May 6th, 2012, Dragon Apples' Grove, Before Dawn.
Cao Cao stood atop a splintered tree stump, his grip on the Spear of Destiny so tight his knuckles bleached white. Below, Vali Lucifer's Scale Mail gleamed like a shard of arctic moonlight amidst the desolated clearing, his punch landing with a thunderclap that sent Heracles hurtling through a grove of ancient trees.
Bark exploded, trunks snapping like kindling, and the Greek hero's laughter echoed back, raw, unhinged, alive.
Georg stood beside Cao Cao, his Dimension Lost tome flickering with unstable runes. "Vali's team is here, what are they doing?" he murmured, adjusting his glasses. "Arthur and Le Fay Pendragon are harrying Leonardo's mobsters. Do we fight back? Siegfried is… eager to engage the Pendragon brother."
Cao Cao's smirk was a blade. "Of course they are. The White Dragon's pack thrives on misplaced valor." His gaze flicked to Ophis, curled motionless nearby, her infinite eyes dulled, her breath shallow. The sight ignited something feral in his chest.
Georg's voice cut through the haze. "Orders?"
For a heartbeat, Cao Cao hesitated. Shalba's warning coiled in his mind like a serpent: "Do not fight the Universe's Confidants."
But a deafening pulse thrummed in his veins, Shadow blood, hungry and defiant.
"Let Siegfried play with Pendragon and find the rest of Vali's Team," Cao Cao growled, levelling the Spear at Vali. "I'll handle the White Dragon Emperor."
Georg's brow arched. "And Ophis?"
"She dies," Cao Cao snarled, leaping into the fray.
The mist from Dimension Lost clinging to the edges of the Dragon Apples' Grove parted like a spectral curtain, revealing the battlefield bathed in moonlight.
Bioluminescent fruit glowed faintly from the trees, their light warped by the haze of battle, clashing steel, guttural roars, and the distant, thunderous {DIVIDE!} of Vali's Sacred Gear.
Makoto and Kuroka staggered into the clearing, the damp chill of the fog replaced by the acrid stench of the Grove.
'The Star's over there, Makoto,' Messiah murmured in Makoto's mind, his voice a silver thread cutting through the chaos. 'Hurry.'
'Yeah, no kidding,' Apollo drawled, though his usual levity was edged with urgency. 'That Shadow's close.'
'Focus,' Lucifer hissed. 'The Spear's hunger is near. Its presence is the most annoying thing I've felt in a while, after the Sun God's voice.'
Before Makoto could respond and Apollo retort, the undergrowth twitched.
Shadows detached from the trees, not shadows, but things. Anti-Monsters, their forms a grotesque patchwork of Annihilation Maker's imagination: a cyclops with jagged tusks and eyes like smoldering coals; a serpentine abomination mimicking a scolopendra with too many legs, its scales oozing black ichor; a hulking beast with wings of bone and a mouth split into three snapping jaws.
Kuroka's tails bristled, her violet aura flaring as touki crackled around her body. "Nyaah, the Hero Faction brought all their members it seems."
'Lesser Shadows?' Yoshitsune mused, his tone sharp. 'No. Constructs. Puppets of Flesh and Nightmares.'
'Puppets with teeth,' Kohryu growled. 'Their numbers will slow us. Prioritize avoiding them, Universe.'
The horde surged. Kuroka leapt, a comet of amethyst light, her foot slamming into the serpent's skull with a wet crunch.
"Kuroka, can you hold them?" asked Makoto, dodging an attack.
"Hold them? Of course I can, nyaah. The only problem with these things is their number," she commented.
Makoto's blade flashed, cleaving the cyclops's neck in a spray of brackish blood. "Don't die," he said, already moving.
"Die?" Kuroka laughed, backflipping over a claw swipe. "I'll bill you for the dry-cleaning, nyaah!"
'Universe! Let me play!' Loki's voice slithered through Makoto's thoughts. 'I'll turn them into art, shattered, screaming-'
'Silence, parasite,' Odin snapped. 'This is no canvas for your filth.'
