Author's note: I'm back! God, week was hell but went okay, I think. I didn't suffer too much, or at least, I hope. I still haven't received the grades, but I have high hopes! I had more to say, but honestly, I'm almost dead right now, its 4:44 am because I had to go out during the day and started writing at like 1 Am. But here it is, only a couple hours later than promised. Either way, I'm back to stay, and hopefully updates return to schedule, every 3-4 days for one of my fics. See you all soon!
Celestial Ascendancy
Chapter 86: The Chains of Judgment.
Elias Black.
Japanese Ministry of Magic.
"Did. You. Know."
The words left me without thought, without even meaning to. It was strange, feeling so much anger flowing through my veins ever since I saw these bastards massacring my people.
I had to admit that most of what I had done today was without thought. Just anger.
Vali Lucifer's smirk froze. For a heartbeat, his expression still dripped with the bloodlust of battle, but it faltered as soon as my words settled over him.
The idiot had such a genuine smirk on his face while he battled against anyone who dared to face him before, and the fact that he enjoyed it so much pissed me off even more.
I couldn't fault him for being uncaring. Hell, I knew that most of the leaders back in Kuoh didn't really care about the Japanese Wizards, even Amaterasu only cared about their image, not them. But… Vali had been feeling something I didn't recognize at first, ever since the meeting began.
The others stared. My girls, the few remaining devils, and the wizard survivors.
They did not understand. How could they? Their eyes did not see what mine saw.
Vali tilted his head, his arrogance trying to crawl back into place. "What are you talking about?" His grin sharpened something fierce, and I saw his hands clenching in excitement.
He knew I was onto him, and the bastard was thrilled for it.
I didn't answer. I only looked him dead in the eyes. The smell of pure death coming from all around us made me more jittery by the second.
Around us, the girls glanced at one another, confusion bleeding into their faces. They didn't know what I meant. They didn't know why I looked at Vali as if he were the reason this tragedy happened.
I tilted my head toward them without a word, and like frightened children, they stopped moving, their protests swallowed before they could form.
Everyone. Even Iris and Rias, who were the ones least afraid of me.
I didn't know what had come over me, but I knew I needed to have a talk with them. It was the first time ever that I had truly let go by pure instinct.
And it wasn't a pretty sight for any of us.
Did I regret it? Not one bit, but here I was… drenched in blood that was not mine while my girls feared me a bit. I didn't like it at all.
Only Asia's prayer still hummed faintly behind me, with her thin crosses of light keeping them from burning under the weight of my anger.
I repeated myself, looking at Vali with anger and a fair amount of sadness. My voice was quieter this time, but sharper.
"Did you know?"
Vali clicked his tongue, but I could see his eyes scanning my general direction. "You're not making sense."
He rolled his shoulders, spreading his ethereal wings, the faint shimmer of demonic power shining in them.
"But… what if I did?" His smirk returned, and I saw conviction and eagerness worming inside his soul. "Will that make you fight me?"
It did not matter. It was enough.
The ground cracked beneath my step. Blue fire wormed around my body as I lifted my hand in his direction.
Vali's eyes lit up like a child on his birthday. I was giving him what he wanted, but I did not care.
His wings beat once, and he vanished into motion. He only smirked as the torrent of blue flame went into the distance. "Divide!"
The torrent was halved instantly, and Vali laughed excitedly as his wings flapped once, before he did it again, taking more of my spell power to himself.
"This will be just like I dreamed," He smirked and prepared to move.
Without bothering to open my mouth, I just looked at him and prepared for his move.
In a single second, he lunged in my direction after a single flash, his arm carving toward my chest; his speed was even faster than the last time we fought. A significant difference… yet…
For another man, perhaps, it would have been lethal. To me? I was ready.
I let him reach me. Let him feel as though his clawed hand might cut into me. His eyes widened as his smirk twisted into something disgusting.
Dude had problems.
Before he could move away, my palm was already impacting against his chest, almost gentle compared to what I truly wanted to do. However, the impact still left him doubled over against the ground.
The ground cracked as a storm of dust was created thanks to the impact. I could even hear the metal in his armor groaning.
I didn't press further. I still wasn't sure what to do with him. So, I just watched and thought about it.
