Chapter 59: Ephemeral Touch

The Solar Barge drifted in silence across the black waters of the Duat, its oars unmoving, its radiance pushing back the press of disorder and chaos. Sun Beneath the Horizon, Ra sat still and observant, a pillar of golden fire against the dead dark. Meanwhile, at the prow, Sutekh stood quiet and composed with the dust of forgotten ages.

“How unexpected,” Ra said plainly. “The Infernal One grows into his mantle with alarming ease. And now,” His gaze turned upward, toward the ghostly firmament of the Fourth World. “Satan’s pervades onto the Timeless Place. A vile shadow flickering in and out of the immortal light.”

Sutekh watched the shifting horizon without expression. “The myth-echo has already set his gait. It shan’t be long now,” he noted.

“A gait he now shares with you,” Ra said with faint amusement. “You will have a pivotal role in what comes soon, though whether as an aid or detriment remains to be seen.”

“I have already made my decision,” Sutekh replied.

The Sun’s expression turned a touch wistful. “And it appears you are content to keep the Sun in the dark.”

Sutekh’s lips twitched with dry laughter. “Once, you knew me well enough to predict my choices.”

“Once,” Ra echoed wryly. “But whose fault is it that I can no longer? After all, Set of yestereve is not the Set of the coming gloam.”

Sutekh tilted his head. “Does change merit fault to be given?”

“Spare me the sophistry. But we speak of steps and here come yours too familiar.” And from within the dark churned the titanic force of Ma’at, the Chaos of Apep. And Sutekh of the Red Sands answered with a thunder and lightning in hand.

-----

The White City lay in its usual brilliance, its vast expanse of unmarred light reflected in the golden bowl before Michael, the surface of the Genesis Waters smooth and flawless in the way they had always been, untouched by disturbance since the dawn of their consecration. So when a subtle tremor moved across the basin, no more than a soft distortion, a shift too slight for any mortal eye to perceive but unmistakable to him, Michael’s focus sharpened with instinctive precision, his entire being tensing around the implicit knowledge that something had intruded where nothing ever should.

A thin filament of darkness, flickering irregularly like a stuttering heartbeat, skimmed across the pristine surface, phasing in and out of existence. The sight lasted only a breath, yet Michael felt the gravity of the moment settle upon him with cold, absolute clarity.

There were no shadows in Heaven. The White City permitted none; its very laws rejected darkness so completely that even the idea of it had no purchase within Heaven’s domain. Which meant that the thing he had witnessed was neither accident nor intrusion, but the unmistakable signature of a being whose essence was beginning to press against the strata of immortality itself, testing the boundaries of the Fourth World.

Michael’s thoughts drifted to the disastrous ending of the Summit, of Ophis’ insurmountable power and the Shinto Moon casting down Satan.

And yet, he could now feel that same cast down vile being reaching towards and polluting Eternity. The youngest of the Deadly Sin was rising too quickly, too forcefully, with a trajectory that was, quite frankly, unheard of in their mythos. Michael hadn’t seen a human born soul echo with such gravitas in centuries… not since Arthur and the Wars of Camlann.

Ichigo Kurosaki, the once human boy who had spent less than a year’s breadth as a pseudo-psychopomp for the Shinto, was now sending tidal waves in the mythos of the Three Great Factions. A star of demonic fury and power that rallied hundreds of millions of souls to his own Kingdom within the Greater Devil Empire.

And worse, he was breaching the thresholds Ajuka and Sirzechs had approached only after centuries of refinement, and he was doing so with the reckless, natural momentum.

And Ajuka and Sirzechs were already aberrations, anomalies of the worst kind in the madness his fallen twin had wrought when he had first made his pact with the Inferno. A third now joined them so quickly…

If this continued, the world would not merely have to contend with the Crown Princes; it would inherit the birth of Divine Demons, each with the capacity to alter heavenly, earthly, and infernal order forever. They would empower the Sins beyond the physical planes, reaching the very thresholds of Time itself and all of infinite creation.

The delicate balance between the Three Great Powers would be a total thing of the past. The Demons would swallow the Angels and Fallen alike, and they would be powerless to stop them.

Doubt.

Heaven had no room for doubt, but here Michael stood, surrounded by it. And he had not felt it so strong in centuries, not since the shattered ending of the Great War and the final bell toll of Heaven’s decline.

Michael closed his eyes, his radiance dimming a touch. “It would seem, I am long overdue for a private conversation with Azazel.”

