Dantega:Volume 6 Chapter 9
(PART 3)
“Calm down Ubica, I’m not here to fight you.” Michael says while taking a seat on the bench Ubica had just sprung from.
“Then what are you doing here!?”
By now, Ubica has his sword out and is ready for battle. When he left Michael alive back at the second Gate, he never imagined that he’d see him again, and if he did he'd certainly not have thought it'd have been so soon.
“I’ve come to you a defeated man, I’ve given up on my revenge.”
“...That doesn’t answer my question.”
“If I’m not trying to fight you, why else would I be here? I’ve come to lend you a hand.”
Ubica is floored, there’s no way he can believe something like that so easily. The lengths Michael was willing to go through to kill him were just far too great for him to just give up and do the exact opposite like that.
“It’s true.” Michael replied with a slight smile. He gets up off the bench and walks towards Ubica. “After I lost to you again I had to do some serious soul searching. I needed to look at who I really am, and what I found scared me... I was becoming like you, and you are becoming like me.”
“.....”
“Haha, how is that supposed to work right? I, the Archangel, the person who stood at God's side was becoming an evil man consumed by hate. While you, the Anti-Christ, the single most evil entity in all of existence is becoming benevolent.”
Michael reaches out his hand and lowers the sword pointed at him towards the ground. Ubica’s arms go limp and allow him to do it without so much as a struggle.
“After yet another defeat, I realized that I can’t control what you do... I can only control myself. And I don’t want to go down the path you created inside of me, I refuse to do that. So I’ve come to the conclusion that I still have a duty to protect the word of God and worlds he created. In hindsight, I believe God allowed me to pursue my revenge for you precisely because he wanted me to realize that.”
“So you’re saying that you forgive me?”
The soft smile Michael was wearing vanishes in a flash and is replaced by a very stern expression.
“No... I’ll never forgive you for what you've done. And there will always be a place in my heart that despises you. Those feelings will never change.”
Ubica shifts his eyes down to the floor, he should’ve known he’d say that, it was a dumb question to ask.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that the world, all of the worlds need you and Rage back. I’m willing to store away those feelings and do whatever I can to guide you back to Earth.”
Ubica stays silent for a few moments, his gaze never leaving the flowers of the garden. Michael can now see the guilt that he has refused to see before now.
“...Thanks.” Ubica says softly.
He has accepted Michael’s offer for help despite his reluctance to take it.
“Good, I’m glad you’re such a trusting person. If I was in your shoes there’s no way I’d accept help from someone that tried to kill me.”
Ubica takes a deep breath and lifts his head up, revealing a smile. “You’re the Archangel. That alone should be more than enough of a reason to trust you.”
“Hahahahaha.” Michael laughs for the first time in front of Ubica and continues, “What an interesting guy you’ve become. With that kind of attitude I can see why you keep running into so many problems.”
Michael puts his arm around Ubica’s shoulder and the two start walking back towards the hotel lobby.
“I may be able to help you get back to Earth, but helping you with your girl problems is out of my realm of work.”
“You heard that huh?”
“I didn’t mean to pry.”
“I guess it’s understandable, I can accept that she hates me. But I won’t let her hurt Messor because of it.”
The two of them reach the hotel lobby and scour around for the rest of the group. He knows that Rage and the others should be out and about somewhere, it’s the afternoon so none of them should be asleep. The hotel lobby is pretty large, it has multiple couches for lounging and a circle bar right in the middle of the room for people to gather.
“The False Prophet... I remember Raphael paying the price for harming her during the battle. Are you willing to do the same thing with that girl?”
Michael is mentioning the time during the Apocalypse in which the Archangel Raphael took Messor captive and was ruthlessly killed by Ubica for doing so.
“Of course not!” Ubica shouts, he slightly cringed at that thought.
“Then I pity you... I fear that that will be the only way to stop that girl from harming your Idol. There’s something in her eyes telling that there’s no chance for reasoning.”
Ubica takes a troubled sigh and responds to Michael’s heavy words. “I just don’t understand what could’ve changed her like that... I mean, she was the one person who knew who I was from the very beginning.”
