thank you for explaining the situation to me.”

So, this is what Koishi would explain to me had she not lost her mind back then. I think I understand about what she’s trying to achieve now.

 

The Door of Origin and its Key, the Counter Corps, the Divines, the Pathway of Origin, Protheus Maximus, there were quite a lot of things that Reimu explained to her regarding about what mess she was currently in, and now, she could grasp things better, especially about everything that happened since she was transported into the hollowed-out asteroid. Yukari also realized that this was what Koishi would probably explain to her had she didn’t lose her mind back then. Though, Yukari could sense that Reimu was still hiding something from her. It was clearly visible that she was acting somewhat erratically, usual for when she tried to painfully conceal something. Though, this time Yukari decided that the best course of action would be to ignore that fact for now. It’d be too rude of her to hound her to tell her the complete truth now, and if she retaliated, Yukari were not sure that she could really handle her with her current condition.

 

“No problem, though, please don’t get into my way, or I shall exterminate you.”

 

A slip. It was now obviously apparent to her that Reimu had her own goal in regards to the Door. But she decided to play along instead of making her suspicion obvious to Reimu. And besides, with her currently being really weak, it would be best for her to have someone that could cover her for now.

 

“I’m too weak to even attempt doing that right now, Reimu. I guess I’ll just stick with you for now anyway, while I’m figuring out how to restore my power back.”

 

“Don’t slow me down.” Reimu replied coldly, probably still quite unsure about her motive, but Yukari didn’t mind it much. It’s a natural reaction for her to be like this.

 

“Like hell I would.”

 

 

While at first the two of them tried to keep a distance with each other and not talk much after the expositions, the two ended up chatting a lot not long afterwards to break the tension between them, and the general tension that the pathway itself exerted on them. Making jokes, talking about each of their own version of Gensokyo, or talking about anything else, really. Reimu found out that this Yukari was quite similar to her world’s Yukari, despite some few minor differences, and she thought that it must be because of this sense of familiarity that the two ended up being able to talk this closely with each other. She didn’t mind it, of course, though she was quite uncomfortable to admit it straight to this Yukari, and whenever she felt like the two was too close, she reflexively created a distance between the two.

 

“Reimu, look there. Did you see that kid carrying two people on his back? Kids these days are pretty strong, huh?”

 

“Yeah, I think I can see them. The darkness made it impossible from this distance to make any details though. Hey, do you think we should approach them? It’d be quite bothersome if they’re actually our enemy.”

 

“Well, why not at this point. Even if they proved to be hostile towards us, I don’t think they’ll be able to do much harm to us here. And if they’re friendly…well, more people to travel with would be quite interesting, don’t you agree with me?”

 

“If you say so then, but the aura reading I get from them, I don’t really trust it. So, like usual, let’s approach them with caution.”

 

“Yeah, as usual. Just like what you did ten minutes ago. Quite usual, yeah.” Yukari sarcastically remarked, though, it was more about teasing Reimu rather something more malicious or rude, so Reimu just ignored it as the two approached the boy carrying the two person, apparently a big guy and a small girl, and the two were probably injured or something close. Not really going to approach them from behind just like what she did to Yukari moments ago, Reimu instead floated to their side, where she noticed that the three were from the Counter Corps, as she remembered seeing them on the ship, moments before they left. Concluding that they’re not an active threat at the moment, Reimu decided to introduce herself to the boy.

 

“Hello there, I think I saw you aboard the Inch of Will. You’re a Counter Corps member too, right? Would you mind if me and my friend join you as a company, temporarily, at least?”

 

 

And once again, Koishi was alone. Weakly opened her eye after what she thought would be the killing blow Yukari delivered to her, the only thing that she could see was complete darkness. Yukari, her sister, no one was around her. It didn’t take her too long to realize that she was fully conscious at the moment, in the middle of the Pathway of Death, and it seemed that Yukari took over the control of her body and left her to die there. But then, something else immediately became her concern. She was not supposed to actually open her eye. Heck, she was not supposed to be able to think, to have thoughts. Koishi realized that her encounter with Yukari ended up forcing her to actually open her third eye, and she was now left without any alternative other than to just continue with her current condition. But even then, even with her eye being wide open, she realized that she was still as blind, isolated, and aimless as before.

 

Koishi tried to move around, using her tentacles to feel her surrounding, and much to her surprise, she found herself to literally be surrounded by corpses. She frantically tried to get away, but wherever she went, she would stumble upon a corpse, again and again. What was the pathway’s actual intention with all these bodies? Koishi didn’t know, and she had no interest in knowing as she was overrun with fear as she stumbled upon bodies after bodies whenever she tried to move somewhere. She couldn’t even see any of the faces of the corpses around her, but she could feel them, and she was getting desperate about finding a way to stay far, far away from them. Without anything left for her to do, she grabbed the nearest body she could find and she proceeded to possess it. After she was sure that she had proper control of it, she immediately buried her third eye inside of her new body before running forward as fast as she could, while using her tentacles to clear away anything that’s in her way.

 

[Tesability Black]

~The Divine - Path of Rememberance - Tesability's POV~

 

"Alright, somebody's gotta explain this s*** to me," the newcomer said, pointing at Shade's feet.  "After.  So what are we doin' here?" she said, cocking the hammers on her guns.

 

"Oh, great, I'm not the only one with guns," the mech retorted in response to the new person's arrival, the sight of her guns in his sight, though his design would make it impossible to tell if he's always really facing straight or not.

 

"Cool your jets, Kawuros. I don't need to use the NetMonster Regenerator on you as well," the floating ghost with the nurse's cap on its top remarked with acid as it spun to face the mech momentarily. This netted a flinch from Kawuros, his hand-cannon still aimed at the floating mage in front of him.

 

Shade's glowing eyes, however, were trained on the intruder of this conflict. The growing aura of tainted energy around him momentarily flared out in a quiet rage as a minor growl escaped the mage's throat.

 

"You interfere in what you do not understand, human," Shade remarked as he raised his crooked wooden staff above his head, a dark energy pulling together in one spot and rapidly growing in size...

 

"Wha' achack ish dat,"¹ the little black dragon managed to say as she caught sight of the attack being formed.

 

¹ "What attack is that?"