'I don't like Odin's tone, but I agree, hee hoo! The Star needs us!' Jack Frost chirped, ice crystallizing at the edges of Makoto's vision.
Makoto didn't look back.
He weaved through the fray, Messiah's guidance a compass in his mind. Kuroka's voice faded behind him, replaced by the snarls of beasts and the sickening thud of her touki-charged strikes.
Kuroka pirouetted through the swarm of Anti-Monsters, her movements a lethal ballet. Her fingers brushed the edge of the ivory cloak Makoto conjured for her, its fabric impossibly soft, threaded with faint golden sigils that shimmered like trapped starlight.
'That guy is really an enigma, nyaah!' she thought, a flicker of warmth cutting through her irritation. 'He is even more unintelligible than Vali,' she smirked, dodging a clawed swipe that would've shredded the cloak.
A wheel of violet flame ignited in her palm, its heat warping the air. "Bedtime, kittens," she purred, hurling it into the horde. The explosion painted the grove in lurid light, silhouetting a mysterious figure stepping from the shadows.
Another hero descendant materialized like ink spilled into water, first a suggestion of shape, then a sharpening human figure. Moonlight glinted off his polished shades, the lenses opaque as obsidian.
His black gakuran hung immaculate, the high collar framing a face carved with the arrogance of inherited legend. Beneath his bun, a single strand of hair escaped, curling against his neck like a question mark.
"The Black Cat," he said, his voice smooth and depthless. "I hoped to fight the magician of your little group, instead here you are."
Kuroka's tails flicked, assessing. 'Connla... of course I have to fight him at night.' She tilted her head, lips curving into a smirk.
Connla's Sacred Gear, Night Reflection, granted him control over shades and darkness, making him, by all means, the worst possible match-up during night.
"Oh? You're here to chat? How sweet. But I prefer my men a little less… edgy."
Connla didn't blink. Behind him, the shadow of a slain Anti-Monster twisted, elongating into a scythe of pure void. It hovered, humming with malice.
"I'm here to end you," he said simply.
Kuroka's laugh was a blade wrapped in silk. "End me? With that?" She gestured to the scythe, her touki flaring violet. "Honey, I've had first dates scarier than you."
The scythe arced. Kuroka leapt, the weapon shearing through the space where she stood, cleaving a tree in half. Bark exploded, but she was already mid-air, her cloak billowing like a specter's shroud. "C'mon, hero, put your back into it!"
Connla's mouth tightened. Shadows coiled around his ankles, tendrils snaking toward her.
'Playtime's over,' Kuroka thought, landing light as ash. Her claws unsheathed, touki crackling, and in front of her Connla started to collect the shadow near him, accumulating them in a giant wall he sent against Kuroka like a tidal wave.
'This will be more problematic than intended, nyaah,' thought Kuroka as she started to dance around the pillars of darkness Connla crashed on her.
The air curdled as Siegfried stepped into the moonlight, his silver-white hair glowing like mercury.
Bioluminescent dragon apples trembled overhead, their golden light warping around the crimson aura bleeding from Gram, the Demon Emperor Sword.
The blade pulsed in his grip, its black steel edged in blood-red, the crossguard etched with gilded runes that seemed to writhe under the moon's gaze. The sword was a paradox, vibrant yet vile, its curved tip snarling upward like a claw eager to rend flesh.
Le Fay's breath hitched. "Arthur!"
The warning came too late. A surge of demonic energy erupted from the trees, coalescing into a bear-shaped maelstrom of snarling crimson. Arthur pivoted, Caliburn blazing in his hands, its holy light a scalding counterpoint to Gram's hellfire.
The clash detonated in a shockwave of opposing forces, gold and crimson tearing the night apart.
"Predictable," Arthur muttered, though his knuckles whitened around Caliburn's hilt.
"Predictable? Oh, Arthur," purred a voice from the shadows. Siegfried emerged, his priest's coat flaring like raven's wings over his gakuran. His red eyes gleamed, feral and amused, as he twirled Gram lazily.
The sword's aura thickened, staining the air with the metallic tang of blood. "Did you miss me? I see you still have the Holy King Sword."