-----

Odin sat upon his throne in a right foul mood, the great hall around him heavy with a foreboding stillness. None of the ever-present festivities were to be witnessed in his Halls. No, he had pushed all of that aside into another second so he could have all of this one to himself.  

His one eye narrowed as he looked through all the infinite streams of time over and over: each time arriving to the same blasted conclusion.

That Fenrir’s agency to send Sköll and Hati beyond their accustomed hunting grounds had been due to outside interference, the monster was still quite bound with Gleipnir, after all. But the All-Father could feel it now, unmistakably… the subtle deviation in causality, a mink touch upon Fate that unmistakably did not belong to his myth. Especially not the Wargs and their miserable father.

The Great Red had moved the linear stream of events. And not in some small fashion either! The impossible Dragon had birthed an entire stream of possibilities that should never have happened!

Gah! It was all so infuriating! As he stewed further on his throne, a part of him was tempted to go into the Void and confront the Red Beast, but he would either be ignored or wiped from existence. All the more maddening, he couldn’t foresee which future was more likely!

The Apocalypse Dragon was not bound by prophecy, nor restrained by ever-mutating eternal threads of Time. It loomed outside the weave entirely, vast and indifferent, and vexingly whimsical.

Odin had accounted for countless endings, for the slow approach of Ragnarök and the thousand lesser calamities that fed into it… but not this! Without grace or care, the Great Red had carelessly altered Fate and now the future was thrown into chaos! And chaos begot uncertainty.

And uncertainty, to him, was intolerable.

Odin loathed not knowing.

Ginunngagap troubled him in much the same way. The Infinite Ouroboros, like its Dreaming counterpart, existed beyond reach, beyond prediction, beyond any sort of semblance of pattern and possibility.

Inconsiderate, selfish, ontological brutes the both of them!

Worse still was the consequence of all their meddling! The Devil Empire now brushed against futures that should have remained separate, its influence bleeding into a mythos that was not theirs to touch. Devils had no place in the shaping of Ragnarök, no claim upon its ending, and yet their presence lingered there regardless, an irritation he could neither dismiss nor fully excise. Bah! Now he would have to take that little girl more seriously whenever she sent representatives knocking at his gates.

And then there was the youngest nightmare out of the five of them.

Even now as he kept this single second all to himself, the boy’s growing mythic weight pressed outward, casting ripples through Time itself, disturbing futures Odin had already surveyed and found wanting no further revision. A whippersnapper, rising too fast, touching threads he had no business touching, and doing so with a heedlessness that set Odin’s jaw tight!

The All-Father did not appreciate having blind spots! And he liked it even less that those blind spots were multiplying!

He blinked once, and all of eternity caught up to him and Odin was once more surrounded by the merry-making and feasting of his most cherished soldiers and captains of war. And yet, in that second, he saw through his son’s gaze.

‘But, Aesir, tell your All-Father We shall be having words with him.’

Odin blinked once before he pointed to the Sun of the Far-East with accusation and outrage. “Words with me!? Look at what that rebellious child of yours is doing! No decorum! And don’t think I don’t see you two Corpse-Marchers sitting so smug! A fine mess of narrations and myths we have now! Fie! I am not for it!”

And the whole of Odin’s Hall ignored him, for they were far used to his immortal outbursts echoing through Time.

-----

Rias walked at an unhurried pace through the broad avenues of Grevex, a woven basket resting lightly against her hip as the city went about its usual rhythms around her, merchants calling out prices, familiars darting between rooftops, and the ambient hum of Infernity’s ever-present magic drifting through the sky like colored mist. Beside her, Issei was in rare form, his hands moving almost as much as his mouth as he enthusiastically detailed every feature of the newly released magical gaming console called the Gamecryst, all the while, his voice brimming with awe.

“Buchou, this Ajuka guy is a genius!” Issei raved. “Did you know that the Gamecryst allows you to experience a space-time anomaly from the comfort of your own bedroom! You can explore entire simulated realities without having to get out of bed!”

The corner of Rias’ lips twitched, and she had to keep herself from laughing. She highly doubted Issei even knew what space-time anomalies were.

“Entire worlds, Buchou! You can simulate entire worlds! And it can even procedurally generate up to a hundred thousand NPCs, each with real-time responses further generated by magical AI! I wonder if I can port a copy of Koikatsu! Dear Satan, the oppaitastic possibilities!”