 

(Current Location: C4)

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~The Divine - Path of Truth - Jace's POV~

 

"Why are you so interested in his continued well-being anyway, isn't he an enemy?"

 

"My home might just fall apart without him even if Arturia succeeds in her mission."

 

Jace had been out of it since Chandra snapped him out of choking that fairy, walking blindly forward with no real rhyme or reason anymore to his step.

 

However, he stopped at hearing this little exchange before looking back behind him toward the fire maiden, not even acknowledging the rest of the whispered exchange.

 

"What do you mean the Multiverse might fall apart without me? The only plane that could possibly happen to is Ravnica," Jace started to say before his bringing up Ravnica, the one place in the Multiverse he had ever been able to call 'home', had him lowing his head in thought. "...assuming it's still around after a month of me being forced asleep. Not even that shapeshifter can keep the guilds from destroying each other and the realm for long..."

 

(Current Location: C5)

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

~Counter Corps - Path of Death - Neos' POV~

 

Even with the little Emerald Carbuncle on his shoulder and his trying to summon forth a pair of Aura Spheres to keep him moving forward, the false human could tell that trying to fly, in any form, would be too dangerous to attempt. He had also accepted by this point that he had lost the dark lady as well, and there for made no more effort to find her. Something made him suspect that she would be more than capable of handling herself as well.

 

"What do you want, you a******?!" That sudden voice stopped Neos dead in his tracks as he looked around, his guard raised higher than normal.

 

"Who's going after him now," he defaulted into saying, habit beginning to kick in as he rushed forward toward the voice, the little glowing Carbuncle leading the way.

 

As he ran, the scene around him began to change, with him soon finding himself enclosed within a very-familiar room, one he once entered every morning when working upon Ravnica, the Chamber of the Guildpact. He saw the mindmage held in place, his arms stretched out to each side of him as he was held in place by a Roserade that stood behind him with her vines. There was a variety of men in the room that Neos did not recognize, but he certainly recognized the black outfits with the large red 'R' on the front of their shirts.

 

What in Arceus' name was TEAM ROCKET doing in Ravnica?!

 

"Now, now, Mr. Beleren, I can be a reasonable man---"

 

"There's nothing reasonable about you randomly coming into here and binding me! And why are you all wearing Psy-Blockers?!"

 

Neos looked toward the person that this Jace double was yelling at, who had wound up appearing behind him, and paled so much he really did turn pure-white for a second.

 

Giovanni, the one person that literally scared him shitless. How, how, how?!

 

"Neither is interrupting my statements. Now---"

 

With closed eyes did he literally run through the cruel illusion that had formed around him, neither the walls nor the people stopping or slowing him down as he did, the glowing creature following after him instead of leading the way...

 

(Current Location: E6)

[The Warden]

|_)The Evangelist Hapshiel(_|
|_)Pathway of Truth(_|

After such a pleasant romp, Hapshiel had rested in the dying facsimile of a world. Such a simple trick he thought. Though a world dies, with enough love it can live once more with ease. That was what God had taught him after all. And, why would the Almighty lie? He was incapable of doing so, as every word he breathes becomes truth the moment he imparts it. And though Hapshiel did not have the time to spread his love to this world, he did give the time to impart a small gift. Drawing a seed from… somewhere, he pecked it lightly and buried it into the soil. A new hope for a world of despair.

Flitting away, he camply skipped through the dirt until his boots met glass. Quite lovely to be certain, Hapshiel could appreciate such aesthetics. And the unwelcoming state of the corridors were nothing before his infallible optimism. His handsome appearance was given a gloomy azure hue in the shallow corridors; the meaning completely repelled by him. That was, until he reached a blackened mirror.

Hapshiel brushed a loose hair from his brow as his reflection did the same, though, it had quite the gloomy expression. He pursed his lips in abject perplexion. No face of his should be so gloomy, especially now when there was so much love to give to the world. Without hesitation he leapt at the mirror, his body slurping through it into… oh god what fresh hell is this?

Hapshiel’s inner world was so blindingly pink. There was too much love in it. Oh god I have to avert my eyes before I grow a cooch. Hapshiel faced off against, himself, again. His reflection was flexing so hard his arms threatened to shred what little part of his sleeves he had. Not one to be beat, Hapshiel performed his own flex, a long tear forming down the spine of his shirt as his reflection tried a different approach. With each display of homo-erotic masculinity the Hapshiels got closer, until they were so close their chins were practically touching. Their bright pink auras were flaring furiously, until they gave up the charade and started frenching passionately.

[Redacted]

[REDACTED]

[so very redacted]

[You know, at this point I’m not even fazed anymore]

Once released from their warm embrace, the other Hapshiel waved joyfully as Hapshiel was released from his truly horrifying and warped inner world., and was left standing on a sturdy wooden platform. His heavy boots thick with… ‘cream’, stood firm as Hapshiel’s sweaty face was blown on by that gentle wind. It felt good to stand there in such pristine conditions, feeling the wind blow on his sweaty body.

His two small bangs flitted playfully as he flexed his arms behind his back, his chest puffed out to the sky. His small wings expanded in scale to a more flight-capable size, and in his exact same position he lifted off from the platform through the open sky. The clouds that floated by morphed into his form, and they too joined in his carefree spirit in the open sky. Like a graceful bara ballerina his feet danced merrily on empty sky, his body twisting with the grace of a dancing rhino. Joining hands with the cloud he found many dance partners in the sky, and the time passed so quickly. He didn’t even notice the image below him he was having such a good time.

Reaching the other side, he waved and blew kisses to his cloud buddies; their bodies exploding violently from said kisses as Hapshiel skipped up the stairway with endless energy. Reaching the top, he was asked that one question: Are you content with your present self?

After escaping his inner world Hapshiel finally opened his eyes. They shimmered like a pure maiden’s eyes as he faced his reflection in the crystal. “Always. I will always be happy with who I am” Hapshiel smiled serenely.

With answer in hand, Hapshiel moved through the barrier and placed a firm hand on the crystal; and was subsequently absorbed by it. Absorbed by the enormous golden swirly-thing, Hapshiel was returned to the white room, and introduced to two new choices.