“People are easily changed.” Michael replies. “Just look at me, and how I was affected. It doesn’t have to be something that suddenly happens that changes a person like my case for instance; it is usually the opposite. A steady occurrence of seemingly minute events that escalate to such a point where coping with it is unbearable is far more damaging... If you look at it like that, you’d see that there is no man alive who is immune to change.”
Phoenix finds himself walking up a flight of stone stairs that stretches miles toward the sky. This flight of stairs makes its way up a mountain as though they were steps to the heavens. The stone staircase is encased by two thick walls that stand over twenty feet high; this makes the road seem enclosed and separated from the outside world. The stone walls are encrypted with many different symbols ranging from pagan gods all the way to the cross of Christianity, seeing these signs gives Phoenix an odd tinge of resentment.
It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate the craftsmanship or anything similar, it’s just a little secret he’s held deep inside of him pertaining to the symbol of the cross. That four pointed sign of death is something he’s grown to loathe, the fact that people use that symbol as a means of worship for him has always caused his chest to be overrun with a distinct bitterness.
His face begins to contrive into a frown as he puts one step in front of the other, the thudding sound of each foot hitting the stone stairs grows louder as though he’s releasing his frustration on the ground below his feet.
Watching this odd behavior of his, is a girl who has more or less been forced to become his travel mate. This girl’s silky white hair is shining under the light of the morning sun and sways as the cool wind travelling down the corridor like stairway from the top of the mountain makes its way past.
“Is something wrong?” she asks, obviously not caring in the least if something is really wrong or not.
“It’s nothing.”
She expected him to reply like that, but they have yet to talk since they started walking up these stairs, so she used his expression as a conversation starter.
“You never used to have that kind of face.” Messor says, grabbing his attention from wherever it was directed at just moments earlier. “I’m interested to know what it was that changed you.”
Phoenix smiles smugly and responds with a shrug of his shoulders. “Do you even know much about me Messor? My story, my life?”
“Only what was told in the Bible.”
“Okay, so then tell me... How would you feel if you were in my shoes?”
“.....”
“You’d be angry, and thirsty for revenge would you not? But say you were able to turn the other cheek, just like your creator taught you to do. Things went back to normal and life resumed as it was until the world of man began to repeat the same mistakes that I died in order to correct. That’s when your face is turned back towards your next objective.”
Phoenix’s passive way of explaining this forces Messor into the contemplating what his words mean.
After a second or so, her eyes grow wide as if she has realized something.
“Your saying that you were...”
“That’s right.” Phoenix interrupts, “I was sent back to Earth to be crucified and rid the world of its sin once more. It wasn’t going to be much longer until the marriages between Troy, Eiyalazo and La’Juune, were to fail and war would spread across the world. I was supposed to be the one to take in all that hate and die another horrible death to save them from damnation.”
“I... I don’t understand, that sin that you died for became Dantega. If you’ve been on Earth this entire time, Ubica and I weren’t even back from the pit yet...”
“Exactly, knowing that, I just don’t see why God would run the risk of creating another Dantega... Another monster like Ubica.”
Messor is confused, she’s now looking into the inner workings of God himself, even though Ubica was perhaps the one person who could oppose God in any kind of way, she never thought of him on such a level. So hearing the plans of the creator is slightly overwhelming, she could never fathom how he works even in her wildest dreams. Even listening to the minor details has her thinking all kinds of thoughts as to what’s next.
“God is scheming something... I don’t quite know exactly what it is yet, but I do know that whatever it is, I am going to die because of it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to let it go his way this time. It’s about time I make decisions of my own.”
“!?”
Messor is floored; to hear Jesus Christ openly oppose God’s will is certainly the last thing she’d ever have thought she’d hear. She has a mind to say something to him but her mouth won’t open, she’s so shocked that she cannot articulate the words in her head.
All she can do is stare at him as he begins to leave her behind.
It’s only now that she notices that the morning sun has lost its glow and has been replaced by a dense fog that makes visibility almost impossible.
