For a second, we floated there apart, holding our stance. No more words need be exchanged.
The wasteland around us crackled and sizzled, smoke and heat reaching out toward the darker, growing evening sky.
The hellish reddish-orange molten rock, however, kept the dark from truly setting in.
Then, in the next, we met.
She swung down, and I swung up. Our blades met each other at perfectly mirrored angles. The sheer force of our blades colliding let loose a shockwave that tore the heat straight out of the hellish wasteland around us.
The fires were snuffed. The molten rock hardened instantly, before being blasted apart.
The entire new fjord rumbled as the dark was welcomed in, swiftly overtaking where the fire's light was.
My eyes narrowed at Charla, who smirked ever so slightly back.
At that moment, I realized even more.
It's not just my level of power, is it?
I didn't bother with any form, nor did I bother to hold the clash. Instead, I pressed down against her with a raw torrent of sword strokes, each arc and slash backed up with both my hands.
As if in imitation, Charla moved her sword, held with both hands, her blade curving into mine's path.
A cut to her collar was deftly redirected. Another to take off her forearm was repelled. A stroke aimed at her thigh was prevented with a deft flick of her hands. She ground her blade again against another slice aimed at her neck.
It isn't just the power.
The sword, the miracle it's giving her, is either giving her the knowledge of my type of swordsmanship, or it's outright allowing her to copy me.
Interesting. I wonder how far that goes?
I tilt my head for a moment in thought, before pressing forward with a new attack plan.
I slammed my blade down, as though to cleave her in two.
I could feel the trembling behind her arms as her blade moved, nigh automatically, to intercept and absorb the blow.
But I didn't stop there; I jerked forward, my knee arcing up.
My eyes catch the moment hers widen, her body twitching as she drags her sword downward, my knee crashing into her fists and hilt instead of slamming straight into her gut.
She's sent tumbling back from the force of the blow, the aurora of golden light around her almost flailing as it seems to attempt to right her.
Huh. How very interesting! So the miracle isn't so all-encompassing when it comes to my skills, then?
At least, not yet. It seems to have grasped my swordsmanship, for the most part; I don't often mix in martial arts, after all.
Though she was, and still is, growing alongside me, it wasn't a one-and-done wish.
Meaning she has a chance to adapt to everything I have, via her miracle, if given enough time.
Admittedly. The idea that she could - that it would practically force me to either push beyond what the miracle perceived as my limits, or find an entirely new way.
It excites me. More than I'd ever admit out loud.
If this were a friendly match, I'd be all for it.
But, unfortunately, this isn't that.
I hold my sword close, the blade crossing right down the center of my face as I sigh.
She is attacking the home of one of my cute little juniors. She tried to do something to one of my cute little juniors' best friends, involving an Evil Dragon whose thing is literally slavery. One who is dying, or will die fairly soon.
I feel my face fall with every thought that flows through my mind.
She sent people after other juniors of mine. Several times. And, on top of all of that, she has a Longinus, and not just any Longinus, one like Cao Cao, one that can actually make injuries that'll stick to me.
The pain in my sides is distant, but they are still there, burning like a quiet reminder.
That burn enters my eyes, as I feel my pupils shift, twisting inward.
"Harden, my resolve." I speak aloud, my eyes slowly closing, "As if I need Him to grant me my wish."
I can't afford to play around. Not this time.
My right eye opens, blood slowly oozing from it like a gaping wound.
There is no wound. But there is light.
"Akaruihiruotoko." I intone with force.
Charla doesn't even get to say anything, only just now righting herself, as she's enveloped by a deafening blast of impossibly white light.
It lasts but a heartbeat, the light clearing away with the forced blink of my eyes, leaving her there, gasping, eyes widened like saucers.
Her 'armor' looked warped. Her skin had turned pink. Her lips chafed, and her platinum blonde hair was singed. The golden light around her flickered, as though in confusion.
My left eye opened, blood oozing from its lid, my gaze snapping onto her sword.
"Amano-Iwato." I intoned somberly.
Light and space bend inwards, before snapping, shattering into thousands of fractal pieces like a broken window.
Behind it is a sheer black nothingness, light warping around it.
Like a maw, it opens wide around her sword arm, held out from the rupture of light.
Charla's gaze snaps to it as the holy light around her body finally seems to catch up with what's going on.
My eye closes, and just as it's about to snap shut around her blade, Charla is violently thrown out of its reach, light exploding from her own sword to do so, sending her careening into the ground.
That light was devoured by the hole, vanishing into nothing, as space resumed its proper place.
I click my tongue. Oh well, that deserved a shot, at least, right?
Still, it doesn't change the status of my will.