Current Position: The White Room

------------------------------------------

|_)???, Lydia(_|
|_)Pathway of Death(_|

The corrupted fears exploded into shadow dust after being strangled enough by the darkness they called home. Lydia’s glazed eyes reflected the destruction of more than just her fears as she patrolled forward along the bridges. She was unusually silent now her boots marched along the wooden bridge, her little light companion floating by her to guide her feet.

The voices were more hushed now, and they fell on deaf ears as the sorceress continued her mad and silent quest. “Lydia” a voice whispered in her own head.

She did not hear it, despite it being from her own mind. It by no small assumption that seeing what she saw back there did something to her mind. In truth she was operating on a mad auto-pilot at this point, as her other senses were cowering, and weeping in a small dark corner of her mind. And though they were consoled by the Dizasters, their words could not reach out through the darkness of her own mind.

The mind is a funny old thing really, and when you break the cutie, you usually break them good and hard after all. And after witnessing her supposed future, well, the poor girl just couldn’t take it. It’s a miracle in and of itself that she wasn’t rendered catatonic after her previous little episodes. “Lydia” whispered the voice again.

Once more, deaf ears as the body continued to the dark stone building. Lydia pressed her hand against the entryway into the building. The stone was cold to the touch, and opened up into pure emptiness. What lay beyond there, for her present sense, she wasn’t afraid.

 

Current Position: D 7 ^₁/₂

[Dad]

Revy

 

"Well.  That was rude," she thought aloud as this magical tough guy just branded her as a human.  Granted, she was one, but, "What is it with you guys and labeling people?  You think because you can float, by calling me a human, you're suddenly superior?"

 

But the Shade was charging some kind of dark magic that Revy didn't wanna be touched by.  She scoffed, raising her guns.  "Next you're gonna tell me one of these slugs won't penetrate your brain.  I'm so sick of you Harry Potter bastards," she said rolling back into the stone tower.  If this Shade was going to throw something at Revy, he'd have to get in her face.  That's exactly what she was hoping for.  She began to go through the fight in her head, removing the others around herself and Shade.  Assuming there was zero interference, Revy had two options at hand.  She could continue to size up this Dementor-looking prick, gauge the battle and find a weakness.  This would give the Counter Corps and advantage later, but who's to say whatever this guy was, isn't a part of the forest's tricks again?  Then of course, she could leave the crew she stumbled on to their own devices.  She had learned from previous occurrences in her own world, that sometimes, you should let sleeping dogs lie.  Granted, this was more of a wide awake dragon,thingy, a floating child's nightmare, and instances that could not be computed, but it was the same difference.  Finally, assuming this thing was as powerful as he portrayed himself to be, Revy could be in serious trouble.  Then again, she had stared death in the face plenty of times.

 

"Screw this," she said drawing a different pistol from her side, putting her others away.  She fired two large flares in the center of the group, and vanished from sight, darting out of the tower.  She had too much she wanted to accomplish, and dealing with bad Japanese anime horror villains wasn't one of them.

 

Ending Location:  D5, Pathway to Remembrance

 

Wesker

 

The armored figure brought down the blade quickly, but Wesker again managed to slip past it.  Wesker snarled as he rolled to his feet, and the enemy fired three shots at his face.  Wesker rolled his shoulders, dodging the first two bullets and catching the last.  With great force, Wesker threw the bullet back at the armored suit, who caught the bullet in it's own chest plate.  The creature looked down at the hole in it's armor, then back up at Wesker.  No blood left the wound, but a magical black dust formed inside of the impact point, and sealed it shut.  Even Wesker had to wonder what was going on now.  Unfortunately, the enemy had studied Wesker enough, and proceeded to advance on him.  Wesker did not back down this time.  If this was indeed just a suit of armor with no soul, the task would be easy.

 

Wesker darted forward, meeting the suit half-way.  Dodging a broad swing from the sword, Wesker knocked the blade from the enemy's hand with a kick, forcing it to stumble backwards.  Picking up the blade for himself, Wesker continued his march.  The suit fired five more bullets, each one deflected by Wesker's sword swings.  With blinding fast movement, Wesker sliced off the hand of the armored suit, rendering it defenseless.  Following quickly, he cut off the left leg of the suit, and kicked it to the ground.  Now, picking up the flailing corpse, Wesker balled the iron suit into a ball of metal, and hurled it into the abyss before him.  "How irritating," he remarked to no one.  He approached the crystalline bridges before him, and began to cross into the mirrored entrance of the beginning of the Pathway of Truth.

 

Ending Location:  C9.5, Pathway to Truth

 

Killua

 

His senses flared.  There was another nearby presence approaching as he crossed the bridge.  The signature seemed familiar, but Killua wasn't sure.  Barely freeing his fingers, Killua charged lightning in his fingertips, preparing for the worse.  As he reached the fifty percent mark, the figures came into view.  

 

“Hello there, I think I saw you aboard the Inch of Will."

 

"The Inch of Will.  Must've been the name of the ship."

 

"You’re a Counter Corps member too, right? Would you mind if me and my friend join you as a company, temporarily, at least?”

 

It was always better to travel in groups, rather than alone.  Even if, technically, Killua wasn't alone.  Somehow, even with Kenpachi and Yachiru on his back, Killua managed to shrug.  "Sure, I suppose it's alright," he said carefully.  There was no sign of hostility in her voice, as she floated along side him.  Killua gave a friendly smile, introducing himself.  "I'm Killua.  Who are you?" he asked quickly.  He leaped the final gap of the bridges, making it safely to the other side at last.  The tower was in view, and Killua dashed towards it.

[Love of Ghibli]

Butlerok & Rhadamanthys: Path of Death

 

There they were. The three combatants stood in triangle formation looking at each other. Butlerok and Rhadamanthys were equally confused by the lack of openings that Dorian had. When did he get so trained in combat. Though with this being some construct of the paths it was logical that anything could happen. Hmph Rhadamanthys scoffed as he cracked his knuckles at Dorian's false sense of arrogance. Oh come on Rhadamanthys after all the things we've been through you should be happy that it will be me who kills you. Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself illusion. Oh, denial is it, I didn't know you would so happily walk down the path to depression. Dorian retorted.