The sun still shines behind her but the path above is gray and dark, she can feel it, the 4th Gate is just past all this fog.
She takes a deep breath and speeds up to catch Phoenix’s silhouette.
“Hey wait!”
Messor runs into the fog and is met with an odd sensation, it’s as though Phoenix has completely disappeared.
If he’s left her behind then that’s a mistake that could potentially cost him his life, Damien is supposed to be waiting for her at the Gate just ahead, if Phoenix shows up first there’s no telling what could happen.
“Hey!” she shouts, getting more frustrated as each step disorientates her in the dense fog.
That’s when someone grabs her shoulder and the feeling of vertigo utterly uproots her senses. The next thing she knows she’s on her back with someone mounted on top of her, the fog is so dense she can barely even see who it is before her eyes adjust, but the person is close enough for her to make out the features of a black man in priest garments.
“What are you doing!?” she yells, still very much confused, and that mixed with the surprise causes her to be angry.
“I just mentioned that I want to make my own decisions right? Well, you mentioned that you know a little bit about me, so I’m sure you know that God has never given me the chance to enter a woman.”
“!!”
“To be honest, it was a carnal desire I’ve never even felt until just recently... But now I’m quite interested in what it would feel like, but more than that, I’d like to do it in spite of God and his demands. How fitting would it be if it were the beautiful False Prophet of all people?”
“Y-You...”
Messor’s anger reaches an ultimate high; she’s never been put in a position like this so her only reaction is to be infuriated.
Where most women would be scared and would most likely beg, she frowns and says, “If you don’t get off of me right now, I’ll rip your virgin balls off and shove them down your throat.”
“Hahahaha oh really now? Is the thought of anyone other than Ubica touching you that appalling?”
“Yes it is...” she replies through gritted teeth.
She then begins to form menacing looking butterflies that definitely have the ability to cause serious harm to whoever crosses their path. If that wasn’t a sign enough, she uses that moment of distraction to free one of her hands and immediately lunges towards Phoenix’s throat.
Phoenix shifts his head to the left and narrowly dodges the attack meant to cease the function of his aorta.
He then smiles and proceeds to sit up, “That devotion to Ubica is something else... I’m envious.”
After a sigh and shrug of the shoulders, he stands to his feet and watches Messor slowly stand while glaring at him intently as though she’s expecting another attack.
“Relax I won’t do anything to you. I was just having a little fun for once.”
“That’s not a thing the Son of God should ever joke about. If you ever try to do anything like that again, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
“I'll let you think that if it makes you feel better so we'll leave it at that, I’m not one to risk my life over my dry sense of humor.”
Phoenix then points deeper into the fog where the staircase seemingly disappears and says, “The Gate is through that fog. Meet with Damien and do what you got to do, I’ll come when the time is right.”
“If you have any intentions to fight Damien you should do it now, Ubica and the others are sure to be here soon and he’s waiting for them to arrive. You can’t stop him from fulfilling his plans with Dantega if Ubica shows up.”
“My plan doesn’t involve a head on battle with Damien, in fact, I need the others to be here before I can make my move.”
“It could be days before then, and that’s too risky.”
“We don’t have any other options.”
He’s right, whether Messor accepts it or not, Phoenix is here to help stop Damien. If he can’t just storm in guns blazing and defeat him, she’s sure he has a plan up his sleeve that gives him a distinct advantage.
“Will you be okay down here for that long?”
Phoenix smiles and replies, “I’ve gone 40 days and 40 nights without food or water, I’m sure waiting here for a night or two won’t hurt me.”
Messor doesn’t need to hear anymore and turns away to walk up the stairs.
“Okay.”
The two take a couple steps away from each other and both disappear from each other’s sight through the fog.
The paths they lead are both very different from each other, but will repeatedly cross until they both reach the same destination. The only thing that separates their two paths is who the collateral damage will be.
After bringing Michael to the rest of the group and explaining to them why he’s here, the group is now separated by different hotel rooms.
The men in one, and the women in the other.