Le Fay's fingers twitched, magic simmering at her fingertips. "Siegfried."
The swordsman ignored her, his gaze locked on Arthur. "You fled the Hero Faction, yet here you are, still playing knight. What reason do you have to help Ophis?"
Arthur adjusted his glasses, the lenses reflecting Gram's baleful glow. "We left because your 'heroism' reeked of hypocrisy and Vali is thousands times better as a leader than Cao Cao. Nothing's changed."
Siegfried's grin sharpened. "No? Then let's see if your holy blade still sings when it clashes with Gram."
He lunged, Gram carving a scarlet arc through the dark. Arthur met him mid-stride, Caliburn's radiance clashing against Gram's fury in a shower of sparks.
The grove shuddered, trees bending, Dragon Apples thudding to the ground as the two swords screamed their ancient rivalry.
Le Fay stepped back, her magic circles flaring. 'Annoying Artificial Human.' The words seared her mind as she watched Siegfried fight, fluid, brutal, every strike a testament to the Sigurd Institute's craftsmanship.
"You're slower, Pendragon," Siegfried taunted, Gram's edge grazing Arthur's arm. A line of blood beaded, sizzling against the sword's cursed heat. "Too busy babysitting your sister?"
Arthur's jaw tightened. "Focus on your own sins, Siegfried."
The grove trembled as Arthur surged forward, Excalibur Ruler and Caliburn blazing in his hands like twin sisters.
Caliburn met Gram's crimson arc in a deafening clang, holy radiance clashing against demonic fury in a burst of searing sparks. Siegfried's smirk twisted as Arthur pivoted, Excalibur Ruler's edge slicing a hairline cut across his forearm, a thread of blood webbing through the air.
Before Siegfried could retaliate, Arthur channeled Excalibur Ruler's power, clenching the sword's hilt. The air warped, gravity crushing Siegfried's wounded arm with the weight of a mountain. Bone creaked; the ground beneath him fractured into a spiderweb of cracks as he crumpled to one knee.
"Clever…!" Siegfried rasped, but his free hand already clawed at Balmung's hilt. The new demonic sword shrieked to life, its whirlwind erupting in a maelstrom of razored wind. Trees groaned, roots tore from the soil, and Arthur skidded back, boots carving trenches in the earth.
"Le Fay, now!" Arthur barked, lunging again.
Caliburn and Gram locked in a shower of embers, Excalibur Ruler hammering against Balmung's storm. Le Fay's staff ignited, her magic circle blazing like blue-coloured fire. A torrent of highly pressurized water rocketed forth, scalding the air into steam as it hurtled toward Siegfried.
"To quote you, Arthur: 'Predictable'!" Siegfried snarled, but his crimson eyes widened as the water closed in. From his shadow, a spectral silver arm erupted, Twice Critical's power manifesting Nothung alongside the artificial arm, its jagged edge humming with cursed energy.
The blade cleaved the stream in two, each half shearing through ancient oaks with a deafening crunch. Splintered wood rained down, the bisected trunks collapsing like fallen titans.
"That didn't work out, Arthur," said Le Fay, boarding her magic broom.
"We'll just do it again," said Arthur as Siegfried returned to exchange sword strikes with Gram and Balmung while Nothung rotated above him, deflecting Le Fay's magic bolts.
"I think warm-up is over, don't you think, Arthur?" said Siegfried after another powerful exchange with Arthur. "Balance Breaker!"
Their surroundings quaked as Siegfried's Balance Breaker: Chaotic Edge Asura Ravage ignited, three new spectral silver arms bursting from his back like serpents from a cursed tomb.
Each wielded a blade forged in hellfire: Tyrfing's jagged edge dripped venom, Dainsleif hummed with the wails of the slain, and a regular light sword from the Church's laboratories glowed a sacrilegious light in his grip.
His movements blurred, faster than ever, six swords carving a tempest of steel so fast the air itself screamed. Arthur staggered, Excalibur Ruler's gravity field and space distortion the only shield between him and evisceration.