Without a moments hesitation Butlerok immediately jumped forward and went for the attack. As they say if there isn't an opening available then you should just make one yourself. Dorian immediately swung his sword to take off Butlerok's head, but the blade clanged directly off of Butlerok's cheek. The Mad Blood inside him hardened and he retaliated with a thrust to Dorian's heart. The young shinigami laughed as he caught the blade barehanded. Anything else? He said rather confident. Then Butlerok unleashed what seemed to be a never ending assault of Black Blood needles at Dorian. At this range it was nearly impossible to dodge. As Dorian became barely visible in the relentless assault he jumped back looking like a black needle pin cushion, but already waiting for him was Rhadamanthys.  Breath of the Wyvern! A massive wave of sound hit Dorian at point blank range sending him flying against the wall. 

Well this was not as hard as we thought Rhadamanthys said with a slight snicker. Butlerok raised an eyebrow and then he looked down and noticed that he seemed to be covered in some sticky gold like substance. Before Yamamoto could warn Butlerok and Rhadamanthys of what was happening the two were already yanked forward off of their feet in Dorian's direction. Soren Sokatsui! A massive string of blue flames lined the web and blew-up directly in both of their faces. Dorian came out of the massive hole in the wall glowing orange and looking completely unscathed. Buterlok and Rhadamanthys were slightly coughing up dust from their injuries however. The Captain Commander theorizes that he is using his reishi to act as a barrier for our attacks. A crass and rather reckless form of defense. Well come on, in the presence of Madness I think I should be given some slack, don't you. 

Butlerok and Rhadamanthys both launched themselves at Dorian like bullets fired from a machine gun. Dorian laughed as it was time to show these two just how weak they actually were in comparison to his new self. First, Butlerok turned Ragnarok from a katana to a massive Claymore and engaged Dorian in close range combat. Rhadamanthys already equipped with his surplice simply went for straight punching. Amazingly enough Dorian was able to parry and block all of their attacks. He wasn't even trying to keep up with their speeds it seemed he was a natural at knowing their movements. Dorian lazily flipped over both of the assailants and stuck his hand outward. Tenran! From his hand a massive tornado came blowing Butlerok directly down to the ground! Ragnarok shot himself out of Butlerok's back and screamed. DIIIEEEEE!! BLOODY NEEDLE!! It seemed like countless needles of Mad Blood fired at Dorian who resorted to running on the walls to dodge them all. Funny. As Dorian ran he stuck out his hand and a purple rod manifested. Dorian through the rod and as it did it burst into several rods countering and then overpowering the Bloody Needle technique. EEEPPP Raganarok squealed as the binding rods rained down. Luckily Ragnarok used the wings of his surplice to defend against the attack. 

Hyapporankan Dorian said softly and slightly smug as he landed across from his opponents. Butlerok stood once again and dusted himself off. So it seems we are pretty much even...I do not see an end to this in sight he said rather annoyed. It was then that Dorian started laughing. Even? I guess it makes sense that you would be in denial too. There is nothing even about us. I'm far FAR stronger. Allow me to show you. Dorian waved his hand over his zanpaktou and the sword transformed into a great broadsword that was actually too big for Dorian to wield. Rhadamanthys eyes instantly widened as he recognized the blade to be that of his Master Hades. How is that possible! That's right Rhady I am the newest incarnation of Hades...I am your God and as such I am not bound by any of these mortal confines! In an instant the narrow hallway where the opponents were fighting was now a vibrant meadow filled with green grass and a lovely spring breeze. Butlerok and Rhadamanthys immediately sensed the power difference and realized that they were in true trouble.

And now...a poem Dorian said with his head tilted.

 

"Seeping crest of turbidity. Arrogant vessel of lunacy!

Boil forth and deny!

Grow numb and flicker! Disrupt sleep!

Crawling queen of iron! Eternally self-destructing doll of mud!

Unite! Repulse! Fill with soil and know your own powerlessness!"

Hado #90 Kurohitsugi
 

The skies grew dark, Butlerok and Rhadamanthys could only bare witness as they were both encased in a massive black coffin. The space around them contorted and twist causing immense pain. Do you think that this can hold the likes of me! Rhadamanthys pushed his Cosmos to the brink and literally shattered the attack. As he was completely exhausted and drained. Unfortunately when he was out of breath he noticed something directly behind Dorian...the moon! No he said in the most defeated tone he has ever spoken. Butlerok, grimacing, came too and he noticed the same thing. What is so special about the moon? He inquired to Rhadamanthys. That isn't a moon...its an attack. Butlerok's eyes widened. Its one of the signature attacks of my Lord Hades. Butlerok only looked at Dorian who was completely glowing with an ominious, imposing and murderous aura. 
 

...Goodbye friends...Dorian said as the moon behind him was being eclipsed. But this wasn't any regular eclipse, the moon seemed to be turning red. The moon had fully transformed into a blood moon. Then it seemed that everything the moon shined on was being destroyed. This was probably a similar reaction that occurred when the sun scorched the surface of that dead planet. Dorian waved as it seemed that Rhadamanthys and Butlerok seemed to have been erased out of existence. He looked at his hand and then pondered. Well this is weird.

Ending Location: C9

[Merci]

Right before entering through the vortex of energy and starting off the last mission, the paladin Tsunugai stopped Arturia with indecision in his eyes, wanting to tell her something.

"Unlike the others...I personally understand what was needed to be done. You took the greatest risk that you could ever do as a Counter Guardian. And I..." Tsunugai hesitated for a bit, but then went on with more strength in his voice. "I don't blame you for that. Even though I never got the chance to fight by Emiya's side from the start, or even Richard for that matter, I'm still grateful that I'm fighting for a cause far greater than anything I could ever imagine. Thank you Arturia. I hope to see you on the final battlefield, so that we can win this war."

In other words, he believed that the actions she had taken were correct, and didn't blame her for all the lives she'd had to sacrifice in order to continue this Origin War. At first, she wasn't exactly sure how to respond to this speech, and simply stood there. It was comforting to know that there were those out there who understood what she'd had to do, who didn't hate her, who understood the necessity and felt the honour of having to participate in such a quest, but...

Then, just as he'd left into the swirl of energy, her fists clenched as if to express their frustration with something.

"...You're not the one who should be saying 'thank you'."

 

~ ~ ~

Arturia, the Pathway to Death A1

As soon as she'd arrived, she sprinted off, boosting herself with bursts of mana in order to increase her speed. Although, she did try to keep the amount she used under control, lest she catch attention from the Divine or anyone else.