Vali coughed, then laughed again. His wings flared, tossing him back into the air. "Yes! That's it!"
He was making it truly difficult for me to use the kid gloves against him.
In truth, he was lucky. The only reason I wasn't killing him outright was that I had shed too much blood for one day. A mistake? Perhaps. But I didn't want to see my girls looking at me as if I were some kind of monster.
This time, I moved my head aside, letting his strike graze past my cheek. The force alone should have torn flesh, but my skin did not yield against him.
I let him believe, for a fraction of a second, that he was close. His smirk widened, just as he spat a glob of spit mixed with blood when my knee rose, catching his stomach and sending him flying.
He crashed back again, bouncing off the dirt like a toy.
Muted. Everything was muted. His words, his laughter, even the screams of those watching.
My heart beat slowly. Only the light inside me burned brightly, whispering to crush him. To tear him. To end him as I had ended Katerea.
As I had ended hundreds of devils and magicians minutes before.
"Divide!" Albion roared through Vali's wings again, and my next wave of flame fractured, stripped down to a sputtering fireball. Vali rode the collapse, darting through the gaps, his fist streaking with demonic power.
I let him strike me. The blow landed on my shoulder, making me slouch for a second.
For a heartbeat, his eyes shone in victory. Then I raised my hand and swatted him aside like a bug. His body spun through the air as his wings snapped open to catch himself before he hit the ground.
The joy never disappeared from his face. "You're not holding back, are you? Tell me you're not holding back, Elias!"
I shook my head in his direction. In truth, I understood a bit why I hadn't ended him already. The slight, almost nonexistent feeling of regret inside his soul as he glanced behind me.
It was almost nothing. Not much. But it made my decision set in stone.
He dived again, faster this time, with white-blue arcs shattering the battlefield as he tore through the air like a comet. I let him circle me, let him strike a dozen times. His fists scraped my arms, my chest, my sides.
Each one was strong enough to make me wince, but I let him. I wasn't going to kill him. But a lesson was needed.
When his grin reached its peak, I simply stepped forward. My forehead crashed against his, and the light in his eyes dimmed. His body reeled, stumbling back, blood dripping down his face. His helmet cracked a bit under my hit.
The battle stretched into rhythm. He lunged, and I parried without much thought. Just silent and judgmental.
His fists divided my light. I just increased their potency. He tried to blindside me with feints, with sheer speed and angles that would have left anyone but me here with no answer.
Each time, I let him believe he was doing something. I let him come close. I let his fingers nearly pierce my flesh, just before swatting him away, tossing him into the dirt, folding him with a strike that didn't break but humiliated.
He looked like a child, thrashing against an adult. Begging for their attention.
And everyone could see that. I could. My girls probably could. But more importantly, he noticed it.
Because deep inside, where the world was muted and my rage still simmered, I wanted him to see the truth.
That he was nothing.
That his desires weren't more important than the rest.
That he, seeking his strength and battles, was no different than his family. At least, as he was right now.
I looked at him, and something like pity drifted through the smoke inside my head. He had suffered during his childhood; I didn't deny that. But he was so uncaring that he was becoming what he wanted to kill.
"You are quite pathetic, eh?"
His grin lessened, opening his mouth to say something, anything, but I was already behind him. My foot planted in the small of his back, and I kicked him forward with a clean, contemptuous motion that knocked the air out of his lungs.
He was sent flying, skidding a streak into the ruined earth. I was already beside him before the dust rose. My hand clenched around his armor. HARD.
I slammed him into the ground. Up. Down. Up. Down. Each impact carved a shallow crater.
On the fifth hit, I unclenched and let him fly. I stayed in place, just looking at his battered form.
Vali twisted in the air. The single eye I could see through the cracks of his helmet was shining with so much anger, so much hate, that it just made me pity him even more. In a blink, he was in front of me, his hands holding a magic circle that exploded as soon as he got close enough.
I felt the explosion firsthand, skidding back as my light materialized into two lances that I impaled into the ground. I blinked the light away from my eyes and spat a glob of golden ichor that vaporized before it could touch the ground.
I hadn't known he could use magic, to be honest. It caught me off guard, and I paid the price.
He lit up with joy and terror all at once, "Got you."