The hotel they are staying in has relatively large rooms so it’s not overcrowded even with people sleeping on the floors, the reason why they are forced to sleep bunched together is because the hotel itself is quite busy. There have been people coming and going since they got here and it doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon, they are just happy to get something, and the hotel staff has been relatively lenient on them, giving them extra blankets and pillows.
It’s late at night and the women are fast asleep, but the men seem restless, it’s almost as though they are avoiding sleeping next to each other.
“Staying up and staring at me all night isn’t going to help.” Michael says as he leans his back against the wall and directs his gaze towards Rage.
“I’m just being cautious; your sudden change of mind is not enough of a reason for me to trust you.” Rage replies, his scythe resting between his folded arms.
“Hey I let you guys pass the 2nd Gate didn’t I? And even if I was still malicious, wouldn’t it be solely directed towards Ubica?”
“.....”
“Not good enough of a reason huh? What do you think Ubica?”
Ubica, who’s laying on the floor with his back turned to him responds from under the covers, “I trust him.”
Rage frowns and says, “That's one of your biggest problems.”
Cyrus and Strauphius want no part of this conversation, they’ve seen the work of Michael and Rage firsthand, throwing their opinion on this topic would be useless, and just might have the potential to bring them harm.
Not feeling that pressure however, is Napoleon, who steps in front of the two and speaks up. “We don’t necessarily have to trust him completely, but if what he says about the 4th Gate is true, it’d be dumb to take it for granted.”
“You don’t understand who this guy is Napoleon, he could be baiting us into a trap.”
“We followed the maps of Strauphius and Aria, and that worked out alright did it not? This guy was a Gatekeeper, his word is a lot more trustworthy than a man made map.”
“.....”
Rage clicks his tongue and leans back against the wall in silence. It would seem that Napoleon’s words at least did enough to calm down the doubts running about in his head.
Michael is actually quite amazed that the words of a mere human would be enough to calm the Angel of Death like that, especially since he knows for sure that Rage has a strong tendency to be very stubborn.
Napoleon turns to Michael and walks past one of the beds in the room and takes a seat next to him. “So how long did you say it was going to take to get to the Gate from here again?”
“It’ll only take a day or so on foot to get there, but this place is covered in rivers, if we can hitch a ride on a riverboat it’d be less than half that. Believe it or not this is the smallest level in all of Purgatory, you guys could’ve been dropped off anywhere and the furthest you’d be from the Gate is a week.”
“And you know the way exactly?”
“I do. Both on this level and the next.”
“Alright, we should head out tomorrow.”
“Sounds good to me, I’d like to get back to Earth as soon as I can as well.”
“What do you think Ubica?” Napoleon asks as he looks over to where Ubica is sleeping.
That’s when he sees that he won’t be getting an answer any time soon; the blanket that Ubica was wrapped under is sprawled on the ground with no one inside. During their conversation, Ubica must’ve left the room without them noticing.
“Hahaha,” Michael laughs, “Apparently he has something else on his mind right now.”
Ubica has snuck into the girl’s room and is treading very carefully as to not wake any of them up in fear of his life. He doen’t even want to think about what Daey would do to him if she spotted him creeping around in the dark. With extra due diligence, he steps over Aria and Niera and reaches his final destination, a girl with magenta colored hair who’s sleeping peacefully in the corner of the room.
“Hey Tsubiri... Wake up.” he whispers as he gently nudges her.
Her eyes only open half way and it’s obvious she’s still pretty much asleep when she replies, “Buaah??”
Such a reaction is very fitting of her personality; Ubica can’t help but smile as he continues to nudge her.
“Wake up, let’s hangout for a bit.”
Tsubiri yawns and holds her arms out to him like she is a little child that wants to be picked up by her parent. Ubica knows what she wants and picks her up from under her arms, blanket and all. He cradles the bundled girl in his arms and proceeds to tip toe his way out of the room.
Everything is going smoothly until he accidentally kicks one of Sora’s hairpins on the ground next to her; the pin is a decent size so when it slid across the wooden floor it made a few distinct clicking noises.
Ubica’s shoulders jump and he stops cold, frozen in place.
Tsubiri looks over his shoulder for him to see if anyone woke up from that small noise and whispers to him, “You’re safe.”