In the midst of an overly repulsive fog of darkness, lit only by dim glowing orbs in the air, Arturia ran down the stone platform alone with her mind cleared of distractions, her silver sword gripped tightly. Truth be told, it felt nothing like Clarent. No, rather, it was a completely different blade - one without a name - constructed by the Madara to replace her former one. Just like this body, it was her idealized weapon and it seemed to be able to conduct mana better than anything she'd wielded in the past, but there must be more to it that just that.

Magical energy was channeled into her sword to make it glow, and though it would normally be blindingly light, here it was only barely able to further light the way, as if the darkness was a living entity actively acting to snuff out anything that defied it. Not too long ago, she'd passed by stone statues but hadn't stopped to check them out, and ever since then, the path lit by orbs before her had been dimming.

In any case, of all the people who were on this particular pathway right now, she was probably the one who held the best advantage due to having experienced her own fate and death already. Hence, she'd been expecting this to be the easiest, the quickest to complete.

It was vital to get the whole Pathway to Origin over and done with, so Protheus Maximus could be intercepted before he reached the end. That was her most important goal.

Needless to say, she'd underestimated this Pathway to Death. Just a little.

Back to the night

Walking alone on a rocky path, there were sounds that echoed through the darkness, surrounding her, getting louder and louder, echoing through the darkness. She knew what they were saying. She knew what they were about. She knew what it all meant. Even though they were faint, she was able to make them out due to her highly enhanced senses right from the start, and it would only get worse the further she progressed. Against her will, without remorse but filled with an unnatural level of scorn and hatred, they chanted over and over, silently but clearly.
 

mONSteR mONSteR monSTER

iNHuMAN iNHuMAN iNHuMAN

tYrANT tYRANT tYRANT

Holding her resolve, Arturia advanced on with quickening footsteps. They were designed specifically to weaken her will, but that was something that she would not let happen. After all, she'd gotten through far harsher hardships, far more nightmarish battlefields than this hopeless realm. This were nothing compared to the kingdom of Angra Mainyu, All The Evils Of The World.

Although, she couldn't help but come to a halt once something in the darkness caught her eye. A faint glint of gold that defied the bleak air around her.

a kING wHO hAS

"How..."

nEVER uNDERSTOOD eMOTION

It was a large, unimpressive stone, but what was really significant about it was the familiar sword stabbed into it. A golden, finely-crafted blade, yet one that had dulled over thousands and thousands, if not millions of years without use. A famous legend in an alternate reality, it went by the name of Caliburn, the Sword in the Stone, the legendary blade that would've determined the identity of the child of Uther Pendragon. However, here, it had never been withdrawn, with its powers gone forever, and its metal had rusted so badly that it didn't look so different from the rock it had been stabbed into.

For a passing moment, Arturia was tempted to withdraw it, just to see if she could fix her past mistake with that alone, once more leading that old, scattered nation through oblivion and into prosperity. but she ultimately refrained from doing so. There was no point. Even if she could take it out now, the right to the kingship of Britain had long since disappeared, consumed by the very evil she'd used to return to that moment. What the Pathway to Death represented was failure and change, and this was a symbol of both. Her failure of having changed her original decision.

Though even now, even after having rewritten time back then, she couldn't decide. Had it been correct to draw the sword and become king, or had there been another way - one that would've brought Britain greater prosperity? One that didn't involve the deaths of countless innocents, all for the sake of their nation?
 

a sECOND cHANCE wASTED, a tHIRD cHANCE wASTED, a fOURTH cHANCE wASTED, hOW cHILDISH

fAILED, aND wILL fAIL aGAIN aND aGAIN aND aGAIN

hOW mANY hAVE bEEN lOST, hOW mANY mORE mUST bE sACRIFICED?

what a fAILURE oF a kING

As much as she wanted to ignore those voices, to block them out, such a thing was impossible. After all, they would continue on even if she resorted to cutting off her ears. The warrior endured, forcing herself to take each step through the growing darkness, the growing intensity of the voices to the point that they were starting to ring in her ears.
 
Proceeding onwards from the stone, it only got worse. Through the light of her blade, she was able to spot glimpses of several other things. An old, ruined house. Chipped weapons, scattered everywhere. Corpses. Some in suits of armour and some in peasants clothing. Some were familiar and some weren't, but she didn't risk getting closer, lest she recognize any of them. She didn't want to know who they were, especially since they were only illusions meant to trick her, but she understood what they meant.

eVERYONE dIED, and eVERYONE wILL dIE aGAIN

"Shut up." Arturia muttered with her blade held high, in a cold, dismissive tone that somewhat betrayed the image of a benevolent leader.

Her mind drifted for a moment. How were the other members of the Counter Corps handling this? Had any of them been driven mad by this scenery, or had they all managed to conquer these obstacles successfully? What things did they see? Well, it wasn't entirely relevant, but still.

One Pathway alone was already enough to affect someone's life forever, and yet they were expected to get through three. Alive, at that.

Before she knew it, the ground had already changed from hard earth to a wooden bridge, apparently supported by the darkness. At this point, the growing voices around her had turned less terrifying and instead more annoying, intensifying as if they could no longer hold in their feelings of hatred for her. A whole unification of voices, scorning and mocking her for everything that she stood for and believed in, even now on this darkened, isolated path.

She tried to block them out by forming miniature plugs of mana in her ears, but quickly realized that the effort was futile. After all, the voices were being directed straight into her mind. She was the only one who'd be hearing these particular torrent of voices, and perhaps she was the only one hearing it in such intensity.

The darkness seemed endless, without a destination anywhere near in sight, and by now the only light was coming from her own blade. WIthout any landmarks or anything else, she couldn't determine whether she was truly making any progress. If she seriously tried to reach out and search for other sources of mana, she could barely feel a few, but either they were far away or the darkness was distorting her senses. Thus, grouping up appeared not to be an option. For now, anyway.

yOU wALKED tHE pATH oF tHE kING and sEE WHAT GOOD IT DID YOU

tHE pATH oF A cOUNTER gUARDIAN wAS nO dIFFERENT

aND sO, wHAT lIES bEFORE iN yOUR fUTURE-

"There's nothing that lies in my future." She stated in annoyance, coming to a stop halfway between the bridge's beginning and end. "I made many mistakes, but I lived my life to the end and then died. I ceased having a future the moment I became Counter Guardian Arturia."