Rias shook her head. Of course Issei would use a high-powered magical reality simulator to insert himself into a porn game… but then… her eyes briefly widened at the rumor of certain dating sims that were modded to have Lord Ichigo as a romance conquest.

If it were ported into the Gamcryst… could she… could they?

No! Stop! Bad Rias! Bad, bad, bad!

As she shook her head, a troupe of pitchfork wielding chibi Akeno’s danced around her head, chanting ‘hentai, hentai, hentai.’

She was not a pervert!

“I need to work harder Buchou! I need to save up to be able to afford one! This will be our goal once we’ve mastered Balance Breaker, right Ddraig? …Ddraig? Oi, don’t ignore me!”

And Rias smiled despite herself, the corner of her mouth lifting as she shook her head faintly, thinking - fondly, resignedly - that boys truly never outgrew their fascination with toys. No, they only upgraded them until they started to fashion and warp dimensions.

More than that though, Issei’s excitement was genuine, unfiltered, and harmless. And in moments like these she found it difficult to begrudge him that innocence, especially after everything they had all been through. She really was lucky to have this bottle of optimistic energy by her side. Even if he was a hopeless pervert.

But her smile did not last.

Her thoughts drifted, unbidden, to Yuuto. The other boy on her team.

The memory of their recent conversation pressed heavily against her chest, the quiet room, the brittle honesty in his voice, and the way Ichigo’s use of Sin had torn open wounds neither of them had fully acknowledged before. It had been brutal, there was no other word for it, and Rias still felt a sting of shame when she reflected on how deeply her knight’s self-loathing had run without her ever truly seeing it.

She was glad, profoundly so, that Yuuto had trusted her enough to speak openly, to lay bare the scars he carried… but that gratitude came entwined with heavy regret, and with the sober understanding that awareness alone was not enough. Her Knight’s fixation on power frightened her, not because ambition was unfamiliar, but because desperation rarely ended well. Not for their kind.

The pursuit for power was inherent for Devils, and, more often than not, it was their ultimate ruin. She would need to guide him, carefully, patiently, to help him seek strength without letting it consume him.

Issei’s voice cut back into her thoughts. “Man, the weather is so much better today than it has been recently, what with all those thunderstorms and earthquakes. I still can’t believe it can rain literal magic! I was so scared that our dump of a house would fall apart when actual heaps of liquid magic fell from the sky!

Gobdad did say that the Satan guy had it reinforced to withstand all of Infernity’s shitty weather though. Apparently, thunderstorms are super common here because of his girlfriend or something. But man, I am not looking forward to cutting the grass and all the mutated plants again. Also, have you noticed the Reaver patrols have been really grouchy? I mean, grouchier than usual?”

As Issei ran his mouth a million miles a minute, Rias nevertheless nodded her head in agreement.

She was deeply concerned about all the strange happenings in Grevex these past few weeks. And, based off of the newspapers she had managed to acquire, they were happening all over Infernity.

And that terrified her.

Because she knew enough about the nature of demonic realms to understand that such shifts were rarely coincidental. Infernity was bound, inexorably, to its ruler, and she could not help but wonder if Lord Ichigo’s mood had been bleeding outward into the land itself, manifesting in the strange environmental irregularities they had all been forced to endure as of late.

But then, was it really so unusual for the Sin of Wrath to be in a bad mood? There was also the possibility a demonic realm’s upshifts being caused by the ruling Demon being heavily injured, but a Satan wounded? She immediately dismissed the idea.

As Rias churned in her thoughts, Issei leaned closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially as he gestured toward an approaching female Worgan.

“Psst, Buchou,” he said behind his hand. “Check out the oppai on that wolf-girl, they’re massive!”

She gave him a flat stare before rolling her eyes.

“What?” He said defensively, immediately catching her annoyed expression. “They are! They’re bigger than my head!”

“Issei,” she started patiently. “Worgen have excellent hearing, she could hear you.”

She reflected, not for the first time, that while she had managed to instill enough decorum in him to spare his housemates the worst of his impulses, he had somehow concluded that dragging others into his commentary on the attractiveness of strangers was perfectly acceptable. Still, Rias had to admit that he wasn’t lying. The tall, grey-furred Worgan woman with her long grey mane had incredibly large breasts. Which wasn’t all that unusual considering that her species averaged being around seven feet tall.

Pushing past her exasperation, Rias couldn’t help but give some light teasing as she dropped her voice to a low whisper. “But still, I didn’t take you for a furry.”