He was panting, his lungs fighting for air as I looked at him.
"Briefly," I nodded at him. He had gotten me, and I respected it.
He met me head-on. For a breath, it was only our hands.
His fists met my palms. His elbows and my wrists. He reduced the power of my light every time he was impacted, shaving the edge to weaken each blast before it hit him.
I just continued with my onslaught. He blocked what he could, parried what he could not, then he dodged. For a handful of seconds, we looked even. He looked like he was enjoying himself.
Then his guard opened, thanks to his diminishing stamina. Just what I had been waiting for.
Almost smirking, I felt my fist slip through his guard as his helmet cracked around his cheek.
Pieces and pieces of metal fell down as his head rocked back. He grunted in pain before he reoriented himself and covered again.
I stepped with him. He tried to catch my wrist and fold me. I did nothing.
When he overcommitted, I reversed and turned his hold into a lever and put my knee into his ribs.
He bit down on a yell as he spat more blood. He swung low for my legs, and I jumped over, let him pass, and touched the back of his uncovered neck with two fingers. The touch was nothing. The spell behind it was cruel. His balance buckled, and he face-planted into the ground under crucio.
Every nerve in his body must have felt like it was on fire.
He coughed, rolled, clipped my chin with a rising hook, and beamed with triumph until he saw that my head had not moved. I answered with a blast of light that lifted him off his feet and sent him tumbling.
He scrambled upright as fast as he could, panting all the way.
My own breath was slow and even. I was not feeling that tired or hurt. My healing energy fixed whatever lucky hit from him before he could capitalize on any weakness.
"You are quite pathetic," I repeated flatly, looking at him between pity and some remaining anger.
Something snapped in his face. The smile flared back up, too bright to be real. The brittleness in its corners was proof enough. "What do you even mean by that?"
"That no matter how much you try, you are just like them," I said, ignoring the seed of regret that kept growing the longer our fight progressed, just for a moment. "You accepted that your biggest desire is vengeance against your family. Yet… you are not different from them. You are not a break in the mold that is your bloodline. You are exactly what sired you."
I wanted to make it hurt, and as petty as it was to use my powers for this… it felt right. He would keep his head, but not his pride.
He snarled at me with so much vitriol that I had to hide my smirk.
"You are your father's son," I said, and that was a knife he could not pull out no matter how hard he tried. "You are your grandfather's descendant. Your blood must be cursed to sprout such vile beings into existence. All this mess? You can't fix that. In the end, you are the same as them."
The white-blue aura around him spiked with his anger as he let out a scream of pure rage.
Albion growled through the gauntlet as he felt his wielder's rage. But it had an air of acceptance if you listened closely.
Vali screamed, and the scream was more childish than anything else. He launched at me, teeth bared and fury in his eyes.
I welcomed him with open arms.
He blinked from side to side, cutting my light every time it started to form, starving the wave before it could crest.
He was fast, there was no denying that. He was strong; no one could say otherwise.
Perhaps he truly was what Azazel had called him, according to Serafall. The strongest White Dragon Emperor ever.
He was everything he bragged about, and it was not enough. He slashed for my throat, and I tilted back, feeling the wind pass by. He punched in my heart's direction with a scream, and I rode the force with a half step, then knocked his wrist out of line and tapped his sternum open with two fingers.
The tap blew him back three meters. A hole two inches deep in his armor, showing his white skin under it as it began to turn red thanks to my light. I could have killed him. He knew that.
"You don't know what you're talking about!" he panted. "Say it again. Say it to my face while I break you."
"You cannot break me," I said softly. "Nor can I break you, Vali. You are already broken. You never escaped your nightmares."
He snarled and feinted left. I moved before his clawed hands reached me.
He darted right and tried to pivot behind me. I pivoted with him and shoulder-checked him out of the move. He tried to lock my arm and tear the joint. I rolled the lock before it set and bumped his knee with my shin. His stance went crooked. My elbow met his temple.
The light of his eyes went out for a second before they returned with vengeance. He did not fall. He refused to give in. He roared and divided a pillar of my light that I had let fall down from the red sun above us. The pillar was halved and halved again, and he laughed because he thought that was my point.
It was not. I had no need to hide my attacks against him.
