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“Hey Akhy, wake up.” Cloud said nudging me awake.
“Lemme alone…” I mumbled, still half-asleep.
“Look out the window, we’re over Tsubasa.”
I blinked a few times, before leaning over him to survey the damage the closest I’d get to first-hand for a while. Sky scrapers in the main city were reduced to rubble sprawling across the streets, the frames nothing more than twisted metal with the other ruins. The lower buildings didn’t cause as much of a mess, but contributed to the rubble.
There were charred remains of buildings everywhere, and parts of the sky clouded with ash and smoke from the fires. They all seemed to have been put out, but the skies let me know some of them had been burning for a while. I could see crowds gathered around a few large tents and buildings that were still half-standing. Even the towns and cities in Ragnarok that had suffered from the wars between Exodus and Twi-LIGHT had made it though better than this, Myildaypain aside.
I could see the crunched remains of a few large trucks and what I guessed to be cars, but whatever bodies hadn’t been cleaned up weren’t visible from out height. In a way, I was glad not to have to see that just yet.
As we continued over the island I saw the forests the shrine had been in condition just as bad as the city, in a less dramatic way though. The trees had all been split into pieces, and lay in heaps strewn about. It was easier to see where bombs had been dropped in the forests since there were a few trees that stood only at cocked angles rather than uprooted. I tried spotting the shrine, but we might of already passed over it and I didn’t have the desire to see the ruins.
“I think I’d rather of slept though that.” I said dryly returning to me seat. I yawned, hoping he’d let me sleep a little longer but I had no suck luck.
“So much for that vacation.”
“Don’t worry, Maaya will keep us busy in Ragnarok doing everything from managing things from Nioglow to painting fences in Myildaypain.”
He snickered at the last bit asking, “You think?”
“Probably, she’ll get Kairi to guilt me into it after she mentions it.”
“What are you going to tell Kairi when all of this is over?” He asked after a moment of silence.
“I’d rather not have to tell her anything, but she’s point blank asked me if I’d adopt her after Akiko and Trenxi are dead. She’s known what’s coming for a long time now, she probably has an idea what’s going on now.”
“When she asked you that, did you lie?”
“I suppose I didn’t when I said I’d take care of her, huh? I think, even though Trenxi wanted it to be Akiko to invoke End of Time, that it would kill her.”
“There’s still the chance she’ll live.” Cloud said, not sounding very confident but trying to comfort me.
“A very small one, I heard End of Time say something about Akiko not being the one. Why she used Akiko even though I was in the shrine is beyond me.”
“We’re landing.” Maaya called. I blinked a few times, and looked out the window to see the horizon brightening and the stars slowly disappearing from the sky.
After the landing, we exited the plane and Celes continued to explain what was going on as the others exited.
“Akiko will fuse with Skyevi and in turn they will both become the same being. We’ve got the entire Twi-LIGHT building evacuated, and we had all Exodus soldiers removed from Nioglow. There’s an underground shelter prepared.”
“Wait a second, why is the shelter needed?” I asked scowling slightly, for I had a bad feeling about what she was getting at.
“We do not know what will happen to the Twi-LIGHT building when Ariest starts to awaken, we want to be ready for what happens when she starts to live, and when she dies.”
“Alright.” I said, feeling unconvinced. “Is a medical team going to be transferring Akiko?”
“She’s healthy enough to walk.” Celes replied. “Will Mr. Nimbostratus be accompanying you two, also?”
“Yeah.” I replied.
We were already on Twi-LIGHT grounds just outside of the building and Akiko, looking tired, emerged from the plane smiling softly.
“Are you ready?” She asked calmly, as Cloud jogged forward to meet us.
“You’re the one who should be answering that question.” I replied sadly.
“Akhy, Trenxi said you’d meet him here in Ragnarok, right? Cloud asked, “Even though Exodus said they evacuated Nioglow and the Twi-LIGHT building I think he’s probably there now. You planned on bringing the Soulslayer, right?”
“I’ve hardly taken it off my belt since getting it.” I replied calmly.