Her body can contain her power, that's true, but the sword and its miracle still need time to grant it, and, in the end, she's not used to said power anyway. She can hold it, but using it is another matter entirely, and it seems like she needs direct intervention and assistance from the sword itself.
If I can't separate the sword from her with trickery, then…
My honey-gold aura bubbles around me, as the buzz of pain rises across my entire body.
I'll tear it from her hands by force.
The aura gathers, folding in on itself, again and again, building up, shaping into something.
My eyes glare down upon Charla as she rises back onto her feet and turns again toward me, mirroring me with her own glare.
She doesn't seem to react as a ribcage of honey-gold power crackles into existence around me, a spine of that same power rapidly forming, growing up from the top of my head.
Instead, the nimbus of golden light around her almost seems to chime, as she reels back her blade, that light gathering on the tip, glittering like a golden star right on its point.
Then she takes a single step forward, and stabs it forth.
A golden cross-shaped beam of power radiates from the thrust of her sword.
I don't move an inch.
The golden light smashes into me, into the aura creaking around me, like water rapids striking a dam.
And like water hitting a wall, the light broke.
The golden light parted around my form, carving golden lines into the ground behind me with a furious explosion of light.
Sure, my aura wasn't completely untouched, marred with spiderweb-like fractures across the ribcage like bones, but those cracks swiftly started bubbling, festering like open wounds, before mending in real time.
I tilted my head down at Charla, who gritted her teeth, looking as though a rather unladylike snarl was about to leave her mouth.
She swung her sword out to the side before blasting off the ground like a golden comet, the earth behind her blowing apart, with a golden trail of light left in her wake.
The ribcage had already reformed. The spine had formed. And quickly?
A honey-gold skeletal hand snatched her out of the air, catching her as though she were a pitched baseball.
"Nghhh…!?" She growled, mere feet away from me now, her sword pointed toward my face like a spear, just barely out of reach of slashing my aura. Her body twitched and shuddered as it tried to break free from the skeletal hand's grasp.
Her arms were locked in place. She couldn't even attempt to slash at the arm.
A deep, crackling roar began to build around us as the honey-gold skeletal structure formed a head, its eyes burning like twin suns, the aura around me blazing with further intensity as the skull tilted, beaming down upon its catch.
No. I'm not naming this power after my Uncle. This ability is way too cool to be named after him. Unfortunately, the last time I got to use it was way back during my fight with Dulio, I'm pretty sure.
The memory of that battle was still a little hazy and confusing sometimes, alright?
Still, my general lack of use with this power means it's still nowhere near as strong as it could be. That, and I have no name for it either.
Eh. I can knock out the first by using it more now. I'll think of a name later.
I lift my head, causing the skeletal arm to raise its hand, as though following my movement, raising Charla further up.
I can feel her struggling. As though the construct was an extension of myself, I can feel her struggling under my grip, attempting to push open the hand, break out.
My eyes narrow, and the hand abruptly grips harder.
I feel the way her body presses in a way it shouldn't. I feel the cracking of muscles, of bones.
She goes rigid, her eyes looking as though they're going to pop out of her skull. With clenching, gritted teeth, she lets out a low, pained groan, yet the fighting spirit in her icy blue eyes doesn't waver even for a second.
It's strange. It's almost like looking at a zealot, refusing to break.
Well, I guess that makes sense. She has His Wish on her side, right? Who wouldn't be somewhat of a zealot with that kind of power?
Even now, said Wish is working on keeping her alive. Her snapped bones and tissues are repairing in my construct's grip, doing its best to keep her entire body from becoming flat like a pancake.
I have her now, in a sense.
But I need to end this without killing her, at least at first. I need to know what her ultimate plan was, and I can't exactly get that if she's dead.
My eyes won't work on her, as His Wish will likely interfere directly, and my eyes blowing up now, of all times, would be fucking catastrophic, for obvious reasons.
So. How do I stop her, without killing her, while avoiding His Wish from taking direct action against me?
I take a moment, pouring over everything I know and have learned.
And all I can do is sigh.
Because I can only think of one thing, but it genuinely might be my only option.
Even if it also has a pretty high risk of killing her.
I'm thinking of removing her Sacred Gear, as Indra did to Cao Cao.
His Will didn't try to stop Indra at all. So it's likely His Wish wouldn't try to stop me, either.
But, as said several times before, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to something like that. It's also pretty likely I'll just outright kill her by pulling on her soul wrong.
Unless, maybe…
I'm still not entirely sure of the Wish's mechanics, but if I play this right, maybe I could 'trick' it into helping me along?
My construct's arm brings Charla back down to eye level with me.