The point was to waste time, because the longer I watched him with my third eye, the more I learned about him, about what made him tick. What points to push to make him crumble… to destroy what he was.
An idiot. Because he hadn't been taught better. Because no one had told him he wasn't more important than the rest of the world.
"Why so angry?" I said dryly, seeing him pant and huff through uneven breaths. "Because I spoke the truth? Because for the first time someone was honest with you?"
"Shut up," he said as multiple magical circles came to life on the ground I was on. I moved out of the way just like he wanted, and I felt my skull rattle under his fist.
It was a good hit. It threw me back across the field. It punched the ichor out of my lips again. I swallowed the taste, and it felt like a bus had run over me.
He was on me before I finished swallowing. I let him throw a flurry of fists. I blocked the first ten, parried the next three, took the next two on my ribs, and then fed him the heel of my palm under the chin. His teeth cracked as more of his helmet fell into motes of light.
He staggered and spat a couple of teeth out as I took the chance to shake my head to get rid of the ringing. I hooked his ankle, but did not take him to the ground like he expected, no.
I lifted him by the neck instead and held him there for a second, just long enough for his eyes to feel the distance to the earth and hate it, then I let him go with a shove that sent him skidding but not falling.
"I am not killing you," I said, and that hurt him more than any strike. "I am teaching you what you have become in your quest, Vali. You are not worth what you believe you're worth."
He breathed like a bull as his eyes darkened in anger. The white-blue aura enveloped his arms and shoulders. The lines of Divine Dividing brightened until I heard screams from behind me. The muffled cries from the survivors.
"You do not understand me at all," he spat. "I will cut you down, and I will cut him down, and I will finally be free!"
"You won't ever be free if you continued as you are," I said softly. "You are just another chained fool. What would your mother think of what you've done, Vali?"
His face twisted into a grimace, and I knew that of all the things I had said, this one hit him the hardest.
I stepped into him. He finally guessed right and tried to meet me, and I folded his arms with mine and kicked his shin into itself, making it crack, then spun and opened his guard with a backhand that cracked the blue-white glow on his cheek.
He kept swinging while stumbling. For a second, I respected that, and then I crushed it with a straight punch that landed on his chest and carried him like a comet.
He flew.
He turned over three times like a cartoon, then controlled the spin with a snap of his wings. He righted himself in the air and hovered, shoulders heaving, blood on his teeth. His eyes never left me.
I rose to meet him. The ground felt as if it sighed as my feet left it.
We faced each other above the silent field, two points in a silent sky, above the eyes of every mortal being that had never seen a beating like this. And it wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
Serafall Leviathan
I couldn't sit still. My heels clicked on the floor as I paced around the room in Sona's school like a caged animal, the image of Elias and Azy's kid locked above the battlefield making my stomach churn.
This wasn't supposed to happen. What the fuck had Elias meant by that brat knowing about the attack? Was Azazel in it?
No, that didn't make sense. He had been as surprised as the rest of us, bar Odin, who was looking at the spectacle with a wide grin on his face. The bastard.
Didn't he know how much of a mess this all would cause? He probably didn't care.
"Damn it!" I shrieked, throwing my hands up, spinning in place as everyone else just sat there watching the projection. "Are we going to stay here counting laurels?!"
Sirzechs said nothing. His eyes were set in stone as he focused on his little sister.
Ajuka was muttering under his breath as more numbers and runes passed by faster than I could follow.
The angels looked like they'd swallowed glass, some angrier, some worried.
Odin sat back with that smug half-grin, and Amaterasu… Amaterasu looked like she wanted to burn the entire continent clean.
The fact that she could do that made this even worse. I didn't want to deal with this mess. At least I wouldn't have to deal with the Old Satan Faction or the bastard Zekram, that was Sirzech's court.
I only needed to deal with an irate Goddess. Fun. At least none of the sacred beast hosts had died, thankfully.
Only Azazel seemed human in the moment, though even that word didn't fit him. His wings betrayed him. The small, jerky shudders told me everything his face tried to hide.
Odin broke the silence, his voice rough but serious for once. "How long do you think your boy can hold against him? He might be a traitor, but the brat's got potential. It would be a shame to lose him when he can be used."
