Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is purely a fanfic for enjoyment.
Cross-over from various games, books, anime, manga, and movies.
The familiar characters you see here belong to their respected authors and owners.
"Speech"
Time*
Chapter 69: Reckless Actions, I Still Do It
Hours later*
I stare at the Cards of Abyss and Chained, drifting in slow circles above my left palm as they project the image of a boundless, pitch-black realm—an ever-shifting shadow-world buried far beneath the earth. This is the Sefirot: Tenebrous World. Tied to the Pathways: Abyss and Chained through the recent adventuring of using the Card of Chained this time. Which survived for 6 months in an attempt to get the Beyonder Characteristic, but somehow got the Sefirot for its Pathway.
That makes 2 Sefirot left before I have all 9.
With multiple Pathways now permanently active at Sequence 8, and my Spirituality stabilized through relentless self-awareness, surprises no longer faze me. Problems have become routine, and this is no exception. Through the Tenebrous World, I can suppress the storm of negative emotions within me at a bearable tolerance. Also, the moment I obtain this Sefirot, the contract between Amaterasu and me was severed completely.
I now have a dangerous Sun Goddess bound to hunt me down, along with whatever celestial complications follow her. At this point, it feels almost ordinary. I've already earned the ire of the Fates themselves; adding a furious Sun Goddess to the list doesn't change the rhythm of my life all that much. If anything, it simply means I won't have to deal with another Alucard—only this time scaled up to a divine level.
Now that I think about Alucard. I am having mixed feelings upon discovering, through the Computational Divination, now significantly enhanced since reaching Sequence 8: Clown Beyonder, my sight has stretched deeper into the tangled threads of my future. And what I found was… complicated. And finding out Alucard has been quietly eliminating my loose ends. Not out of loyalty, not out of concern—no. She's been conducting investigations on her own, cleaning up threats and nuisances without informing me. All of it planned, meticulously, for the sake of a dramatic reveal later. A moment meant to prove her worth, to earn praise, to show me she is useful—not a burden to be discarded.
Part of me feels I should treat her better, acknowledge the effort she believes she's making. Another part recognizes the opportunity: she sees herself as nothing more than a weapon.
I flick the two Cards of Blasphemy away as I rise from my seat, and I tear down the Spirituality wall around me using the silver ritual knife. I slip the blade back into my backpack. Stepping out of the ruined warehouse, I resume my aimless wandering, not caring about the problems I'm causing due to my absence.
A faint pang of guilt twists inside me for Momoyo, Rion, and Sakamoto. They don't deserve the fallout of my disappearances. But I'm not in any state to be near them. Not now. Not to mention now having 5 Sefirot that are already slowly influencing reality around me. More of them are becoming more active on their own, with the City of Calamity being the most active among them.
Taking a step forward, I activate the Right Glove of Traveling once more as I relocate to another place, not wanting anyone to find me easily.
And then I trip.
In the Spirit World, where tripping shouldn't even be possible. Yet somehow, it happens.
The entire landscape twists around me in a blur, shifting so violently that I can't tell up from down, let alone where I'm going. For a moment, I'm certain I hear Momoyo screaming my name, distant but unmistakable, right before something inside me yanks sharply.
The sensation comes from the Sefirah Castle, its presence linked to the Cards of Blasphemy with a force I've never felt. Then, before I can react, that connection snaps—and merges straight into the Cards of Blasphemy before my very eyes, which is beyond anything I expected.
All 22 Cards of Blasphemy manifest at once.
They swirl around me, encircling me in a perfect sphere, spinning faster and faster until they form a barrier that crackles with unstable power. The moment the barrier completes, I feel myself hurled across the Spirit World—violently, brutally, without direction or warning.
One second later, I'm flung out of the Spirit World entirely, and the 22 Cards of Blasphemy slam into me and merge into my body as I plummet downward, crashing through someone's ceiling in an explosion of splintered wood and dust.
I groan and push myself upright, shaking the debris from my hair. Then I blink, because I see that I unfortunately didn't end up in someone's room alone, or the fact that I somehow found Alucard in white pajamas, complete with a matching nightcap, clearly preparing to go to sleep.
"Master! You came to find me?!" Alucard bursts out in pure joy, eyes shining. "Did you find out about Integra's death?! And knew it was me who did it, and that's why you came to find me?!"
I should be shocked. Angry. Sad, at the very least, yet nothing came. All I feel is emptiness and disappointment, not at Alucard but at myself for not being even remotely saddened by Integra's death.
Not to mention, I did know this beforehand, among other things, that Alucard had done in order to show her worth to me. And deep down, after my self-awareness journey. I can see a girl desperate for someone who isn't afraid of her—someone strong enough not to break if she gets too excited.
"You seem too excited compared to how you acted in the past when we first met." I say casually while scanning the room.
The place doesn't look like some kind of gothic dungeon, or a dungeon at all, just… a normal bedroom. Plain walls. Neat furniture. A space someone could move into without a second thought.
"Hey, it hasn't even been a month since I formed a contract with you." Alucard huffs, then leaps over to land on her large bed. She rolls onto her back, then wriggles around until she's wrapped in her blanket like a burrito. "You don't know me that well yet—and I barely know you either. And wow, master, you've changed way too fast. Makes me wonder if I should've stuck to your side twenty-four-seven… but I know you wouldn't like that. You wouldn't allow that. Not after you tossed me into the sky in the middle of the night while I was still inside my coffin. Speaking of my coffin—it's gone. Completely shattered when it hit the ground. So now I've gotta wander into random people's houses to sleep. Do you know how embarrassing that is for a legendary vampire?!"