He takes a sigh of relief and walks out of the door, gently shutting it behind him.
What Tsubiri didn’t notice is the open eyes of Trojia, peering down on the area of the door from an opening underneath the covers.
In fact, Trojia woke up the moment Ubica came in to the room, it could be due to her new heightened senses that go along with her ability, or it could be that he just simply made a noise and she woke up, no matter what it is she ended up seeing everything.
Curious as to why he’d come into the room so late at night and take Tsubiri away, she gets up off her bed and follows them out of the room.
Once on the inside balcony of the second floor of the hotel, she quietly walks along the railing as she gets enough of an angle to where she can see Ubica carrying Tsubiri outside into the garden area.
Not wasting any more time, she teleports herself in front of the door leading outside and quietly walks through.
Ubica carries Tsubiri all the way to the edge of the garden where they reach a large rock resting by a tree; Ubica sits on the ground and leans against it with Tsubiri sitting between his legs leaning up against him.
It is a relatively cool night, but not uncomfortable so both of them are able to take in the sights without feeling too cold. The two of them overlook a valley of vineyards that rise up to rolling hills that stretch for miles out into the dark blue night. The three moons seem to be shining brighter than usual and light up the fluffy clouds above, all the way down to the purple and green grapes of the vineyards below.
“You awake now?” Ubica asks while wrapping his arms around her shoulders.
“I am now... So what’s the occasion?” she replies, halfway sarcastic.
“Well we haven’t really had a chance to be alone since we met up with the others; I guess I just wanted to be around you that’s all.”
“Awwww how sweet.”
The way she said that was so sarcastic it made Ubica cringe.
“Hey what’s that supposed to mean??”
“When a guy sneaks into a girl’s room and asks her to come with him in the middle of the night, it usually means that guy wants to do dirty things.”
“Hah?”
“Don’t you get it Ubica??” Tsubiri turns around in his arms and grabs his collar. ”I thought tonight was the night you’d say, ‘I can’t hold myself back any longer, I need you Tsubiri, make love with me right here right now under the light of the moon!!’”
The last part that was meant to be Ubica’s quote was her awful attempt at deepening her voice and making a dramatic gesture as though she were in actor in a soap opera.
Ubica’s face glows bright red and he looks away embarrassed, “I-Idiot! I’d never say something like that!”
“That’s the problem! Don’t you understand that girls like that kind of stuff?”
“My ass! You’d laugh in my face if I ever said a line as lame as that!”
“No I wouldn’t, I’d look you in the eye and say, ‘Oh Ubica, I too have been waiting ever so long for you to take me! Ahhhn~ hold me now whilst the night is young!’”
Another dramatic acting job by Tsubiri; this time her impersonation is the character representing herself.
“Now I know you’re lying!”
“Hahahahahahaha.”
Tsubiri starts laughing, proving that she was just poking fun at him, he can’t help but laugh along with her.
“So...” she says as she steadies her laughter, “Have you cheered up a little bit?”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been down on yourself since our boat ride earlier right? It’s obvious to me that what Trojia said has gotten to you.”
Ubica shifts his gaze away and replies softly, “Well... It’s not just that.”
It's also the fact that Trojia said she has every intention to kill Messor.
“Ugh, how many times am I going to have to tell you not to stress over things other people say? You need to learn how to let those words bounce off your skin; the only words that should matter to you are mine.”
She puts both of her open palms on each of his cheeks and smiles.
“If you can do that, you’ll only have my compliments to think about. You’d wake up everyday with the thought of how great you are, and how much you are loved... Can you try that for me?”
Ubica’s having a hard time fighting back tears, what she said warmed him so deeply it almost hurts. It’s as though she is so kind to him it’s not even fair, he feels like he doesn’t deserve the happiness she gives him but she’s telling him that he does. He feels as though he hasn’t done enough for her and the others but she’s telling him he has. He feels as though he’s flawed but she’s telling him he’s perfect.
He isn’t one to fall for the words of someone just trying to make him feel better, he knows with absolute certainty that she means every word of it; he can see it clearly in her gold eyes.