The trip through the Twi-LIGHT building was silent. I lead the way, even though I was having trouble focusing. The passage to Skyevi’s chamber was a familiar one, as was the rest of the Twi-LIGHT building. I couldn’t help but thing back to escaping with Cloud, fighting Zeev, and things from five years ago.
We entered the large room Skyevi’s sphere was located. I wasn’t surprised to see it glowing with activity.
“It is time.” I heard her voice echo, “Do not hesitate now.”
Akiko stepped forward, and stopped. She turned around to face me a smiled saying, “Thank you.”
“You have nothing to thank me for.” I said quietly.
“It’s usually you doing the contradicting, little sister, but I believe it’s my turn to disagree with you.” She said, her smile never wavering, “Thank you for letting me do this, and repent for my sins to this world, and to you.”
She turned to face the sphere, and held her hand above it saying, “Please take care of Kairi.”
As she touches the sphere, the glow it was producing intensified to a blinding light, and an earthquake started. I stepped back, squinting to see Akiko’s figure slowly fading into the light. The earthquake continued to gain force, and I felt my cell phone vibrating in my pocket rather than hearing it ring.
“You’ve got crappy timing, Maaya.” I said upon flipping the phone open.
“You two need to get out of there! Something is happening to the Twi-LIGHT building, but we don’t know what! You know where the underground shelter is, you have to hurry.”
“But-”
“Let’s go, Akhy.” Cloud said firmly.
“…Alright.” I sighed. “We’ll be right there.”
I flipped the phone closed, and took off at a run. It was hard to keep balanced, and I stumbled a few times before we emerged from the Twi-LIGHT building.
I looked up at the sky and grimaced. Even though it was dawn, the sun hadn’t gotten above the horizon yet. If anything, it had gotten darker. Only thing that separated it from night was the lack of stars, and there were no clouds in the sky to hide the sun. The darkness was unnatural, there was no doubting that.
We exited the Twi-LIGHT gates and ran through the town a few minutes before reaching the door built into the side of a building that lead to the underground shelter Maaya had ordered to be prepared. We tumbled in through the door, both panting even though I was quick to recover.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.
The room was on the small side, probably only thirty feet by thirty feet. Maaya, Rikku, Rei, Niketa, Kazuki, Katsu, Nea, Celes, Phyress, and a few Exodus soldiers were crowded into the room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all white. I guessed from all the stairs we went down before reaching the room, it was about fifty feet below the surface. The opposite wall was a solid computer with multiple screens. One main one, and a line of smaller ones that were directly controlled by the two Exodus techs that were investigating the damage.
Before anybody replied, we heard a huge explosion from overhead. The screens went white, and stayed that way a few minutes before connecting to different satellites, I figured they’d been hacked into the Twi-LIGHT surveillance system previously.
“What was that?” Maaya asked shakily.
The smoke was clearing on the monitors, and when it did it showed the sector of Nioglow near the Twi-LIGHT grounds reduced to ruins.
“What about the Twi-LIGHT building?” I asked sharply.
“We’re zooming in now.” The female tech said calmly. As the larger of the screens cleared, it showed the Twi-LIGHT building standing.
“What in hell…” Katsu muttered.
“The Twi-LIGHT building itself is forming an anomaly.” The male tech explained.
“The power Skyevi has been drawing from to stay ‘alive’ has been directly from Armayon, and since the Twi-LIGHT building has been intergraded with her power for so long it’s forming a space-time anomaly that could be a doorway into Armayon.” The female tech continued, “We don’t what will happen to the building itself, or how to access Skyevi at this point.”
“Are you saying we can’t access Ariest?” I snapped.
“We do not know yet. However, this anomaly is a double-edged sword. It will make getting to Ariest harder, but it will greatly slow her awakening. This might have been meant to happen all along, but there’s no real way of knowing right now.”
“And thus does heaven’s first trial open the door unto another world that none may enter. A sealed off passage, bound by no laws of time, only mortality.” Nea said, in a tone that made it sound like she was quoting something. “A line dividing the moral and immortal is slowly being drawn, although half the circle has not yet been enclosed.”
“Meaning?” I asked shortly.