"Still dancing, Pendragon?" Siegfried taunted, his voice warped by the demonic energy coursing through him. A sword grazed Arthur's cheek, drawing a thin line of blood that sizzled against Tyrfing's poison.
Le Fay hovered above on her broom, magic bolts raining down in a desperate barrage. But Siegfried weaved through them like smoke, his enhanced speed reducing her attacks to afterthoughts.
'Think, think!' Her blue nails bit into her palms. 'Dimension Lost's mist is thinning… If I can pierce it, even for a second-'
"Gogmagog," she whispered, the name a prayer. The summoning ritual flared in her mind, a gamble, but that was their hope.
"Le Fay!" Arthur's shout was raw as he parried a strike meant to decapitate him, Excalibur Ruler's light starting to dim under Siegfried's onslaught.
"Now!" She plunged, staff aimed like a lance. The ground rushed up, Siegfried's laughter chasing her. 'Just a little further!'
Her staff struck earth. The impact rippled outward, a shockwave of golden light tearing through Dimension Lost's haze. The sky split, and Gogmagog crashed down, a colossus of weathered stone, its gargoyle wings blotting out the moon. Cracks spiderwebbed across its body, glowing with ancient runes, while twin sapphire eyes blazed like forge fires.
"Go, Gog!" Le Fay grinned, blood trickling from her nose. The giant's fist slammed into the earth, uprooting trees as it hurtled toward Siegfried.
"What the?!" Siegfried's six swords crossed in a desperate X, demonic and holy energy clashing against primordial stone.
The collision detonated, a shockwave of dust and debris. When it cleared, Siegfried knelt, blood dripping from split lips, his swords trembling. Gogmagog's fist pressed down, inexorable, its growl a landslide given voice.
"Enough!" Siegfried roared, Twice Critical's arms straining. Tyrfing shattered, the blade's venom hissing into the soil. "You think a rock can stop me?!"
Le Fay staggered to her feet, staff raised. "No. But he can certainly buy time."
Arthur's shadow fell over Siegfried, crushing him to the ground, Caliburn and Excalibur Ruler crossed at his throat. "Checkmate."
Meanwhile, another side of the forest thrummed with chaos as Jeanne lunged through the underbrush, her Blade Blacksmith Sacred Gear spitting holy swords into the air like radiant javelins.
Each blade screamed with faint divine light, slicing through the bioluminescent haze as Bikou danced atop his Kinto Cloud, his laughter a taunting melody.
"Hold still, you flea-ridden primate!" Jeanne snarled, her cheeks flushed crimson, sweat plastering strands of silver-blonde hair to her temples.
Another sword materialized in her grip, its edge humming with blasphemous wrath, and she hurled it with a nun's fervor, only for Bikou to cartwheel sideways, the blade embedding itself in a tree trunk beside him. Sap hissed where holiness met bark.
"Tsk-tsk, Sister Judgmental!" Bikou crowed, balancing on one foot like a circus performer. "You want to skewer me? I'm too young for shish kebab!" He rocketed backward, skimming just out of reach, his staff slung carelessly over his shoulder.
Jeanne's boots skidded in the loam as she pivoted, her habit snagging on thorns. "I'll carve that grin off your-"
"Oh-ho! Makoto alert!" Bikou's brown eyes caught a flicker of blue through the trees. He dived, Kinto Cloud dissolving as he landed in a crouch beside Makoto, who was half-hidden in the grove's shadows.
"Yo, Blue! You returned from the dead, it seems!" he joked. Then he jerked a thumb toward Jeanne, now barrelling toward them, swords gleaming. "Don't mind the zealot. She's just… passionate about her racism."
Makoto blinked, confusion and resolve warring in his gaze. "Bikou. Now's not the time."
"Pfft. It's always time for fun!" Bikou spun his staff, the air crackling as Jeanne's next strike hurtled toward them.
"You are so coward you call for help?" asked Jeanne, locking her eyes on Makoto. "A human? So you are groveling to a superior race's feet, huh?"
'I don't like her, hee hoo!' commented Jack Frost.
The inheritor of Joan of Arc's spirit swung her sword at Bikou, but she was stopped by a katana forged from a steel far beyond anything Jeanne had ever seen.