I look at her, straight in the eyes, her defiance, her zeal, her will to fight on burning bright despite the natural ice-cold blue and the pain dancing within them.
I close my fist.
The skeletal hands mirror me.
Blood and viscera explode out from the crevices in the hand, like something went pop within it.
That's because something did. Her torso got smashed.
She gives out a horrible, choked gag, blood bursting from her nose and mouth, as her eyes nearly roll up into the back of her head from the sheer pain.
I stare on without a single shred of pity or disgust. I had an idea that might let her live. I never said it was going to be painless, or pretty.
Just as I thought, light followed the gore, golden radiant light bursting forth in rays, spilling out from the crevices in the hands, coming from her body as it regenerated.
The Wish worked tirelessly, relentlessly, to keep its owner up, to keep the miracle alive.
I closed my eyes, my free empty hand reaching out from the ribcage, which I simply laid upon her head.
I don't think I've done something like this since I purified Lile's Sacred Gear of that Evil Dragon's taint.
The only reason I say it like that, because that's the closest thing to comparing this to.
After all, in my third eye's sight, I don't usually immediately encounter a wall of pure unrelenting light.
On instinct, I open my eyes.
Yet, I'm not in a blasted, freshly carved fjord, encased in a honey-gold skeletal construct anymore.
I float within a pure white space. It's perfectly silent. Not in an eerie, drive you crazy way, but in the way most would consider Ophis's desires, funnily enough. Off in the horizon of the white space, there are glimmering golden stars.
Under one star, the brightest, the most resplendent, sits a child.
I didn't move, yet I found myself before them.
I blinked, trying to make my eyes adjust.
Yet, I couldn't see their face.
Not like they didn't have a face. No, they looked like a child. I could see their face, and there was nothing covering it.
But their face was hazy. A nondescript mish-mash of facial features that bled into each other, like their face couldn't decide what it wanted to be, or was all the options at once.
The child sat there, cross-legged. It wore a robe of red and white, flowing in nonexistent winds. In its lap, it played with light, shaping it into outlines of objects, and people, planets, and stars.
"You know." The child began, in a voice like a cacophony of all children in the world, its playing not ceasing, "Out of all the possible ways we could have met, I didn't suspect it'd be like this."
The child's arms dropped. The lights in its hands snuffed out. I got the distinct impression it was looking at something, far, far off into the distance. Something my eyes could never see.
It righted itself, slowly, floating there, barely turning its head toward me.
My eyes narrowed at it.
"You're not God," I stated, without a single ounce of fear.
The child stills.
Before, suddenly, leaning back and let out an outraged, "Awwwweee man!"
The child shakes its head, a cacophonous giggle suddenly emanating from it, "Is it really thaaaat obvious~? Heehee. I am His Dying Wish!" The child presents itself, holding out either of its arms.
Of course the Wish would be a child. Somehow, it makes sense.
"And you~!" The Wish points. "Are Noriaki Kusanagi! Well. You are now, but we don't talk about those lost hopes and dreams, do we?"
For some reason, I got the distinct impression the little shit was smirking at me smugly.
Also, was that a reference to something?
Really, that little comment was likely meant to scare me, but at the same time…
This is a part of Him. If he didn't know my origins, when one of the Gears coming from simply his blood lets a user know all about life and death and souls, I'd have been more shocked.
The Wish suddenly crossed its arms, as though pouting, "Mmmm, you're supposed to be unsettled by that, you know!? Be all like, 'wha?! How could you possibly know that!?' and all!"
"And you're supposed to be complete, aren't you?" I immediately retorted, uncaring of its words.
The Wish, however, went completely still.
"Your owner used a Limited Balance Breaker. Her sword isn't complete. You aren't complete." I pressed, glaring down upon the child. "If I wanted to kill her, I could. You wouldn't be able to stop me. As it stands, your miracle working isn't potent enough now, is it?"
The child looked away, huffing, "Hmph. You're a jerk, you know that. I'm trying to have fun. Isn't that your Wish? To have a fun fight? Why would you wanna ruin that?"
"I don't need a dead god to grant me any miracles." I state, "If I want a miracle, I'll forge it with my own two hands."
The child pauses before letting out a low, mirthless chuckle. "Aww, man, now that was kinda cool…I, heehee, 'Wish' more mortals would think like that! But it's just, nggghhh!" The child cries, grabbing its head, as it floats back, kicking at the air, flailing about as though having a tantrum. "It just, it just sucks SO much, you know!? Why'd you have to come here reborn as one of them? It's such a waste!"
My eyes narrow into a glare as the child suddenly rights itself.