“Meaning there is still a way to enter that building. We don’t know what it’ll be like on the inside, but you can still get in and destroy her.” Nea replied. “The sovereign still sleeps, but she will awaken soon. You must hurry.”
I closed my eyes a moment before saying, “I’m going alone. This is my battle, and I need to win it myself. Rei,” I said turning to her, “Your shop shouldn’t have been damaged from the blast. Think you have one more motorcycle to lend me?”
She smiled slightly saying, “Don’t go running it into a lake, crashing it into a tree, misplacing it in Dalmara, or leaving it behind in Mazar this time, alright?”
“And if I lose it in some kind of catastrophic divine explosion?” I asked dryly, even though I was also smiling.
“It’s going on your tab.” She replied, and jogged up the stairs toward the surface.
“Are you sure about this?” Maaya asked, looking worried as ever.
“Yeah.” I replied. “I’ve got a score to settle.”
“Be careful.” Cloud finally said.
I met his gaze evenly saying,
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back to kick your ass at air hockey.”
I dashed up the stairs, and when I reached the surface Rei was already waiting for me with a sleek black motorcycle. She tossed me the key calmly.
“You’d better be back, Ragnarok.”
“I haven’t come this far to be killed now.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
I didn’t run it full-throttle, mainly because there was no point. I was close enough to run, but going by motorcycle was quicker. When I reached the gates to the Twi-LIGHT building, I regretted not waiting to get more information on what to expect. I’d at least of known what was going on the outside.
I eased to a stop and got off my motorcycle observing the gate. The screen above the panel on the right side of the iron gates was dark, and I didn’t even bother sliding my card in. The gates were actually ajar, but covered in blue vein-like ropes. I reached out, touching one, disturbed that it was warm. I looked at the walls of the fence, seeing that these veins wrapped around them and protruded from the sides from holes they’d torn in the metal.
I drew my conventional sword, and tried cutting one of the veins. It had no effect. The only other sword I had with me was the Soulslayer, because as far as I knew Skyevi’s Sword was nothing more than a normal katana now, and Exodus had confiscated all the relics. I wasn’t sure if they were even in Ragnarok.
I drew the Soulslayer, a little unsure how effective I’d be with it in actual combat since I wasn’t used to double-edged swords, and gently nicked one of the veins. I grimaced when I saw the red blood dripping out of it. I stepped back, eyeing the veins that were in my range to cut, and charged forward slicing three of the veins holding the gates closed in two.
They were all about six inches in diameter, so I also cut parts of some of the others ones intertwined with the designs in the iron. I jumped back as not to be splattered with the blood, and as I watched it pour from the veins I noticed something off. One of the veins was pouring red blood, the other two pouring blue blood. The puddle forming around the gate was a deep purple. The blue veins that poured red blood had a slight red glow about them, and the ones that possessed blue blood gave off a blue glow.
They flow of blood didn’t slow at all, and I sighed and cut the others that held the gate closed I could reach. There were another eight of them above me, but I resigned to that being enough.
I sat down on my motorcycle, and gave it full throttle and leaned down as I charged through the gates. To my luck, I burst right through. I gradually slowed down as I reached the doors to the Twi-LIGHT building.
The veins also covered the building, many had ripped holes through the metal the spread even more effectively and created bends in the metal where veins were under it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see what these veins belonged to, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Chances were, they came from what I’d come to kill.
The metal door to the Twi-LIGHT building were also in bad condition, so I looped around to the back and to the underground parking lot. I had to hack through the veins covering the open entrance, but I was bale to get in. I parked my motorcycle by the door into the building, idly noting what basement I was in since I’d probably have to make a quick escape. That is, if I lived to escape.
I pulled off the back jacket I’d been wearing over my shirt and discarded the blood-covered garment. The door into the building wasn’t effected by the veins, and it was half-open so I was bale to slide through. Since the power had been cut off, it never finished closing.
But why would it have been opening…? Just a side-effect of the power going haywire before cutting off? Or did somebody exit the building after we did? Or rather…did somebody enter the building?