Almost immediately Issei’s expression morphed offended. And he then spoke in an uncharacteristically serious voice. “Buchou, please. I’m no racist! I respect and adore all oppai! Regardless of the person they’re attached! I will never discriminate!”

Rias found herself momentarily stunned, uncertain whether to scold him or laugh as she was caught between exasperation and disbelief.

Instead, with a fond sigh, Rias said with a soft smile, “You really are one of a kind, Issei.”

The boy instantly brightened and smiled wide at her. “Thanks, Buchou! …eh? What do you mean it wasn’t a compliment, Ddraig? Of course it was!”

But before anyone could say anything else, the world changed.

The air grew heavy, saturated, as though Grevex itself had drawn in a breath and held it tight.

 The familiar purplish currents of magic overhead twisted violently, bleeding into a furious, malevolent red that made Rias’s skin prickle with instinctive dread. The ground trembled beneath her feet, not violently, but with a slow, ominous insistence, and a pressure settled over her that stole the warmth from her chest and replaced it with something vast and furious.

Rage.

Unassailable and unending rage.

And not hers.

She recognized it immediately, and the realization sent a chill through her far deeper than fear ever could. And then came the malignant force across her shoulder, causing her knees to buckle and fall to the ground. She wasn’t the only one either. All across the street people fell over, some unconscious and frothing at the mouth.

To her side, Issei was oddly unaffected. And once again she was left in awe of the latent power of the Welsh Emperor. “This guy and his aura farming!” Issei complained tightly.

But Rias hardly heard him as the ripping Demonic energy ramped up and shook the ground, causing tremors to rock the numerous towers and spires of the magical city. And even as her own Devil’s soul screamed in horrified submission, her mind raced with the grim and dreadful truth -

Lord Ichigo was angry.

Truly, profoundly angry.

And that terrified her more than any enemy ever had.

-----

Amaterasu stood within the realm of Timelessness, her gaze resting upon the Golden Sea of Immortality. She was the ever-watchful gardener, surveying and carefully tending all the shall and shall-nots of the radiant expanse that was her demesne. And through her onyx gaze, it was all held in a state of careful and enduring equilibrium.

Here, for the Radiant Sun of the Far East, all moments existed together without precedence or decay, layered upon one another in quiet simultaneity, and she perceived them with complete autonomy. And it was her right, as Sovereign of Pantheon, that she may see the warp and weft of even other immortals that were held under her sway.

Such was the bounty when one Immortal Throne stood far above several others. But then, even amongst her own domain, there were a few sieges that managed to elude her watchful eye.

Chief amongst them, the Dead Kings now sitting across eternity from her. One, a dearest friend of ages past. The other, a legend even amongst myths – and he was assimilated by her own invitation.

The Soul King sat preeminent, and the Unseen One a shade beneath the temporal flow. Within the former’s eyes, eight pupils turned slowly, each attuned to the infinite threads of the future and all that could be. Yet converging nonetheless upon the same immutable truths.

He gazed back at her without challenge or deference, for their accord was not one of rank, but of shared responsibility – of a duty they had borne for countless eons together.

He – her oldest and dearest friend.

And neither spoke to one another.

And yet, between the two of them, an eternity’s worth of understanding passed. An eternity of all the twists and turns of their burdens, their struggles and the never-ending wars they had fought side by side.

Without altering her posture or expression, Amaterasu turned her gaze.

The Soul King turned with her - their attention drawn simultaneously toward the same point upon the Golden Sea. Both of them stared calmly as the Fourth World shuddered, rendering spherical waves through all directions.

And there, upon the radiant expanse, a presence began to take shape.

It emerged in uneven pulses, its outline flickering as though reality itself resisted the cadence of its existence.

A Baleful Shadow, one of Anger and Hate and all things anathema to her.

And above its indistinct head burned a crown of infernal fire with strands of golden immortality interwoven with its malignant presence, flaring and dimming as the figure struggled to maintain coherence. The wretched fire cast no reflection upon the Golden Sea, yet the concepts that burned within pressed outward all the same, a malicious insistence seeking purchase where none should have been possible.

And if she had any breath, she would have let out a cry. A mother’s lament at how her son now so wholly drenched in Fire and Shadow. So wholly removed from her Light. This was not what she wanted for him; this was not what she wished for.

And for all her power and plotting, here he was, a dread reminder that even she could not dictate the entirety of Fate.

The Dead Kings spoke then, their voices echoing through the realm of Time.

“Satan,” he said. “Vile and gold.”