Ubica embraces her tightly and squeezes the warmth of her body into his as if her words weren’t enough. This girl means everything to him, and he wants to prove it to her somehow.
“I truly... truly love you Tsubiri. I love you so much.”
Tsubiri may be able to give good advice but she’s still just a girl who gets flustered over hearing the guy she likes say something like that. Her face is flushed all the way to her ears as she lets herself sink into his arms.
“I love you too.”
Looking at such a scene from the darkness of a near by willow tree is Trojia. One would expect her to stare at this scene with a blank face as the new personality of hers has revealed her hate for Ubica, but on the contrary, there is a very painful frown. Her eyes are watering and all it will take is a blink and they’ll overflow, sending tears down her cheeks. She’s suffering from a wide range of emotions that even she can’t explain, there’s anger, there’s sadness, there’s pain, there’s a pressure on her chest that’s squeezing so tightly she can feel it reach the back of her throat.
But why?
If she hates him for what he was, why is it that she’s feeling this way?
If anything, she should be angry at the fact that even though Ubica was such an awful person, he still found a way to be happy when he doesn’t deserve it. But that’s not what she’s angry about, she’s mad because they are ‘both’ happy. That warm happiness spewing from that general direction is something she had wanted for herself over the last year, but never reached the point where she could attain it. The fact that it’s someone else's pains her greatly.
She doesn’t want to watch but continues her fixed gaze through watered down vision; she thought watching Ubica and Messor was bad, this is far worse, there is a different kind of affection.
“Well then.” Tsubiri says, slightly pushing herself out of his tight embrace. “If we’re not going to do anything dirty, I’d like to go back to sleep now.”
“O-Of course we’re not going to do anything dirty out here! When we do it I want it to be special, doing that kind of thing on the grass is just...”
“R-Relax I was just joking!” Tsubiri’s face goes bright red at the thought of that.
“Oh... Haha, yeah that’s right.”
Ubica’s no different.
“But.” Tsubiri says as she turns back around and leans back against his chest. “If you promise to bring me back to the room later, I wouldn’t mind sleeping like this for a while.”
“That actually sounds kinda nice.”
“Okay then, goodnight Ubica...”
“Yeah... Goodnight.”
Tsubiri rests her eyes and begins to doze off, but not before leaving him with some final words,
“By the way, if I don’t wake up in that room tomorrow morning I’m gonna assume you did horrible things to me in my sleep.”
“Just shut up and go to sleep already!”
“Hehehehe. Right right.”
Trojia finally blinks and the tears storm down her face, as if not wanting to feel the sensation, she immediately wipes them with the back of her hand and teleports back to the back entrance of the hotel. She pauses for a moment and takes a very deep breath, her exhale brought upon another painful feeling in her chest.
She’s gets ready to enter when she hears a voice coming from behind her saying,
“It hurts doesn’t it?”
She quickly turns around as sees Michael appear out of a ball of light; surprised by his sudden appearance, she takes a sharp step backwards and presses her back against the stone wall of the hotel.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my long life, it’s that you never realize how much you want something until it’s gone. Especially when it’s taken from right under your nose.”
Trojia scowls at him and asks, “What do you know about any of this?”
“I know that that lightning girl over there has stolen the heart of the man you love.”
“I don’t... I hate him.”
“Hahahaha you’re a bad liar. I can’t believe Ubica fell for that nonsense, I was watching you earlier as well by the way.” Michael shrugs his shoulders and continues, “I don’t know what you expected would happen by telling him that. All it did was sure up his feelings for the lightning girl, any lingering thoughts of you are probably long gone now.”
“SHUT UP!!” she shouts. The anger and pain in her eyes is enough to make even the Archangel a little nervous as she continues, “Who the hell are you to come to me and speak as if you know me!? You don’t know how I feel, you don’t know how I view things, you don’t even know my name! So leave me alone!”
Trojia turns away and teleports once again without saying another word.