Yoshitsune looked at Jeanne, his red samurai armor shining. Jeanne's stupor was broken by the grudging samurai as he disarmed Jeanne in a second.
"You call coward the Universe's friend yet you cling to lowly ideals fed on a fake sense of superiority," said Yoshitsune, disgusted.
"Yoshitsune, stop it. We have a Shadow to fight." Makoto, completely ignoring Bikou's gaping mouth, got back to running toward Vali's position.
"Well, that's Makoto Yuki. I... I don't know what happened, but that samurai cosplayer was right. I completely agree with him!" shouted Bikou as he stomped his staff on Jeanne's head, making her faint.
Back with Vali, the area reeked of scorched earth as Vali hovered above Heracles, his Scale Mail gleaming like a shard of the moon itself.
Heracles staggered upright, his gargantuan frame trembling, blood and sweat streaking his torn gakuran. The Greek hero's Sacred Gear pulsed, Variant Detonation, and the ground beneath him detonated, a geyser of fire and debris rocketing him toward Vali with a roar that shook the Dragon Apples from their boughs.
Vali didn't flinch.
{DIVIDE!}
His armored hand closed around Heracles' fist, the explosion's fury halved, quartered, neutered in an instant. The shockwave died to a whimper, and Vali hurled Heracles back to earth like a meteor. The crater deepened, fissures spiderwebbing outward as the hero coughed up viscera.
"Balance Breaker, you say?" Vali's voice was ice. "You'll never reach it."
He descended in a blur of white, each punch a symphony of precision. {DIVIDE!} {DIVIDE!} {DIVIDE!}—every strike leeching power from Heracles' veins until the giant's muscles spasmed, his Sacred Gear flickering like a dying star.
"E-enough…!" Heracles choked, his voice shattered.
Vali stepped back, his armor dissolving into motes of light. "You were never a match. Just… noise."
The grove fell silent, save for the whimper of wind through shattered trees. Vali's gaze shifted, and there she was.
Ophis crouched in the shadow of a splintered trunk, her small frame swallowed by a black Gothic Lolita dress, its lace and ribbons torn and smudged with ash. Her hair, ink-black and impossibly long, spilled around her like a mourning veil, nearly obscuring the pointed tips of her ears. But it was her eyes that froze Vali's breath: pools of dark gray, slit-pupiled and, instead of being hollow, they were filled with... fear.
The Infinite Dragon, reduced to a doll with fractured porcelain skin, her hands clutching her knees as if to keep herself from unraveling.
'This… this is Ophis?' Albion's voice trembled in Vali's mind. 'The void that shaped dimensions? She looks… destroyed. This vision will haunt me until the end of times.'
Vali said nothing. But for the first time, his fists tightened, not in rage like the one he harboured for his Grandfather, nor in disgust like what he currently felt for the Hero Faction, but in something colder. Something like dread.
"Ophis…?" Vali asked, even though the word felt brittle in the air, looking at Ophis' condition.
He was used to deference, to the crisp detachment of employer and weapon. But this wasn't the Ophis he knew. Her dress, once immaculate, hung in frayed ribbons, the fabric whispering as she shifted. Her hair, a waterfall of ink, parted just enough to reveal the sharp points of her ears and those eyes, void-gray, slit-pupiled, staring through him as if he were a specter.
She tilted her head slowly, a marionette with severed strings. Recognition flickered, then died.
Nyarlathotep's corruption lingered like rot in her mind, erasing epochs of memory, leaving only fragments: Tannin, Elizabeth, Great Red's mocking, annoying roar… and him. The boy Horus spoke of, the one who cradled her broken infinity. But Vali? A stranger in a stranger's skin.
"Who… are you?" Her voice was a depressed ghost of itself, thin and distant yet drowning, as if echoing from the bottom of a well.
Vali's jaw tightened. Albion's shock bled into his consciousness, sharp as a blade. 'The memories of the Ouroboros gone. This isn't amnesia. It's annihilation.'
"No one important," he lied, the words ash on his tongue.