I stay silent for a moment, ignoring the heavy scent of blood saturating the house. It clings to the air like humidity—thick, metallic, and impossible to overlook. But I push it aside.
"Anyway." I say at last, turning to Alucard. "I need you to go and protect Momoyo. Work with her. Until I call for you, don't leave her side." I look at Alucard with a serious face.
Alucard freezes. Her playful expression collapses into a hard frown as she narrows her eyes at me. She doesn't argue. She just stares—long enough that a full minute feels like it might stretch into an hour.
Finally, she speaks.
"…As you command, master." Alucard slightly nods at me, and then she melts into her own shadow and vanishes, slipping out of existence to reappear beside Momoyo at this exact moment, whether Momoyo is ready for her or not.
With that, I've ensured Momoyo has the best protection available, someone strong enough to fight alongside her, someone she won't have to face the world alone with, at least for now.
I turn my attention to the house.
Because there's no way I ended up here just to bump into Alucard in pajamas. If I wanted to see her, I could have summoned her instantly. Not to somehow trip while traveling through the Spirit World. So something in this house should have some connection with me as a Beyonder.
30 minutes later*
I stare at the satanic summoning circle etched into the floor before me. Then my eyes drift to the family of three sprawled nearby—a mother, a father, their young son. All three are dead. Killed by Alucard.
I rub the back of my head as I have mixed feelings upon discovering that this family somehow knew the honorific name of Fathers of Devil, Something that should be utterly impossible, and yet, there is someone like Kyoka dreaming of the symbol of the Tyrant Pathway. Neither should be possible at all. Even at my current Sequence, using Computational Divination within the Sefirah Castle still wasn't enough to obtain the answers.
However, one thing I did manage to get from all this. This is somehow my work, but I don't recall doing such a thing at all. But then again, who's to say I don't have any other past lives' memories locked away for me to awaken?
Furthermore, it's too odd a chance of discovering this family of three killed by Alucard right before they could finish their ritual or prayer to the Father of Devils, when I just recently obtained the Sefirot: Tenebrous World.
The odds of this being random chance are… uncomfortably low.
I mull over the implications for a moment longer before pushing everything down and getting to work. I raise a wall of Spirituality around myself, sealing off the area from outside interference. Once that's handled, I turn my attention back to the satanic summoning circle carved into the floor.
A crazy, reckless idea slips into my mind.
I dig into my backpack and pull out the remaining components I'll need for the ritual. Blood, incense, powdered materials, symbolic items—everything required to hijack and reshape the existing circle rather than destroy it.
Then I rub my fingertips together, coaxing out a small spark of Spirituality and letting it fall onto the corpses. Flame catches quickly. The bodies begin to burn.
appear around me in response, phasing into existence like they've been waiting for this moment. They drift into position above the circle, spinning faster and faster until they overlap, projecting the image of the Sefirot: Tenebrous World down onto the ritual markings.
Shadows deepen. The air grows heavy.
I slip into Cogitation, forcing my thoughts into a calm, disciplined state to maintain rationality throughout the ritual. Then begin the ritual incantation through Hermes.
"I pray for The Owner of the Sefirot: Tenebrous World, The Beyonder of Many Pathways, The Wretched One. The death of three mortal humans: a father, a mother, and a son. Please curse those who dare to use any means to cause harm against me in a suicidal manner."
The moment the words leave my mouth, I can see the Cards of Abyss and Chained pulses thrice; The shadows in the living room deepen unnaturally, swallowing all light. The corpses of the family vanish as if erased from existence.
An echo of my prayer hums through the air, repeating itself in dozens of distorted voices through the Cards of Blasphemy, still hovering over the summoning circle, chanting it back at me.
Then the circle ruptures.
A rotten hand claws its way out of the center.
Then another.
Then a third.
Three hands grip the edges of the circle, pulling up a twisted, humanoid fusion of the family of three—merged into a single grotesque body. There are no heads. Instead, mouths gape open across the left hand, dripping black saliva. Eyes blink across the right hands, twitching wildly in different directions.
The creature shivers violently, its form unstable, like it's barely holding itself together. Then it dissolves into thick black smoke, lets out a roar combining the father's baritone, the mother's shriek, and the child's wail, and slams itself back into the summoning circle, sinking out of sight.
I drip a drop of essential oil on each candle and burn the piece of paper that was used to draw the symbol. After the paper is burned, the ritual comes to an end. Then, I destroy the satanic summoning circle before I tear down the wall of Spirituality.
I pack away everything into my backpack, then recheck the house thoroughly once more before leaving via Right Glove of Traveling.
This time, I didn't trip in the Spirit World, and I simply reappeared in the bedroom of my rented hotel room, the same one I checked into this morning. Quiet, mundane, dimly lit. A welcome contrast.
I scan the space for anything out of place. Nothing. Only then do I sit in a nearby chair, turn on the TV to a random channel, and let myself breathe out a long, exhausted sigh.
I feel like what I just did is going to come and bite me in the ass somehow. I just know it.