To Reach Heaven by Violence.

And the vile Demon stood there, his presence spreading outward through Time as a slow corruption, darkening the Golden Sea in widening rings, like ink unfurling through water. Where that taint passed, causality grew feverish and malformed, futures bending into shapes that could not have arisen naturally, their symmetry ruined by an influence that obeyed no inherited law.

But all of it was ephemeral, for her Dark Son phased in and out of the Fourth World. He had no true grasp of Time, not yet. He was still far from apotheosizing, but he was close…

But her attention was taken away, and both she and Dead Kings turned in the other direction from the flickering Satan.

And the Golden Sea stirred as moonlight pooled upon its surface, petals of pale sakura drifting through the reflected expanse, and from the depicted moon, Tsukiyomi slowly rose in black and gold silk, his androgynous face half-veiled behind a lacquered fan, gaze cold and measuring.

Amaterasu kept her mien aloof and austere.

Her brother’s gaze slowly went from the Soul King to herself, and then finally to the inconsistent presence of Satan. And upon seeing him, he sneered in direction.

“Look what you have wrought,” Tsukiyomi said, his voice tight with disdain. “This thing you have nurtured. Hell itself on the cusp of touching Eternity. Well done, sister. You have surpassed all my expectations on how magnificently you can condemn our home to an even sorrier state.”

And even as Tsukiyomi spoke to her, the echo of his words seemed to draw the attention of the could-be Divine Demon, and its unstable presence before them briefly solidified, its form sharpening for a single, terrible instant. From its feet spilled a vast shadow that flowed across the Golden Sea like the encroaching night, filled with an endless desire to devour and destroy.

But the full moon reflected beneath Tsukiyomi answered in full kind, his argent light pouring outward in radiant beams that pressed back against the intruding darkness; and moonlight and shadow collided in a cataclysmic struggle across millions of timelines, their Wills directly conflicting with one another.

Tsukiyomi’s expression twisted as the Shadow continued to surge.

“You dare?” He said scornfully, voice laced with venomous contempt. “A phantom of immortality? A mere shade of what could be, daring to bare its fangs against me? Begone Demon! Crawl back to the shadows from whence you came!”

Divine power surged from him in a violent outpouring, lunar radiance crashing outward with overwhelming force. The flickering figure was torn from Timelessness and cast beyond its borders, scattering like ash into the void beyond.

Time shuddered, but the Golden Sea quickly resumed its unbroken steadiness as though nothing had ever happened.

In truth, it hadn’t. By nature of the Fourth World, Satan had not truly stepped here, so his actions were as if they had never happened.

Yet, Amaterasu remained still, her attention unaltered, even as her brother smiled victoriously.

“If he could reach even so far as this,” she said, her voice calm and measured, “then the fragments of divinity you set within him as poison have already been sundered.”

Tsukiyomi let out a sharp, humorless laugh.

“What of it, sister?” he replied smoothly. “For all your plotting, he will not be able to fully immortalize before our conflict reaches its course. The Infinite Ouroboros has its own machinations, and he will not survive them. I have naught to fear. Your gamble has failed, sister. You chose most poorly.”

And then he turned fully toward her, a bitterness sharpening in his eyes.

“You have had your reign, sister, and it is sorely lacking. We stagnate beneath your watch. We regress and our Blessed Father looks on uncaring for the very land which he seeded. Even our mortals decline, and how could they not?” And he turned his gaze to the silent Soul King. “When the cycle of souls lies in these sundered and, now foreign, hands.”

Amaterasu regarded him evenly, the weight of his words neither provoking nor unsettling her.

“And yet it was you who first welcomed outsiders into Our Garden,” she replied, her tone unyielding, “Conspiring with the Void to hasten the Slaying Spear beyond its ordained hour and ensuring Izanami’s breath stains the living world.”

Tsukiyomi put his fan back to hide his lower face.

“Spare me your excuses,” he shot back, “That the Dead took matters into their own hands to finally undo the injuries inflicted by the Heavenly Two is admirable. But that you would take their heir and fashion him into your own weapon… this is your doing sister, not mine.

Amaterasu titled her chin imperiously, even as her eyes took on a feral and wolfish glare. “Ever the same! Incapable of accepting fault! Your reckless ambition and pride saw you reach beyond your place and ignite this conflict!”

A sneer curved Tsukiyomi’s mouth, his eyes gleaming with cold fury.