“Trenxi…” I mumbled, looking around the halls trying to get my bearings. Even though the lights in the ceiling were dark, the glow given off my the veins was enough to see by. I knew a lot about Twi-LIGHT bases in general, and there wasn’t one I knew better than the one in Nioglow.
I suppose all prisoners get very familiarized with their prison. Or rather, all birds locked away know their cages well.
The halls also had veins in the ceilings, and some in the floors. They were mainly in the walls, distorting and tearing the metal. The entire place felt like a giant graveyard, or tower of the dead. It may all been in my mind, but my feeling of dread increased as I proceeded to the Skyevi chamber.
The amount of veins increased, and once when I’d tripped and landing on a vein in the floor that had broken through the metal, the warmth it gave off nearly made me sick. It was creeper yet that I could feel the blood moving though it. They veins were also getting bigger, they varied from six inches thick to twelve and larger.
The door to Skyevi’s chamber was completely destroyed due to all the veins. I slid through the veins and sharp fragments of the metal door, dreading what I’d see. Although, what I saw was dismal but not in the way I’d expected.
There were shards of the translucent glass that had imprisoned shattered everywhere on the floor, and three huge veins barded together leading upward through a hole in the ceiling. Their glow was the strongest of all, and I guessed they were each about twenty inches thick. Although it was probably climbable, I decided to take the central stair case to find out where they lead.
I stepped forward to get a closer look at how far the veins lead up until they reached…whatever they connected to. From the looks of it, it didn’t look as if it could be in any of the basement levels. I flipped open my cell phone and opened the maps of Twi-LIGHT I’d downloaded into it. I tried connecting to the satellites that could give me an updated picture of the base, but even that wouldn’t help me with the interior.
There’s no power, so unless I could find a laptop with a charge I won’t be able to hack Sparky. Well, that AI is gone if it’s center control is here in Nioglow…I doubt it has a backup terminal to reside in.
I closed my phone and made my way to the stair-well. As I predicted, going through the stairs was more climbing rather than anything else. It was extremely slow to reach the first level again, and when I found the center room I was rewarded with nothing. The only thing there was in this office was the braded veins continuing upward. I had to check every floor’s center room for the end of the veins, before I got the idea that it might be in the restricted area on the fiftieth floor.
The restricted area was where I’d waken up nearly a year ago. I’d never been able to hack enough computers to get into it when I was a prisoner here. I was on the thirty-seventh level, and I proceeded up to the fiftieth without checking any of the floors between.
When I reached the restricted area, as I predicted what I was looking for was there…in a way. In the center of the room, there was a body and a half with the veins jutting through it’s stomach and right through it’s backs to a higher level. The complete body’s skin was so white it was literally translucent enough to see all the blood vessels and internal organs. The second body was connected to the complete one at the torso, was still human-looking. The skin had color, and her blond hair tumbled downward.
“Akiko…Skyevi…” I muttered quietly. Both bodies were lifeless, and I looked upward to where the veins continued. I returned to the stairs, determined to find what was at the end. When I reached the seventy-seventh level I was surprised to see the difference in the room I entered upon exiting the stairwell. Although, I knew I was in the correct place immediately.
This room was spherical and completely white. In the center of it, there was a large half circle thirty feet wide and about twenty feet high. The door to the room was also white, and very simple. It didn’t even look automatic. The main reason I knew I was in the right place is because Trenxi stood in front of the door, facing away from me.
“The time had finally come.” He said, still not turning to face me. “The day the gods reclaim their control over the mortal world. And look down upon this world from their thrown in Armayon. Ariest…she shall make me a god for this. I shall no longer be at Gaia’s mercy, I shall be granted the power of Armayon, so I can even pass the three goddesses in power!”
“You’re insane.” I said flatly. “The only reason you’ve come this far is because you’ve lied and cheated people into helping you.”
“Originally, when I was hardly more than a mortal man in Neivila I had no memory of my rue purpose. When I set foot of End of Time’s shrine, is when I regained my memory. I told Skyevi the truths of this world shortly there after, and then she left Neivila behind my back to destroy Ariest. She did not believe she would live to destroy Gaia, but she knew at least one god would have to be silences. I humored her, and planned on returning the favor of deceit when she gathered the relics. I wanted her to give up on it, and when she refused I demanded she find another way. While I was lying to her about the effect my plans would have on this world, back then I did want her to live. As you know, she ended up killing me.”