Azazel's blank mask didn't falter, but I saw his hands tighten against his knees.
He exhaled through his nose. "I don't know, Old man."
His tone was flat, but I caught the stress in his eyes. "Against anyone normal? I'd bet on Vali against every fighter under thirty. But that wizard isn't a normal enemy."
Odin's snort was loud, and it made Azazel's eyes narrow. "Wizard? After you saw what he did you still call him that? Your brat's lucky the other brat is holding back for whatever reason."
I flinched as Elias slammed a blow into Vali's guard. The sound cracked through the projection, and I felt it in my teeth. The boy's leg guard fractured, shards flying, and his scream carried even through Amaterasu's spell.
His Balance Breaker shimmered, his exposed skin seared by Elias's light, raw red spreading up his shin.
Azazel surged to his feet. "Ajuka. How long?" he asked tightly.
It wasn't begging, not quite. But close. Too close for Azazel.
I hadn't even known he was capable of such a sentiment.
Ajuka didn't even look up, his green hair plastered to his forehead. "I'm trying, Azazel, believe me. Five minutes, maximum, before I can thread a teleport that doesn't bounce off that area thanks to that blasted rift."
"Five minutes," Azazel hissed. His eyes returned to the projection, "We don't have five fucking minutes!"
On the screen, Vali staggered back, blood dripping from his mouth as the helmet finally cracked in its entirety. He coughed, spat red, and erected a dozen wide barriers of demonic power.
And such demonic power. I wasn't happy with learning that the brat was a descendant of Lucifer, but I could not deny it, not after this.
He was a monster, like the rest of his family.
Elias just stood in the distance, watching. Like he had done most of the fight. He could have ended it many times, but he always gave him the chance, for whatever reason.
Vali pressed both hands to his chest. He coughed again, hard, his voice breaking as he began to speak words that froze my blood.
"I, who am about to awaken, am the Heavenly Dragon…"
Azazel snapped. His wings spread wide, his voice breaking its calm mask. "No, you fucking idiot! He's about to enter Juggernaut Drive!"
The chamber erupted in noise. The archangels leapt to their feet, Odin actually leaned forward, his one eye shining in excitement, and even Amaterasu's mask cracked into fury.
Ajuka swore under his breath, his hands moving faster, green symbols crawling up his arms. "We won't make it in time!" he snapped.
The screen shook, the projection shuddering with static. One blink, Eli was still... the next?
His spear bloomed into being, shining with radiant light that wanted to sear my eyes through the screen. He drove it through Vali's barriers, shattering them one by one like they were paper. The walls fell in succession until he was at Vali's chest.
And then his hand was on him.
I waited with bated breath for something to happen, which came from a direction no one expected.
Michael screamed his throat raw. His hands clutched his head, his wings folding tight as he fell to one knee.
Odin's eye widened, and then the old bastard threw his head back and laughed. A deep, booming laugh that made the whole room stare at him like he was mad.
Despite the chaos, Amaterasu's fire blazed hotter, her voice like molten steel.
"Enough! If he uses the Juggernaut Drive here… if it manifests through mortal soil, then all of you will answer for it! Do you hear me?!"
"Calm your tits, Amaterasu," Odin drawled, still chuckling, still looking at the projection with gleeful madness.
She hissed, snapping her fan closed with a sharp crack. Disgust radiated off her in waves. It looked like she was about to attack, but Odin's following words froze us in place.
Odin turned to the kneeling archangel. "Tell them, you feathered brat. Tell them what's happening."
Michael raised his head. His face was pale, and sweat dripped down his brow.
His voice was steady, but everyone here noticed the awe behind his words.
"He… Elias… he is interacting with the Sacred Gear itself." He winced, pain flickering across his face. "The system left by Father… is blaring inside my head."
Elias Black
The moment my hand touched Vali, the world seemed to fold in on itself. I hadn't known what he was doing, but I had never felt such danger. Not even when I died.
I hadn't even known what I was doing, just moved on autopilot as I touched the wings on his back. When I opened my eyes again, I was not on the battlefield.
I stood before a cage.
Bars of holy light stretched higher than mountains, with runes that I could not understand. Chains thick as rivers wrapped the figure within, pinning wings the size of a town. A gargantuan white dragon writhed against them, its scales cracked where golden spears pierced through its chest and wings. Its eyes snapped open and locked onto me.