Even though she suddenly vanished, Michael can still feel the lingering emotions she left behind, in fact, he can feel them so well it’s frightening. The emotions she’s suffering from are no different than the ones he had for so many years, the sense of loss, and the hopeless feeling of not being able to do anything about it.
When emotions like that brew within the soul, a person’s natural reaction is to replace them with something to soothe the pain. And that something is just what it is that has piqued his interest in her.
“You’re right girl, I don’t know anything about you.” Michael says to himself, “But I do know that your heart has been broken, and someone evil has implanted a seed of darkness in your soul to mend the pieces back together. I fear that as a result, you’ll become someone I know all too well...”
“I’m glad you made it.” said Damien with his usual, menacingly confident smile.
“You told me where it was, did you expect me to run into trouble?”
“No, I actually expected you to return to Ubica’s side.”
Messor frowns at him and replies, “I’ll be by his side once all of this is over.”
“That’s right, it’s your only option after all.”
She clicks her tongue and looks away, this is when she notices that her surroundings have completely changed from the earlier staircase. As soon as she walked through that thick fog she found herself in what feels like a different world, the sky is dark but it’s illuminated by stars that hold colors the likes of which no man has ever seen. Resting below that brilliant sky is is a range of snowy hills that roll out for miles and miles, it’s almost as though there is no end to them, this is what makes this place seem so surreal, from the enclosed staircase to an open environment like this is somewhat of a surprise.
There are quite a few stone statues scattered about, placed neatly aside the edge of a stone road that leads to a small castle that likely holds the Gate. Fluffy powder like snow is sprinkled along the top of the stone, so when the wind blows it gently floats off like a feather and flies into the surrounding hills.
Feeling the bitter cold air press against her bare forearms, she realizes why it is that Damien chose this Gate to steal Dantega, he’s planning on using the cold as a weakness for Ubica. In a snowy environment like this, Ubica’s fighting capabilities are bound to be cut drastically.
“You snake...” she says, disgusted at his cowardly tactics.
“Oh so you know? The cold will make things a little easier on us when we’re handling Ubica, his heart and soul that were once Dantega is no longer there, making him coldblooded. An interesting fact really, I’m just trying to use it against him to push him just that much more into using the natural function of his soul like he’s supposed to.”
“Aren’t you worried that your plan will backfire? If he fully awakens, even you might not be able to escape this place alive.”
“Let’s not worry about that, at times like these it’s wise to have back up right?”
“..?”
That’s when from out in the distance of the snowy hills, she hears a very loud explosion followed by the rattling noises of the pieces of mountain thudding against the snow covered ground. After a few moments, another thud is heard landing just a few feet behind Damien, this one carrying the distinct sound of a body being crushed under its own weight.
Shaking off the ringing in her ears, she looks over Damien’s shoulder and sees the form of a girl laying half buried in the snowy stone road.
The blond haired girl struggles to stand to her feet, it’s obvious that she’s in horrible pain, it shines brilliantly in her purple eyes.
“You... Demons...” she moans through gritted teeth, “I will not be defeated.”
Damien doesn’t even turn to acknowledge her, his expression doesn’t even show that he's noticed she’s even there. Usually, when an enemy shows his or herself behind your back, you’d have to be at least a little weary right? The answer in his case is no, and the reason for that appears behind the blond girl.
Three men and a woman seem to appear out of nowhere directly behind her, Messor recognizes these four people immediately.
“!!”
They are Mammon, Abaddon, Amon, and Asmodeus.
4 of the 7 Demons of Hell are present here at the 4th Gate, their mere presence alone is enough to put an immense pressure on Messor’s chest, to add Damien in the mix is almost unbearable.
“For a human girl this one sure is a pain in the ass.” Abaddon says with a big smile while tossing a marble in his hand.
“She’s not a human anymore, Gatekeepers are no different from Angels or Demons.” Amon replies.
The blond girl jumps away from all of them and re-grips her small sword, she points it at them and does her best to show courage.
“I am Joan D'Arc, Gatekeeper of the fourth level of Purgatory! God has given me an order to protect this place, I’ll be damned if I let any of you rotten Demon’s pass!”
“Does she even know who she’s talking to?” Asmodeus asks with a sigh.
