Scene 1
"You three ready?"
I glanced back at the three guards accompanying me for this visit to the Shinto Pantheon.
Alexi stood ready. Gray wore her full suit of armor, silent as ever, Pluto resting in her grip. Rook stood slightly behind the two women, keeping his eyes forward with the controlled awareness I expected from someone trusted to stand close to me.
My gaze paused on Pluto.
Then I decided it was only fitting for its twin to be displayed as well.
I pulled out the Death variant and handed it to Alexi. She looked at the sword with brief confusion before accepting it with both hands.
"Now we're ready."
Mari nodded and began the teleportation spell.
The world swallowed us in a flash of colliding colors.
My mind remained stable as the lights folded through one another, each shade clashing in ways that spoke of reality's underlying laws. The others had already closed their eyes, their faces slack as if asleep during the split second of travel.
My laws of Darkness stirred.
Not because of danger.
Because the devouring nature inside them wanted to consume the truths hidden inside those elemental laws of reality.
I closed my eyes and focused on the Darkness slowly returning to me since I had restated my identity. It had strengthened further through the strategies used against Sirzechs. Warfare had become a tool of restoration in ways I had never expected.
Even the small amount of faith energy gathering inside my demonic core had begun to change.
My attempt at replacing the inverted Sun of Lucifer.
After all the raids, all the fires, and all the pressure placed on Lucifer territory, the true plan would only begin once the devils there started wondering how close the war had come to their own doors.
I refocused on the laws in front of me as they unraveled.
Then we appeared in the center of a village.
Creatures scattered around us froze.
Yokai spirits. Some more monster than mortal. Some half-human in expression, others barely shaped into anything familiar. They all turned toward us at once.
Our wings had released instinctively from the amount of energy that passed through our bodies during teleportation. Even Mari had reverted to a plain, unrecognizable face before her eyes snapped open and her features shifted back into one of the maids who normally followed me.
I grinned as she stared daggers at me.
Apparently, seeing her real face was taboo.
It wasn't ugly. It wasn't the heavenly beauty she liked to wear either.
Just a woman's face.
A face belonging to someone who thought she had to compete with the two women standing beside me.
"Mom, look."
"Aren't those devils?"
"Those wings are so cool. Dad, how do I get mine to come out?"
"You idiot, we're snake yokai. We don't have wings."
"Watch out, the kappas are pranking again with the kitsunes!"
"Come on, let's dance!"
Most of the village focused on us, while a few yokai remained caught in their own dramas, too busy with mischief to care about foreign devils arriving in the middle of their home.
Then my eyes landed on a golden carriage.
A Golden Sun had been painted across its side.
The yokai around it stopped what they were doing and bowed.
Whoever sat inside mattered.
Yet the laws surrounding the carriage were too varied to belong to Amaterasu herself. Lightning. Water. Earth. Fire. Illusion. A blend of Life and Death. One law sat beneath the rest, overshadowed but present.
"Envoys of Sitri," a woman's voice spoke from inside the carriage, "we shall lead you to the palace of the Shinto representative."
The carriage stopped before us. An ogre holding the reins watched silently as the doors opened.
I glanced around at the yokai staring at us with awe, envy, fear, and pride.
Then my gaze returned to the snake child who wanted wings.
Smirking, I created a ball of demonic fire in my hand. With my minor domain of Wealth, I forced gold to rise from the ground, shaping itself into an open carriage. The inside remained hollow like a Greek temple.
Then I blew on the fireball and gave it life.
"Beasts of Nirvana."
Several golden crows took form first, their bodies shaped from flame and law. Then an eastern dragon emerged with golden wings, circling once before lowering itself beneath the carriage.
The wheelless chariot lifted behind the golden carriage of the Shinto faction.
The snake child stood speechless.
Then he reached for the dragon's scale-like skin.
I cooled the outer layer of flame before his quick hands could burn themselves. The other children followed almost immediately, climbing over the crows and dragon like they had been gifted new toys instead of witnessing demonic lawcraft.
Their parents remained frozen.