"Ngghh!" It smacks itself on the head with both hands a few times before putting its hands on its waist and puffing out its chest. "Right! Okay, so, I can't exactly…unmake you, or anything? Even while you're here. It's not my nature. As I'm sure you're aware, I'm not like His Dying 'Eternal Boredom' or whatever it calls itself now."
Huh. The Wish and the Will having beef?
I could see it.
"See, I don't do acting," the child explains, completely unprompted. "I do set up so it is possible to do the act, thing!" It throws up its arms, as if it just got done explaining something grandiose.
I do my best impression of cricket.
The child whines and crosses its arms again, "Okay, fine, whatever! Pagan! If I could beat you up, I would do that!"
"I'll give you a noogie if you don't hurry up." I deadpan down at it, causing the child to flinch away.
"Eh!? Wait, please don't! I was getting to it!" It exaggeratedly waves its arms out in front of it. "I have a counteroffer for you!"
Huh?
"What kind of counteroffer?" I say reflexively, a bit taken aback.
The child takes a deep breath before sighing, the stars on the horizon dimming out. "So, you're right, you're right, okay? I can't, uh, really stop you if you wanted to kill Charla…" a pause, as it giggles a bit, "but I know you don't want to kill her, because you need what she knows."
I nod, only to be absolutely floored as the child continues.
"So, I'm offering you to switch sides, right here, right now. While you still can. Before it's too late."
My jaw drops, partly out of the sheer surprise of its words, but also due to the sheer arrogance inherent in such a statement.
"N-Now I know how that sounds!" The Wish quickly continues, before I could find my jaw on the floor, "But it's not out of anything icky, like pride, that I offer this to you. I meant it, what I said earlier? If you had just changed your 'spawn location,' maybe, been born a Miracle Child…things would be so, so much better for you.
"And don't try and deny it. I know your desires. I know your wishes. Your wills. Let's be real here, if you had a choice to go back, do this all over again…wouldn't you take it?
"Because I will warn you, 'Noriaki Kusanagi,' you're already too late to stop what's begun." The child informs, matter-of-factly, "Not like you had any idea. That's not your fault! It's simply life, sometimes. But that's what a wish is for, right?"
The child stretches out its hand. "To turn what isn't fair," within it is a single, golden star, "into something better."
"So. That's my offer." I could hear the smile in the child's voice. "I already know what you're going to pick. But I couldn't help but offer anyway. Hah, who knows, maybe you'll surprise me?" The child wiggles the star around in his hand.
…I do have to admit.
To a certain extent, the child isn't wrong.
I think I would have rather been born elsewhere, especially at first.
I admitted, a long time ago, to actually really liking the Church girls. Before I met everyone else, I could confidently say they were probably even my favorite.
Things would be so much simpler if I had been born a priest, or half-angel, huh?
Yet…
I reach out and gently move the child's hand away.
How could I just give up what I have now? Betray all of what I gained? My girls? My new life? All for what, a chance where things could be 'better '?
I didn't need to see a sad expression on the child's face to feel it as their body sagged, the star in their hand flickering out.
"Aw. Phooey." The child crossed its arms, still slumping, and for a precious few moments, it simply floated there like that. Expression literally unreadable.
"I won't interfere any longer." The child abruptly stated, its voice harder, resigned, "As long as no harm comes to her. But just remember what I warned you about, yeah?" The child turned away from me.
"Who knows? Maybe you'll change your mind…"
I felt the pull before I could even retort to that.
The white space seemed to speed on by, faster and faster, golden stars blasting past-
My eyes snapped open.
I was back in the fjord, coated in honey-gold power.
With a snap of my will, the construct around me unraveled, and Charla let out a surprised yelp as she fell, landing on the ground in a heap.
Slowly, I followed after her, floating down to her.
Charla sat up, battle spirit still hot in her eyes, and she rose with her sword, prepared to swing at me.
I landed before her, with nary a care in the world.
She swung her sword, and I caught it with ease.
Charla seemed absolutely stunned, looking at my hand on her sword, then at her sword itself, as gently, the golden light around it ebbed away, dissipating like mist.
"Y-You-" She began to say, only to stop as her armor cracked, only for that to also quickly break off around her as well, leaving her completely and utterly naked.
She sputtered, her face instantly flushing with sheer embarrassment as she moved to cover herself as much as possible, while still holding onto her sword. "Y-You, brute! Wha, what did you do!?" She cried in outrage.
I shrugged at her. "Fulfilled your wish of continuing to live. For now at least." I took a single step forward, still holding onto her sword, causing her to rapidly step back, trembling as she continued to try and cover herself. "You come quietly, right now, then I might give you something to wear, understand?"
Charla couldn't meet my eye; instead, she looked away and gritted her teeth, red-faced and full of shame and fear.