The blond girl is none other than the legendary Maid of Orleans, she’s been known throughout history for her bravery in the French army during the Hundred Years' War in the Middle-ages. God guided her to a number of victories until she was captured and burned at the stake by England for heresy.
Her loyalty to France, and especially to God, has gotten her the position as Gatekeeper, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she’d defend her post so valiantly even though her chances of victory are virtually nothing.
Abaddon takes a step toward Joan of Arc and says to his comrades, “Why don’t we blow off a couple of her limbs and see if she still has the balls to say that she ain’t gonna let us pass?”
He prepares to shoot one of his destructive marbles at her and Joan holds up the shield in her left hand to protect herself.
That’s when yet another person appears from a swarm of flies directly behind her and gently strikes the side of her head.
That is, at least it looked gentle.
Joan is sent flying at such a speed it left a sonic boom before she bangs into one of the statues adjacent to the road. The thick stone statue literally explodes as if hit by a cannon; Joan flies another hundred meters or so until she crashes into a hill with a great puff of white powder.
“We shouldn’t be wasting our time playing around.” says Beelzebub as he fully materializes in the wake of the swarm of flies.
“Oh come on!” Abaddon voices his displeasure and shakes his head in an overly dramatic fashion.
(Even Beelzebub is here!?) Messor thinks to herself in shock.
That makes 5 of the 7 Demons of Hell present.
As if 5 wasn’t enough, a patch of snow melts into water just a few feet away from them and molds into the form of a man. It only takes an instant when his features are clear and it’s obvious who it is.
He has dark blue hair and bright blue eyes, the sharp looking man is the second strongest Demon in all of the Hierarchy.
Leviathan...
“!?”
“Oh? I was wondering when you’d be here.” Damien said, looking at him as if expecting something.
Leviathan smiles and points out in the distance a few meters away, “It took a little convincing, but I finally got ‘him’ to show up.”
Messor’s heart completely drops, she gets a horrible feeling the moment he said that and looks to where he’s pointing.
A fiery inferno scorches the surrounding snow and chars the ground before pluming in a puff of black smoke and rising into the air, revealing what was inside.
It’s a tall man who looks very similar to Damien, he has long and straight black hair and a pair of blood red eyes that have white pupils. He’s clad in a black overcoat with red linings, adding even more menace to his presence.
The man who has appeared before them is the one man who has the power to directly oppose God, the man waging an eternal war against Heaven, the man who is in one way or another responsible for everything bad that happens in all worlds.
The black haired, red eyed man, is the strongest Demon in the Hiearchy ranking at the top of the ever so powerful 7 Demons of Hell.
This man is Satan.
This is the first time all 7 Demons have been together outside of Hell since the battle of Armageddon where they all used their combined strength to seal Ubica in the pit. The fact that all of them are here once again to pretty much do the same thing shows just how serious they are taking this.
The time for games is over, tormenting Ubica and leaving is no longer an option. This time, they are all here to utterly destroy him.
“I haven’t been here in a while...” he says, stretching his neck nonchalantly in the process. “This better be good.”
Amon walks to him and says, “Trust me, we have what you’re looking for.”
Satan looks around and then back to his son before asking, “So where are they?”
“They’re on their way, it won’t be long now."
“Good, I’m glad you came to your senses and finally decided to destroy Dantega once and for all. Now that I control the Earth it is no longer necessary.”
“That’s how things turned out, so that’s how they’ll be.”
Damien shows him a fake smile that Satan doesn’t notice, but to the others it’s an obvious lie.
Satan doesn’t know it yet, but he’s walked right into a coup of sorts, his comrades don’t believe in his strength and the direction he's going any longer. They are here solely to defy him by keeping Dantega for themselves instead of getting rid of it. They have no intentions to do what he says, and fully expect an outcome without him in it.
“Alright...” Satan smiles as though he has been waiting for something his whole life and is only now about to get it. His smile holds genuine excitement when he finishes, “All that’s left now is for me to get my hands on that Priest.”
The Death of One Beast and the Birth of Another: (END)
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