“So how are you here now, then?”
“She was able to kill by body, even though it had the same effect as being sealed away did. I was reborn as an immortal one hundred years later, and I’ve been alive since then, never ageing and going under different names slowly setting up the ideal situation to revive Ariest. When Ariest’s other two minions were released to be reborn by Skyevi, I knew that time had come. Akiko was easy to seduce, for she believed all my lies so easily. I knew there would be trouble when you were reborn and hated me. But all that does not matter anymore, for the day has come that the first god has been revived.”
“She isn’t revived yet, and she’s not going to be revived.” I said, drawing the Soulslayer and charging forward. He turned around and blocked me with the lance he’d had when first meeting Skyevi, seemingly appearing out of no where.
I stepped back, slashing low. He blocked me with the side of his metal lance, and pulled back quickly to counterattack. He swiped out the side of his lance around my ankles to try tripping me, but he was too low and I was able to jump over the lance. I lunged forward to stab him, but she side-stepped last minute so I only sliced his right arm.
He stepped behind me, and I blocked the blade of his lance from impaling me. Only problem was that I know was three feet away from the bubble, and he now had the rest of the room.
Reversing the odds was probably his plan all along.
I didn’t let him advance and pin me against the wall though, and I even made some risky blocks and attacks just to drive him back. He made an elaborate stabbing movement, and I as I sidestepped it I was careful to go further than necessary so I was closer to getting him closer to the wall. I blocked his next attempt to skewer me easily, jumping back and going to stab him. The distance was the key, because it was easiest for him to jump back to avoid it.
He fell for it, and he was back on the smaller side of the room. He glared at me, and I returned it with a knowing smirk. He tried a slightly different approach upon blocking my next attack, and started playing defense. I figured he was waiting for an opening on my part long enough to kill me, even though I recognized his tactic and didn’t do any elaborate slashes, stabs, or attempt to disarm him.
He finally counterattacked, but he’d gotten frustrated and wasn’t careful about how much recovery time his high slash had between a block. I had noted the position of his hands on the lance, and I grabbed the cold metal top of the lance, right before the blade with my left hand. He tricked jerking it from my grip, but I held tight, and jumped backwards, trying to get the sharp end of his lance over his heart, or at least stomach. I could tell by the look in his eyes he realized what I was doing a moment too late. I jerked the lance forward and it impaled him though the stomach.
He stumbled backwards, and even though his movements were shaky he extracted the lance and continued to fight me. He was slow, and his counterattacks were sloppy. He was being careful though, and had stopped playing the game of position. We both knew there wasn’t much more to the battle.
He slashed at my neck, and I ducked and stepped backwards to avoid the smaller blade on the end of his lance. In his moment of opening, I didn’t have the time to try slashing or stabbing him, rather I lashed out kicking him in the stomach, throwing him backwards.
He managed not to fall, but I used this large opening to charge forward, running him though. My blade went through his heart completely, and I retracted my blade quickly. He fell backwards, limply dropping his lance.
“Looks like,” He managed, hacking up blood between words, “You’ve bested me. I shall see you…in Armayon.”
Before I could ask what he meant by that, he was dead. His body started fading away, as did his lance. I watched the blood on the floor also fade to light, as if he were never there. I looked down at my sword, which also was now clean.
I turned around and looked at the hemisphere in the center of the room, walking forward slowly. I simply pushed on the door, and it opened. The room I entered was clear of veins like the last, and completely white. There was a huge hole in the center of the room, with a straight white pier leading to the center. It was completely even, showing that it was natural.
The three braded veins lead up to a transparent sphere, which the veins circled around at the bottom. Inside the sphere, curled up in a ball, was a young woman. Her arms were hugged around her knees, her eyes closed. I walked down the pier hesitantly, relieved she wasn’t yet revived and also unsure how I was going to kill her.
She didn’t look much older than me, if any older.
“So you’re…Ariest.”
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