She readied her blade in preparation for anything, taking a stance, and it was just as well because as soon as she did so, a strange figure launched itself at her from the darkness and lashed out.

"KING... ARTHUR...!!!"

Despite not knowing what it was, her weapon moved on its own and elegantly sliced it in half, regardless of the suit of armour that it was wearing...suit of armour?

Glancing down at her victim, it appeared to be some kind of knight, not unlike the ones back in her homeland. Very similar, in fact. From her blade, the knight had a severe gash from his hip to his collarbone, and blood was pouring out in large amounts, forming a puddle beneath her feet. Though, this was only for a short while before it faded away, leaving only faint bloodstains on her boots, and a hint of vermillion on her otherwise stainless sword. Turning away with an unsettled look, she advanced onwards.

sTOP iT sTOP iT sTOP iT

This was followed up by several more figures equipped in the same type of armour lunging from the shadows, but this time she was prepared and managed to strike them all down before they even came close, her instinct preventing any of them from coming close. There was no need to even use her powers, for sword technique alone was more than enough against these enemies. At times, they would crash onto the ground and writhe for a little for dying, or they would simply be thrown off the bridge and plummet back into the pitch-black sea.

yOU dO nOT uNDERsTAND uNDERsTAND uNDERsTAND

Still. What was the meaning of this? What were they supposed to represent to her?

"So.... these were your true colours all along... King Arthur?" A faint, pained voice asked in front of her, with harsh gasps in between each of his breaths. Another knight, having been stabbed through his chest by her before she even knew he was there, and from the light of her blade, she could see that he wasn't wearing a helmet like the others. His face was young but aged, with long brown hair, but most important was the look on his face - he was glaring at her as if she were a monster.

Do I...know this person?

"Who..."

"...what, who am I?!" His expression only deepened, and his arms started to rise as if stirred by that thought, as if it had really pissed him off.

His body was shaking, and it was apparent that he was in extreme pain. It was unsightly enough that Arturia couldn't help but withdraw her blade and jump away from him, sensing danger. While she couldn't quite place who he was, she had the feeling that he was related to her in some way. And that, perhaps all the others were too. Thus far, she'd struck down eleven before they had the chance to voice out their hatred.

If that was the case, then she should follow suit with this one. She should finish him off before he can deliver yet another line no doubt aimed at disturbing her, and yet... And yet she felt as though she had to stop and listen to what he had to say, no matter what.

"It's only natural for you, isn't it? Of... Of course it is. You don't understand human emotion, either as a king, a Servant, or even a Guardian..." Breathing in harshly, he struggled to walk towards her, even with a bleeding gash beneath his pierced chestplate, a knife prepared in his right hand. "So how can you, a coldhearted tyrant...!"

"Oh fallen knight." Arturia cut him off, pointing her sword at him as a warning. "If you still have the strength to respond and recognize me as the King of Britain, then tell me. Why do you hate me so?"

All the voices came to an abrupt halt.

For a moment, there was only silence filling the dark air. Perhaps they were surprised that she'd asked such an obvious, stupid, ridiculous, CHILDISHLY IGNORANT question, and it showed in the expression of the dying man before her, having changed from hatred to bafflement.

Then, upon recovering, all those voices started to rise back now with more intensity than ever before, but their tone had changed. Now it was in the form of anguished laughter and insane giggles, escalating in magnitude, lamenting their unfortunate fates, their own meaningless deaths. None of them were even remembered. None of them were even noteworthy. Pawns tossed off the board for the sake of bishops and rooks and the true knights.
 

wE aRE nOTHING wE aRE nOTHING wE aRE nOTHING!

iT wAS tO bE eXPECTED!

tHE sACRIFICED aRE nOTHING cOMPARED tO tHE sAVED!

At this point, Arturia's composure was at its breaking point. She didn't understand, but felt like she should know what it was, like were she to be given a few more seconds, she'd be able to understand why all these voices despise her so much...!

"So... You do not know..."

But in contrast to them all, the man in front of her remained the same, still with an empty, uncertain look.

Then, he glanced upwards. Their eyes met. Instead of hostility, now there was only pity - pity for a girl who failed to understand her own actions, who couldn't quite grasp his identity or what he and all the others represented.

Come to think of it, not all the enemies just now had been in suits of armour. Two or three of them had been in casual clothes, though whether they'd been medieval or modern were impossible to tell now. No, actually, had any of them really been wearing helmets, or had she just imagined them for the sake of her own convenience?

"Go forth... Towards the Corridors of Death." He told her quietly. "Face your ultimate enemy. Then, drown in your own failure...and PERISH."

Leaving only those words, the man dropped to his knees before fading away. Arturia's blade went back to her waist, and after standing in thought for some time, continued. This time at a slower pace. The voices were still there, giggling to themselves, but they'd quietened greatly and seemed content to simply let her face her next obstacle. It was partly as though they felt no more need to taunt her, as though someone or something else was going to do the work for them.

What does it mean? She thought to herself.

In truth, she should've been able to figure out the meaning of all this from the start, but partly out of hesitance and partly out of denial, she'd been stopping herself from thinking about it.

So, the ultimate enemy. He must mean the cause of my death - Angra Mainyu. Will I find the answer by having to face that monstrosity again?

Oddly enough, despite all the emotions that were swirling within her, from sadness to fear to anger for being mocked, her thoughts were crystal clear. Even within herself, she needed to cut off her emotions in order to do her work. She couldn't afford to think about those faces. She couldn't afford to think about all she'd left behind, and all she may have to face in the future after this Origin War. Not that those emotions was bottled up, but more that she had to pretend that they never existed in the first place. There was no room for such things in the mind of a leader, only for the most efficient method - the method that has the likeliest chance of saving the most lives with the least casualties. This applied especially when it came to being a Counter Guardian.

Kings always experience conflict and strife, both from within the kingdom and outside of it. War was something that rested upon their shoulders, and every loss and victory was attributed to them and them alone, rather than the many brave warriors who had given their lives for their king.

Likewise, a Counter Guardian wasn't so different. It was practically a guarantee that they would always be summoned into a hellish battlefield, with the lives of many constantly at stake.