Too afraid to approach beasts emitting Middle-rank demonic energy.
I took my seat in the open chariot and waved for them to follow.
No reason to ruin the children's joy.
Several parents swallowed hard.
The idea that a devil would let their children enjoy themselves probably sounded ridiculous.
"All children hold on to the animals," I said. "We're moving now."
As the beasts lifted higher, I shaped Darkness Laws into soft clouds beneath them.
Just in case something went wrong.
Scene 2
The carriage in front began to move, drawn by horses along the mountain path.
My group took their seats around my golden carriage, though none of them could fully stop watching the living flames.
"These are made using fire energy?" Rook asked.
His focus remained fixed on the fluid movements of the beasts. As the closest advisor to me, he had earned enough room to ask questions about my abilities more openly than most.
This was his first time seeing me use fire instead of lightning.
No doubt the display had caught him off guard.
Even Mari's attention shifted toward him after the question.
"Energy?" I said. "I suppose that is one way to describe it. But using pure energy of any element is a recipe for ruin. It may be different in this world, but my methods remain the same."
The firebirds drifted beside us, their wings scattering sparks that vanished before touching the children riding them.
"Laws, as I've explained before, have a chance to advance beyond the original frame you create. Making beasts from flame is as easy as breathing. Every form of life desires a form. Fire can be given shape through various methods, but the only version the world allows to exist by itself is one made from laws."
Rook's expression tightened.
Good.
Understanding laws was not a suggestion.
"It does not matter which universe or world we discuss. I will use the Greeks as an example since their creation is easiest to translate to mortal minds."
The mountain path curved through endless green. Flowers lined the road on both sides, their scents soft beneath the sharper trace of divine incense coming from the carriage ahead.
"Everyone should be aware of creation beginning with Chaos, then Uranus taking over before being dethroned by his son Chronos, who was then dethroned by Zeus."
I leaned back slightly.
"One fact mortals either fail to grasp, or are incapable of grasping without direction, is the division between each generation. Creation begins with the universe itself. Then Uranus becomes the Sky. Chronos becomes the embodiment of a concept. Zeus commands the last era of gods."
No one interrupted.
"Creation. Framework. Concept. Domain."
The words settled over the carriage heavier than the mountain air.
"Chaos is the beginning. Uranus is the Sky as firmament, standing over Earth and beneath his sister Nyx, the Void of Night. Gaia is Earth. The others each hold a piece of the framework that allows reality to stand."
The horses ahead continued their steady pace.
"Then there is Chronos. The embodiment of Time. A concept is a universal function required for the universe to operate. Without Time, there is no progress. Only stagnation. Just as Coeus can be described as the function that separates realms and anchors them as the Axis."
I looked toward Rook.
"Without Time, motion cannot move forward. Without Axis, the realms of Underworld, Sky, and Sea would collapse into one indistinguishable mass. There would be no structure for anything else to build upon."
Mari had gone still.
Gray remained unreadable.
Alexi's hand tightened slightly around the Death sword.
"My father Hades and my uncles Zeus and Poseidon are God-Kings of Domains. Their entire beings are made to push the next era past the Titans, who can never truly die or leave the world. My father commanding Darkness, Fire, and Death does not mean he owns only one expression of each. If something can be placed under his Domain, then he is the God-King of that path unless another equal-standing god defines his own laws differently and places himself outside that locked structure."
I laughed softly to myself.
Everyone looked either deep in thought or half-buried beneath the weight of trying to wrap their minds around it.
I let them struggle.
My attention moved back to the scenery.
The green mountain was peaceful in a way the Underworld rarely offered. Flowers lined the entire path forward, and the air held a calm that pressed against the mind and spirit without demanding surrender.
From the carriage ahead, I felt the unseen woman's gaze linger on me.
She had listened carefully.
Good.
I pulled out my wine gourd and began to drink, giving the others time to digest my words.
Scene 3
The rest of the journey up the mountain passed in silence.