“My place?” he sneered. “So arrogant you have become, so comfortable cradled in your power! We were meant to rule jointly! Childish thing that you were, you could not bear to see one of your many toys broken and so you swayed the others to seize sole lordship!”

Amaterasu replied without hesitation. “Any and all swaying was done by your hand alone. Your slaying of Ukemochi ensured none would stand with you. As always, you are blinded by your inability to grasp consequence.”

The Soul King spoke then, his voice absolute and unadorned.

“Ukemochi’s death marked the turning point of our Pantheon. Had you stayed your hand, the direction of Nihon would have been far greater. But that moment is now etched beyond revision, a fixed certainty even we cannot erase.”

Tsukiyomi’s expression hardened, though a flicker of something unreadable passed through his eyes.

“The past may be set in stone,” he said dismissively, “but the future remains unmoored. Many within Takamagahara question your rule. Both of you. The afterlife lies fragmented even after the passage of millennia. And you invite foreign powers to encroach upon even our mortal shores. You have planted these seeds of doubt; I merely answer the call. As is my birthright.”

“And yet none voice such complaints when they stand before Us,” Amaterasu said, her tone indifferent.

And she knew that Tsukiyomi’s lips curved cruel behind his fan. “Such is the way of tyranny, that truth be rendered silent in its presence.”

“Yes,” she replied plainly, her brows raising in question. “We are a tyrant. What of it?”

Tsukuyomi blinked startled. “You admit to so readily?”

For a moment, she said nothing. Merely choosing to look at him something akin to pity. “This has always been your failing. You have only ever known the closed hand of tyranny. You have never learned to keep your other open, that you may distill mercy and wisdom too.”

He looked stunned, going perfectly quiet and, for a long moment, the Golden Sea reflected their standoff, moonlight and sunlight suspended together without merging. But at last, Tsukiyomi exhaled sharply, his patience having been thoroughly exhausted.

“I tire of this farce,” he said. “I will not spill family blood within Takamagahara, sister. But the rest of the cosmos will serve as a fair battleground. Let this be my final warning, stand down sister; you cannot win against what is to come.”

With that declaration, his presence dissolved into moonlight, leaving the Fourth World unmarred in his wake.

“Victory?” She repeated softly to herself. “Foolish brother, We won long ago.”

But then the Soul King and his Shade spoke.

“The Heliocentric Egg, this plot of ours we have hatched, it is ours no more. This son of ours will cut the chains of narration we have wrought. The Divine Dragons have seen to that.”

All of things rendered fiction under their whims.

And with their words, Amaterasu’s thoughts once more turned to that rebellious child and the inevitable future of his writ in gold. But more than that single truth, she could not see. For Void and its Other had blinded them all.

-----

The one thing that Sirzechs appreciated about Yfel, aside from allowing him to walk unrestrained, was just how dreadfully boring it was. He never really had to pay too much attention to his surroundings because, well, there really weren’t any. The place of their Thrones was just a suspended dais within the formless black void with a horizonless and empty sky.

It had been one of the few times he agreed with Ajuka’s aesthetic choices.

But he quickly turned away from intrusive thoughts and returned his attention to Falbium who was speaking with his usual toneless droning. Speaking of boring…

“The offensive against the Old Satan Faction continues,” he reported, his gaze half-lidded and borderline asleep. “Our forces have maintained pressure across the Underworld, dismantling multiple enclaves and disrupting their supply routes. Several leadership nodes have been identified and neutralized.”

“And Khaos Brigade?” Sirzechs asked, his tone measured.

Falbium inclined his head slightly. “Engagements remain intermittent. Their cells continue to operate independently, but cooperation with Angelic and Fallen task forces has limited their effectiveness. The agreements reached at the Summit are proving to be useful…surprisingly.”

That, at least, aligned with Sirzechs’ expectations. Cooperation between the Three Great Powers was rare if ever, that it was going to seamless was quite the boon. As ever, necessity had proven a stronger motivator than ideology, and for now, the fragile alignment between the three remained intact.

For now.

“Our losses?”

Falbium’s jaw very subtly tightened; a telling sign. “Higher than projected.”

Serafall’s posture shifted immediately, the faint levity she maintained slipping away, while Ajuka’s gaze remained unchanging.

“Ophis' blessing have proven to be quite a detriment,” Falbium continued. “Nothing quite as egregious as what you reported during the attack on the Summit, but enough to make a significant difference in military prowess. Entire Old Satan units are operating under its augmentation, exhibiting enhanced regeneration, accelerated casting, and overall increased offensive power. We will need to front more Ultimate-class personnel on the battlefields.”