What was Arturia so afraid of, after having gone from war and war, over and over again?

Or perhaps a better question would be, why were there always those that hated her, when everything she'd ever done in her life were selfless acts, not a single one committed out of greed?

She stopped in front of a massive stone building, its entrance obscured by an impenetrable black fog that made the darkness around it seem like a joke, and entering into it seemed equivalent to suicide. It didn't really need to be said. What laid beyond was the ultimate enemy that she'd been informed of, and whatever it was, it was going to try and kill her.

"The ultimate enemy... Hm."

It couldn't have been anyone else but the monster of pure evil responsible for Britain's fall, could it? The near-unstoppable creature that had laid at the end of her life. While she'd prefer not to face that demonic mass of destruction again, she had the advantage of having already defeated it once. Therefore, this time shouldn't be any different. She would enter, encounter the embodiment of All the Evils of the World, and then defeat them in single combat.

Hence, after a short look around, she held her glowing blade out in front of her and leaped into the darkness.

"I, Arturia Pendragon, have arrived. I hereby issue a challenge towards you. Therefore, Angra Mainyu - All the Evils of the World, come out and face me!" The former Counter Guardian declared with confidence, having convinced herself of her own victory. She'd emerged into a gigantic empty hallway, and while it was dark for now, it was definitely responding to the presence of a newcomer.

As soon as she had entered, the atmosphere seemed to change. Candles lining the walls lit automatically with blue flames starting from where she stood, and continued on throughout the hall in a chain reaction, slowly illuminating it. Her enemy was still hidden in shadows, but in moments, he would be revealed. As soon as that happened, she would immediately engage him in combat in and aim for his weak spot, as with before.

...

And yet...

"All the Evils of the World." A man's deep, emotionless voice remarked. "Well, that may not be entirely inaccurate."
 
 

~ Magus Killer ~

And yet, the one standing before her was not the opponent that she'd been expecting at all. Rather... it was the one human being in all of existence that she had hoped she would never have to meet again.

As each set of blue candles lit up on their own, signaling for the next set to follow suit a second later, they eventually reached a dark man with his back leaning against the right wall. He had ragged black hair, wore a long trenchcoat, and was currently smoking a cigarette in a composed fashion. In particular, his eyes were distant and ice-cold, as though he were gazing at a far-away paradise, disregarding the presence of an enemy.

But whether he was incapable of emotion, or whether he'd cut him off from his emotions perfectly, that was something that she'd never really been sure about.

Faced with such a familiar man, appearing not to have changed a bit since his betrayal oh so long ago, there was only one thing that this Britannian warrior knew for certain...

"Emiya..."

...And it was that she utterly despised this man from the bottom of her heart.

".....KIIIRIIITTSSSUUUGGGUUU!!!!!!"


Current Location: Death A8

[Reinforce]

Chandra

Pathway of Truth

 

"What do you mean the Multiverse might fall apart without me? The only plane that could possibly happen to is Ravnica,"

 

Chandra came to a shocked stop as Jace spoke, before beginning to talk once he'd finished.

 

"The Multiverse has already been destroyed once because at least one artefact was stolen and we left. Even if Arturia succeeds in fixing it, there's no guarantee that it won't fall apart again if everything that was removed from it can't properly be returned."

 

Her eyes narrowed as she watched him, waiting to see what his reaction would be.

 

Ending Location: C5

 

-----

 

Darcy

Pathway of Death

 

Striding forward, Darcy walked through the cloaking darkness that blocked all sight of what was inside the building. On the other side, a hallway appeared before her, large and high and with small, blue flames lighting it up. Though, what drew the witch's attention wasn't the hallway itself, but the figure standing right in the middle of it. 

 

"Hello Bloom, I wasn't expecting to see you here."

 

As she walked down the hallway, the red-headed girl walked closer from the other direction, responding to her as she did.

 

"My friends and I have stopped you every other time you and your sisters have tried to take over the world, why should this time be any different."

 

"I guess so, we'll just have to see if this time goes as well for you then."

 

All semblance of friendliness between the two girls finished, the dark witch instantly transitioning into Dark Sirenix even as the other girl seemed to flash through a quick transformation sequence of her own. At the end of it, Bloom was wearing a tight outfit of blue and light purple, red hair likewise streaked with the same colour purple. A pair of fairy wings finished off the the appearance, fluttering lightly from her back as she rose up into the air. Darcy quickly flew up as well, avoiding the fireball her foe threw in the process. She didn't have time to attack though, as fairy threw more blasts of fire towards her, quickly blocked by the shield of dark energy that Darcy managed to throw in their way. Even with the shield, all the witch could do was block, as more and more attacks came her way, slowly threatening to overwhelm her defences. Thinking fast, she chanced a teleport, glad to see it had taken her where she was wanting to move this time, directly behind her foe in the hallway. With a quick flick of the wrist, jet of purple flame flew at the other girl, barely dodged in time as the fairy moved out of the way.

 

From then, the battle continued in that vein, the two girls throwing attacks at each-other, repositioning themselves often as they dodged attacks and tried to get better lines to attack with. Slowly though, the fairy started to gain the upper hand, with attacks that would hit much harder than her foe, the battle was slowly falling into a battle of attribution of which the witch was losing. She'd known the original owner of the Dragon's Flame was tough, but to be able to keep her forced to dodge and block so often that she could only throw a single attack back for every three her foe could. Gritting her teeth, the witch tossed three of her more esoteric spells out, draining a good portion of her own power to do so. The first was simple, a black ball that appeared in the air before her, moving to absorb the power from the fireballs flying at her. The second began to drain the power absorbed by the first spell, using that along with her own reserves to power the final spell. That third spell built up over the location of the first, growing the black sphere into a large sphere of purple energy, before bursting forward in a large beam of destruction that filled the whole hallway. 

 

Flying the rest of the way through the hallway, the witch passed what remained of her foe, before simply moving on, walking out to view the next area on the pathway. 

 

Ending Location: E9/E10

 

-----

 

Ayame

Pathway of Remembrance

 

As they arrived at the edge of the forest, Naomi stopped and turned to look at her friend, smiling sadly as she spoke. 

 

"I can't go any further, you'll have to go through the rest on your own."