No one broke their focus after my explanation. Long-lived species had no issue letting hours pass like the blink of an eye when a difficult truth had been placed in front of them.
Mari and I were the oldest among the group, so neither of us had trouble shifting our attention back to the scenery.
Eventually, we reached the mountain peak.
An eastern temple stood there, surrounded by yokai spirits. Their eyes focused on the carriage ahead of us, confirming that our guide was someone of status. Sending such high-ranked yokai out could only have been done by choice.
"Hm. I might need an announcer."
I whispered it mostly to myself.
"Bale, are you still sleeping in my palace?"
I lifted the seal over my Grotto Heart slightly.
A pair of eyes opened within.
Bale focused on me from the avatar of Death he always left behind while using his Life avatar as his day-to-day body. He had lost his original mortal form when he defeated Ares, but Bale had always been stubborn enough to turn loss into a new weapon.
"Split your focus," I said. "I'm going to use you as the last defense for the group sheltering me."
Approval answered.
Then he rose from the throne among the Four Horsemen and manifested behind us on his horse.
He appeared at the rear, behind the parents who had gathered their sleeping children from the golden crows. The dragon now carried the carriage alone.
Bale's mount was green, its flesh rotting in places yet held together by divine famine. He rode in green armor and a matching robe that shielded his face.
Unlike his adopted brothers, Bale had taken over the Horseman of Famine, completing the incomplete set of my three Horsemen born too early.
The War of the Golden Cycle had created the conditions for three brothers to absorb Death, War, and Conquest in an era not ready for its closing act. As if fate itself had been amused, Bale became the mortal who created Endurance as a domain under warfare before overloading Ares with the very same domain Ares had dismissed as weak.
But only after enduring the humiliation everyone in my generation faced when meeting my father.
Ares received the worst of it.
He was the god who required my father's favorite mortal to defeat him. Then he was forced to endure the waterfalls of Styx as his crucible, all so he could understand the domain he had once called weak.
Our carriage soon came to a stop.
The crowd of yokai moved toward the lead carriage and bowed.
Torches lining the path to the temple changed color, their flames shifting into ghostly blue.
Then a woman stepped down from the carriage.
Nine tails spread behind her.
The yokai dropped lower, heads touching the ground.
I dismissed the dragon, and my golden carriage landed with a heavy thud. The firebirds remained, still carrying the mortal children, who were staring in amazement at the gathered yokai.
"Envoys of the Devil race," a long-headed man announced as he stepped forward, "we introduce to you Lady Yashaska, the Divine Fox and attendant of Divine Lady Amaterasu. Tamer of the Yokai race, guardian of the Shinto Pantheon, and Queen of Kitsune!"
Fear Laws carried his every word.
The yokai behind us roared in celebration, waking the children in a rush of startled voices and wide eyes.
I looked to Bale.
No one on my carriage could possibly know my titles.
Bale's green divine mount stepped past the crowd of parents and moved in front of my carriage as I stood.
I loosened my seal just enough to take my true form.
My white skin darkened.
My hair turned white.
The birds of golden fire shifted into beasts of black flame.
The blue torches flickered.
Blue fought black.
Then the foxfire gave way as my Divine Flames devoured it.
"Mortals," Bale said, voice carrying across the temple path, "as the Horseman of Famine…"
Every expression soured at the title.
Even Mari focused on him now.
"I introduce to you the Prince of the Underworld. The Aloof King of the NetherRealms and the Northern Lands under God-King Hades. The Black Sun that hunts divinity. The White Sun who offers mortals a chance at divinity. Enemy of Olympus and Fate. Tenebris Illos Hades. The ending who walks to beginnings."
The sun above began to darken as Bale spoke.
Then I felt a Sun God correct the mortal sun before the change could be seen by ordinary mortals.
Dozens of divine eyes turned toward us.
I had forgotten to tell Bale not to mention Hades.
Too late now.
I was here.
My divinity was displayed openly, ignoring the cost of forcing it before fully stepping back into godhood.
Yashaska stared at Bale first.
Then at me.
"Follow me."
She turned and led us inside.