The roar shook everything.
"WHO DARES?"
The cage rattled. The chains shrieked. His wings beat once, hard enough to throw me back a step, though the bars still held him firm.
I straightened, brushing nothing from my pristine toga. "Elias Black. It's good to meet you in person, Albion."
Albion, the Vanishing Dragon, bared his fangs, slamming his tail against the bars. Sparks cascaded across the infinite space. "How could you be here? Inside my prison? Impossible!"
"You'll have to forgive me," I said quietly, and honestly, I was as confused as he was. "I didn't plan it. I just moved when I felt the danger. No idea what's going on."
Albion's eyes narrowed, and I took the chance to observe his majestic form. Damn, what a badass dragon.
Curiously, he had feathers. Weird.
Deciding to be honest for once, I sighed. I had no idea what was going on, because I knew for sure that my body was still outside.
So this had to be a projection of my soul…
Focusing, I thought of the conversation I had had with that being when I was dead, and I opened my eyes and waved my hand. Somehow, the memory was shared between us.
The projection flickered between us before it solidified. Albion said nothing, just watched with growing incredulity.
Who knew dragons could show this many expressions?
His pupils narrowed to slits. "…The Beast… Trihexa. I thought it was a myth."
"It isn't," I said. "Or at least, I don't think so."
"Look, Albion," I said hesitantly, "I was never a believer, funnily enough. But the system decided to make me a messiah, to bless me. No one yet knows about this, but this was what I was shown. And… and I'm scared. If that thing appears, I don't know what the world would need to do to survive. It dwarfs Odin's power like a candle against a roaring inferno."
"The world would end," Albion said simply. "But now things make more sense. Yahweh needed help to seal us during the great war… This is why. He was weakened."
"Was he truly that strong?" I asked curiously as I looked around his cage. "I mean, obviously, but you and Ddraig were something else, no?"
"And we didn't compare to him, whelp. He was something else, and… he was growing stronger even when we were sealed. The world was much bigger than you could imagine. He was born of pieces from them, after all."
"Then you understand why we need to stop Vali, no?" I asked seriously. "I don't know what he is doing, but we can't die now."
The dragon laughed, a low, deep rumble that shook dust from the chains. "If he uses the Juggernaut Drive, he will kill you. Nothing would stop him."
My lips twitched into a humorless smile. "That kind of power doesn't exist without a price. Tell me. What is it?"
For a moment, Albion only stared. His pride warred with silence. Then he huffed smoke. "You could ask any of those bastards, and they would tell you. So be it. It has been a long time since I spoke to someone face-to-face."
He drew in a long breath, the chains groaning against the movement.
He explained in a simplified manner, but I understood the gist of it.
I tilted my head thoughtfully. "So, he can do something like that… but it would still consume him eventually. And the world would see it. He will be hunted for the danger he represents."
Albion shifted. His silence spoke louder than words.
"You know I am right," I pressed on. "If he activates it, the idiot might kill me before he dies, but believe me, I won't go down without a fight."
I shot him a goading smirk, "Wouldn't it be better to save that risk for the monster itself? The thing that even God couldn't kill?"
At that, his eyes sharpened. I could see his pride battling with common sense.
"You…" he rumbled angrily, "…you want to pit us against the Beast?"
"Not anytime soon if I can help it," I said simply and rolled my eyes. "We are still growing stronger, and this might have been the reason so many people our age are such monsters compared to the past… Think about it, Albion. It must be because of Fate."
The screen showing the Beast trembled. The vision of Trihexa roared in the light, as though the Beast itself twitched at the mention of its name.
Thinking about something, I shrugged. I had nothing to lose, and I doubted something so small would mess with the artifact.
I strolled toward the cage, slipping through the bars into Albion's prison. His eyes widened in genuine shock as I gripped the golden chains. They burned my hand as the light entered my body. Foreign, yet… warm. Just like what I remember from my past life when my father held me.
They bled light into me, but it wasn't my light. Above, a cross flared, blazing white, then it fell into my body.
The chains thickened a bit, but their grip loosened.