 

Hearing that, the taller girl reached over and gave her friend a hug, crying a bit as she did so. 

 

"I'll bring you back, I promise. No matter what I will bring you back."

 

"Go forth, and remember my warning."

 

With one last nod, the taller girl stepped forth out of the forest, leaving the memory of her oldest friend behind as she continued down the path. Pushing her way through the snowstorm ahead, a crackle of energy started to surround the girl, electricity flashing over her body to keep her warm from the worst of the chill, as a single-minded determination kept her moving through, ignoring the vaguely familiar rubble showing up around her. As she advanced, the storm eventually dropped away behind her to reveal a crystal clear lake with several boats floating around it. Deciding on the closest, Ayame started to row out into the lake, slowly advancing across.

 

Ending Location: B10

[Tesability Black]

~The Divine - Path of Remembrance - Tesability's POV~

"Well.  That was rude," the draconic being heard as she moved her head to try and get a better view of her surroundings, blinking her black eyes as she stayed mostly-immobile.

"...ees shee a Huntew, tu," Tesability spoke with a half-dazed tone before shaking her head a bit.

"Don't think so, but that 'Harry Potter' remark makes me think she's from my world," Talen remarked as she tried to help the NetMonster back onto her feet before the Mage took notice.

"What are you doing, I haven't even healed her," the pair heard as a faint whisper, both of them looking up to have the bluish-black Ghost in their faces. "And I don't know how the Regenerator will react to a human, Hunter Avalon."

"Boo, not now---"

"Screw this!" A bright flash engulfed the enitre group, momentarily erasing everyone from view.

The light had a strange reaction to all but the dragon in the light. She had closed her eyes to keep from become permenantly blinded, but when she reopened her eyes...they were all gone, erased by the light. Taken away without warning for a second time, just like with the Collapse, though nowhere near as brutal.

She managed to get up onto her paws and looked around, realizing that she was all alone once again before she felt a heaviness overtake her. For the second time, she didn't get to say goodbye to her friends and partner. Stretching out her small wings to work out the kinks, she hopped into the air and began to fly through to the end of the forest, though nowhere near as fast as before...

Ending Location: C7/C6

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

~The Divine - Path of Truth - Jace's POV~

 

"The Multiverse has already been destroyed once because at least one artefact was stolen and we left. Even if Arturia succeeds in fixing it, there's no guarantee that it won't fall apart again if everything that was removed from it can't properly be returned."

At the start of Chandra's second sentence did all color begin to disappear from Jace's face as his eyes widened more and more from what he was hearing. As she spoke her second sentence, Jace started walking backwards away from her, almost stopping his breathing at the tag-end. At her last word did his back meet the trunk of one the many blooming cherry trees before sliding down it, the back of his cloak not exactly coming down with him as he did.

Once he was in a sitting position, he leaned his head forward and grabbed the front of his blue-tinted black hair with both his gloved and ungloved hands from underneath his hood, both of them visibly shaking as voices began to haunt his head.

"Artifact Designation: Living Guildpact of planet Ravnica within the Dominaria reality..."

"You and several other Artifacts from various realities..."

"...no...no..." His voice was barely a whisper, yet one could hear the breaking in his words. "Lilliana, Tezzeret, Niv-Mizzet, Neos, Trostani, Bolas, Emmara, Lavinia...they're all gone..." His hands were shaking more and more as his voice rose back to a normal speaking tone that kept breaking up, speaking the names of enemies and friends alike in his shattering state. Shimmers began to fall from his face, tears falling from closed eyes onto knees that he pulled closer to himself at one point, forgetting for the moment that he wasn't alone. "Is this really the price to pay for doing what I can to keep the one plane I could call 'home' from falling apart? The erasure of the Multiverse...?" At this question did Jace allow both of his hands to fall to either side, a broken look upon a face that still continued to look down toward the ground, tears now streaming from his face. "I guess I really can't keep from ending people's lives in one way or another..."

Ending Location: C5 ...I don't think he's gonna be moving for a bit after THIS bombshell...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

~Counter Corps - Path of Death - Neos' POV~

 

The glowing pup-sized kitsune with its single tail managed to catch up with its running summoner, hopping up onto Neos' shoulder as he ran blindly through the dark-lit path, running through illusion after illusion at an unreal speed, as if he had used the Pokemon move Agility, until the path quit trying to break the false human's soul for the time being. He soon found himself almost running over the edge of part of the path and stopped with a screeching halt just before he did, his breath heavy from the energy used, which prompted him to fall backwards and plop unceremoniously onto the ground under him.

 

"Man, where did I run to," Neos asked of himself as he looked toward the the emerald-colored creature next to him and the crystalline quarterstaff in the same hand the creature was near, a faint smile appearing on his face. "Heh, that wasn't my smartest stunt, was it Emerald," he asked of the little creature, who promptly shook its head at him. "At least you're hon---"

 

".....KIIIRIIITTSSSUUUGGGUUU!!!!!!"

 

Neos immediately got into a sitting position while facing the direction the shout came from, ready to get up onto his feet in a split-second. "Emerald," he started before facing the green-colored carbuncle. "Whatever that was, I don't think you're big enough to face it." It gave a nod as it held a serious look on its face before reverting back into a ball of light-blue energy, which Neos grabbed onto and absorbed for the moment. "Let's see if I can still do this."

 

Standing up onto his feet, he gulped before looking toward the quarterstaff in his hand, which also became energy that he reabsorbed. After a second to try to prepare himself for a possibly-difficult task, he rose his hands in front of himself before a thought crossed his mind.

 

He didn't have the time to summon any of the Egis, not if that was who he now thought it was.

 

Closing his eyes, a light-blue emerged from him before engulfing him, the shape of the glow changing and becoming smaller for a few seconds before reshaping itself into more of an avian form. When the glow faded a few seconds later, a large bird that stood almost five feet in height was left behind, most of the new body covered with cream-colored feathers, though the wings and back were a darker-shade of brown. Upon the avian head was a full crown of enlonged yellow feathers that laid back behind like hair with two streaks of red to either side.

 

It hopped into the air before flying toward the source of the sound, flying level to the ground when there was some underneath it and giving off its signature blue light around itself to illuminate its immediate area...

 

Ending Location C6/C7 (Yeah, he ran most the way from E6.)