Sirzechs closed his eyes briefly, exhaling through his nose as the implications settled heavily in his chest. The worst part about all of this was that this was but a sliver of Ophis capabilities. The Infinite Ouroboros could easily crush their Empire, that it was playing with armies instead showed how little all of this mattered to the Void.

Or, perhaps, it found some whimsical amusement in watching a renewed civil war amongst their kind.

“They are also willing to sustain extreme casualties,” Falbium added. “Losses do not appear to diminish their operational capacity at a meaningful rate. I am starting to suspect the use of cloning, though where they would have obtained such facilities is beyond me.”

Serafall grimaced openly. “Figures.”

Ajuka continued to remain silent.

“The most efficient course of action,” Falbium said, “at least in my opinion, is decapitation. Creuserey Asmodeus and Salba Beelzebub continue to serve as stabilizing anchors. Removing them would fracture the Old Satan Faction’s cohesion and leave them leaderless. They would be easy picking then”

Serafall shook her head sharply. “Or possibly run straight to Rizvem Lucifer.”

At the name of the original Lucifer’s son, Sirzechs’s expression turned sour. “And while we cannot afford that outcome, Rizvem’s inactivity during the Civil War and what came afterwards made it quite clear he cares nothing for the Empire or our species. And nothing since suggests a change in his disposition. For now, he a tertiary issue to consider. The primary being the Old Satan Faction, and the secondary being Khaos Brigade.”

Falbium frowned. “Then how do we conclude this? A prolonged war of attrition does not favor us, not with the threat of Ophis sitting so bluntly at our front doors.”

Sirzechs folded his hands atop the armrest of his throne. “The ideal scenario is a single crushing victory with as many enemies gathered in one place. Preferably, we take them all out at once. We already suspect that they were planning a strike then, but with the timing pushed back due to Ichigo’s injuries, that plan of theirs must have been scrapped.”

Serafall’s mouth twisted. “I think it a blessing in disguise; I would prefer to not use our children as bait for a hostile army empowered by a cosmic horror of a dragon.”

Ajuka met her gaze calmly. “They have already expressed an intent to strike it. The symbolism is irresistible to them, and the concentration of young Devils represents both a psychological and strategic target.”

Falbium let out a brief yawn before saying, “It’s the pragmatic thing to do. Show the trap hole the fox can throw itself in.”

Serafall crossed her arms tightly. “We would need to have massive security checks to ensure none of the youth are put into danger.” At Falbium’s incredulous look, she rolled her eyes and said, “Fine, more danger than usual.”

“And so we shall,” Sirzechs said. “We’ll all have our peerages on standby, and Ichigo himself will have returned by then. It will be our full might against theirs, and unless the Infinite Ouroboros decides to fight directly – which I’m starting doubt will ever happen – we are guaranteed an overwhelming victory.”

Falbium hummed in agreement. “A sound plan, the only issue being we need a way to control where and when the blow will fall.”

Ajuka inclined his head. “A possibility, one I can exploit to our advantage.”

Sirzechs turned towards his oldest friend with a curious look. “Oh?”

“My nephew,” Ajuka said evenly. “Diodora Astaroth.”

He blinked in confusion. “The nun boy? What of him?”

“I have confirmed he has made regular contact with Khaos Brigade. Why, I cannot imagine. Nor how he thought I wouldn’t notice… then again, he takes after his mother’s family…”

Sirzechs nearly snorted, but quickly suppressed it “Your brother…?”

“Remains loyal, as ever,” Ajuka said with a nod.

Good, Sirzechs thought to himself. Ajuka’s younger brother was one of their staunchest and oldest supporters. It would be a very bad look if the brother of one of the Satans’ turned traitor. Imagine if Ria-tan tried to turn against him! He shuddered, the horror.

Sera put a finger on her chin and looked up in thought. “I don’t think I have much of an impression of your nephew.”

“He’s rather young, being only forty-one years of age. Not very bright by anyone’s definition. Has the strangest fascination with nuns and holy maidens. He tends to engineer situations where he can socially isolate them until he is their only emotional support, and then slowly psychologically break them down until they are utterly reliant and dependent on him for emotional stability.”

Serafall blinked once before shrugging. “It’s somewhat admirable that he keeps the traditions of vow-breaking alive.”

They all gave her a look.