"Can I ask you to leave, Vali?" asked a mocking voice. Vali turned around, immediately recognizing the tone of the voice despite it clearly belonging to another person.
Time seemed to stop for a moment, but that single instant was what Vali needed to understand the situation.
'Careful, Vali,' said Albion.
'I know...'
The Dragon Apples' Grove thrummed, the bioluminescent fruit overhead casting Vali and Cao Cao in a sickly golden glow. The Shadow Hero smirked deviously at Vali while eyeing Ophis behind him.
Vali's Scale Mail shimmered like frost under moonlight, his every breath a visible plume in the charged air. Ophis cowered behind a shattered tree, her whimpers barely audible beneath the weight of the Spear's presence, sending her mind ablaze with horrifying memories.
Cao Cao twirled the Spear of Destiny lazily, its corrupted tip carving faint black trails in the atmosphere.
"What are we doing here, Lucifer? You're wasting your pedigree with that snake," Cao Cao said, pointing the Spear of Destiny at Ophis like he was pointing at cattle.
Vali didn't blink. "You're really crazy to assault the Underworld only for Ophis. What happened, Cao Cao? You are so eager to prove your superiority that you come after someone powerless?"
'He's different,' observed Albion.
'Another Shadow, probably. We have to buy time until Makoto comes,' replied Vali.
'You are being too optimistic. If he's as strong as Yuki said, I fear we can't do anything,' told the White Dragon pragmatically.
'Have faith, partner.'
Looking at Vali, Cao Cao laughed, a sound like glass scraping bone. "Crazy? When I'm this close to carving my name into history?" He gestured to Ophis.
"You are delusional to think killing Ophis will get you anywhere," said Vali. "Still, you have always been a deluded person, Cao Cao."
The Shadow's grip tightened on the spear. "Careful, half-breed. Your bloodline's a stain, but your life still has… value," he said, remembering himself that he couldn't do anything to Vali despite how much he wanted to.
"So what do you say? Let's pretend we didn't see one another. After all, you don't have any reason to follow Ophis if she's so weak," said Cao Cao, hoping to dissuade Vali and make him go.
"And let Nyarlathotep take over the Khaos Brigade? No, thanks." Vali's answer shocked Cao Cao immensely. When had the Universe told him about Father?
"What!?" Cao Cao took another step back.
"Are you confused, Shadow?" asked Vali, making Cao Cao raise the Spear instinctively. "You seem scared. Is there something hurting your confidence in yourself, Hero?"
Vali had known and despised Cao Cao for a long time. He had learned what his true self was, the real Cao Cao behind all that talk of glory, righteousness, and humanity first.
From what Makoto had told him of what Shadows were, then, he knew how to play him.
Behind Cao Cao, the air shimmered, a distortion so slight even the Dragon Apples' glow bent around it.
Loki's influence, woven like a spider's silk.
Cao Cao's rage ignited. To hell with what Father wanted. He would end the Star's life here and now. "I'll gut you and feed your entrails to—"
Schlik.
The sound was soft. Delicate. A blade parting flesh.
Cao Cao stared down, shocked, as Deus Xiphos erupted from his chest, its edge gleaming with starlight and... mischief. Blood beaded along the metal, dripping onto the Spear of Destiny clutched in his paralyzed hands.
"The Universe?" he choked, collapsing to his knees, desperation in his eyes.
Makoto Yuki stepped into the light, his blue hair tousled, eyes cold as the void between stars. The look in Makoto's eyes sent shivers down Vali's spine as he swore this Makoto was a completely different person from his chill, composed, and caring friend.
"You talk too much, Shadow," spat Makoto.
'May I play, Universe?' asked Loki as Makoto mentally acknowledged his request.
"Tsk-tsk," Loki purred, materializing with a flourish. He draped himself over Cao Cao's shuddering shoulders, fingers tracing the wound. "All that planning, all that pride… undone by a trick even a mortal could see. If," he added, grinning at Vali, "they weren't so delightfully arrogant. Oh Star, I loved your performance! And even the Universe here did."
"H-how can this be?" asked Cao Cao as Deus Xiphos deepened in his chest.
"We fooled you."