Albion shifted, lifting his head for the first time in what must have been thousands of years, his wings stretching wider than I could see. He was not free, obviously. But at least he would not be so cramped.
His eyes were focused on me, caught between shock and something I could not recognize. He exhaled a sigh that rolled like thunder through the weird space we were in.
He didn't thank me. He didn't curse me. He just… breathed.
"Stop him from doing something stupid," I said firmly. "Don't allow us to die for nothing. I can see that you care for the idiot. Don't let him waste his life. I will beat the crap out of him because he deserves it, but he will live. That, I swear on my name."
His gaze lingered on me for a long, suffocating moment. Torn. The pride of a dragon against the truth of my words. At last, he huffed.
"You ask me to betray him."
"I ask you to protect the future. For the world," I met his eyes, unflinching even through my nervousness. "We don't have to die now. If we survive, if we live long enough to face the Beast… then maybe our deaths will have meaning. Or... or maybe he will surpass your legend, Albion."
The space shuddered again, cracks spreading through Trihexa's image.
Albion's laugh was low, grudging. He lowered his head until his vast eyes filled my vision. "You give him hell… but you were surprisingly similar, brat."
And with a breath like a hurricane, he hurled me out of the cage, out of the Sacred Gear, back toward the battlefield.
My eyes snapped open.
Vali's voice still echoed the cursed chant, but the rhythm faltered. The tide of power he had been summoning flickered into nothingness.
His face was a breathtaking mix of anger, panic, and confusion.
"Albion! What are you doing?! Answer me!"
The dragon didn't respond. His silence was the loudest answer of all.
I stepped forward, spear dissolving into light at my side.
"You're an idiot," I said flatly. "But the dragon cares for you. More than you deserve in my opinion. He chose not to damn us today. Because you are an idiot."
Vali bared his teeth, but I didn't give him room to retort.
I tilted my head, blood still dripping from my third eye. "Now answer me. Did you know they would massacre the wizards of Japan?"
I didn't know if it was the blood loss, confusion, or the panic of not hearing from Albion. Still, he was shocked, and most importantly, vulnerable.
"I…" He shook his head violently, anger bubbling under his panic. "No! I fucking didn't! I thought they would strike the peace talks, not… not this!"
His voice cracked even more than his remaining armor, and a couple of seconds later, the metallic sheen disappeared into motes of light.
I closed the distance between us in less than a second. My hand fisted his silver hair, yanking his head back until his eyes were forced wide, dragging his gaze across the battlefield.
The ruin. The broken buildings. The blackened corpses of devils, magicians, and innocent wizards. The wizards kneeling among the wreckage, holding children with empty stares.
"They all lost people," I whispered, my voice carrying heavier thanks to my anger. "Your silence let this happen. Your dreams blinded you while they burned. Every cry, every corpse, every child who would never see their family again. Families that loved them, gone."
Vali squeezed his eyes shut as a look of shame appeared on his face. My hand tightened, my nails digging against his scalp hard enough to draw blood. "No, you didn't get to ignore their suffering, Vali," I hissed. "LOOK. AT. THEM."
His eyes were forced open after my shout, drinking in the despair around us. The survivors stared back at him with faces carved by grief and anger.
"You didn't kill any of them, true," I admitted. "I can't even lay the blame on you, but you… for focusing on your vengeance, believed that their suffering was worth some battle for you to improve."
"You loved your mother more than anything else in this world before she was killed," I said lightly. "And now? Their mothers wouldn't be home when they return, just like yours."
Something broke in him. Vali slumped against my grip, shoulders sagging in despair. His arrogance, his grin, even his fury… all gone. What was left was only a boy, choking on the weight of consequences.
But that regret? It was genuine.
I sighed, closing my own eyes for a moment. The rage inside me seethed, but the fire had cooled enough for me to breathe.
"You're pathetic," I murmured one last time. "But you can be better. Give your last name a new meaning."
My knee drove into his chest. The impact hurled him down like a comet, crashing him into the ground with bone-rattling force. He didn't rise this time.
He coughed blood, his body trembled, but he stayed still.
I descended after him. My hand flicked, and chains of light erupted from the earth, winding around his limbs and clasping his throat.
Bound. Beaten, yeah. But alive. And hopefully? The lesson would be engraved into his soul.
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