“What! Why are you all looking at me like that! Corrupting nuns was a time-honored sport! It only fell out of favor when the second head of the Bune Family famously began a systemic societal purge of the practice when she learned one of her husbands had an affair with an enslaved holy maiden!“

Sirzechs looked at her baffled and said, “How do you even know that?”

“Why do you even know that?” Falbium followed up.

“Because I’m not an uncultured baboon like you lot!” She said defensively.

Ajuka let out a long-suffering sigh. “Moving on, Diodora has almost certainly received Ophis’ blessing. He’s not been very careful about hiding it, idiotic child that he is. But that tells us he is in contact with someone high ranked enough to warrant an outsider being granted the Void’s blessing. He can be leveraged to disseminate false intelligence.”

Sirzechs considered it carefully before nodding. “Do we know why he joined Khaos Brigade?”

Ajuka shrugged his shoulders. “As I said, he is an idiotic child. I have frequently done my best as an elder to make him self-aware of his own stupidity, but he never takes well to my counsel. No matter how often I tell him to stop being an idiot, he continues to be one when next we meet. It is…vexing.”

Serafall nodded understandingly. “Children can be so stubborn.”

“Hear, hear,” Falbium said as he swung his legs over his throne and made himself comfortable.

Sirzechs was forced to agree. Just look at Ichigo! Look how stubborn and willful their youngest sibling was at times! …ah, Sirzechs really was missing having the brat scowl at him.

But then he turned his mind back to business. “And what of Katerea? Have we managed to gleam any other useful information from her?”

Serafall’s expression cooled as she raised her chin. “She’s exhausted her usefulness. I’d very much like to wring her neck now.”

“No, keep her alive,” Sirzechs said. “Let Ichigo finish what he started. It’ll make for a good welcome back present.”

“Speaking of our absent brother,” Falbium said. “Any word on his return?”

About to answer, a wave of malicious power suddenly ravaged the reality of Yfel’s dark, distorting the edges of the platform as raw demonic power resonated outward in titanic waves.

“Speak of the Devil,” Sirzechs murmured amused, even as he realized Ichigo must have unleashed his true form.  

Serafall let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Even sealed away in his Inner Sanctum…”

Even separated by dimensions, Ichigo’s full demonic power was causing such violent reactions here in Yfel. It was more than just impressive. Sirzechs wondered to himself if Ichigo had somehow managed to become even more powerful through this ordeal of his.

That being said…

“If you would all be so kind as to help me balance out his power so he doesn’t wreak havoc in the Empire?” Sirzechs asked lightly.

Falbium snorted in amusement, but all four of them joined together as one reaching outward as their power unfolded in vast, and invisible touches to reinforce reality where Ichigo inadvertently strained it.

Gradually, Ichigo’s extra-dimensional presence began to mount stronger and stronger, but the four of them working in tandem were more than enough to serve as a counterbalance of the peripheral damage he might cause.

At the same time, Sirzechs let out relieved breath. If Ichigo managed to unleash his true form, then he was well on his way to purging his soul from Tsukiyomi’s divine energy.

Serafall smiled wildly. “Kick ass, Berry-berry!”

Falbium closed his eyes and let out a hum. “I suppose this means he’ll return in a day or two.”

And as relief continued to flood through Sirzechs’ chest, it was quickly accompanied by an unexpected swell of pride as he reflected on the once human boy he had reincarnated years ago now. Angry, hurt and dying with Hell’s claim on his soul, but now powerful enough to shake numerous worlds with just his mere presence.

They grow up so fast. Grayfia is probably hiding her tears right about now, hah!

He wondered, distantly, if he would feel the same when Millicas reached the same age.

Maybe he should start publicly calling Ichigo his son? The look on the brat’s face alone would be worth it! It would serve him right for making him so worried too!

Thoughts of teasing Ichigo lingered as Yfel returned to stillness, and the Dread Lords’ meeting continued.

-----

A/N: A lot going on in this chapter! So many plot points being introduced. But genuinely a very fun chapter to write.

To summarize, Sutekh (Set) has a role to play in Ichigo's future. GR has manipulated events that may be hastening Ragnarok, and Ichigo may have a part to play in that as well. Amaterasu and the Soul King can no longer interfere in Ichigo's future, what's done is done. And Ichigo's brief bout into divinity has sent echoes through Time. Issei continues to be fun to write and Sirzechs can now be added to the ever growing list of "I am your father, Ichigo" meme.

Unfortunately, yes, I have also invented the word 'oppaitastic' - poor one out for Ddraig.