After listening to their comments regarding Sona's match, Yoruichi left the Deities behind despite their incessant questions, "I'm sorry, my dear Deities. As much as I want to sit down and have a formal discussion with all of you, time isn't on our side. Before the hidden and unknown consequences of their descent go unnoticed and bite us in the ass later, we'll have to scour the Dungeon."
But not long after that, Yoruichi and Serafall finally ended the expedition and sent all the members back to the surface to have their status updates.
While everyone was happy to have their children get stronger and even have a batch of Level 7s appearing among them, Yoruichi and Serafall still provided no information that they could work with.
.
.
.
"Is this their way of telling us that they'll no longer get involved?", asked Hephaestus.
On the top floor of Babel, those involved with the expedition gathered once again, including Hermes.
As Yoruichi and Serafall had completely withdrawn from Orario and cut all contact, none of them knew what they were planning next. For the first time in history, all of them knew that they were going against the children themselves and not the Gods behind them, not that they were sure they could even be categorized as 'children' in the first place.
Loki sighed and replied, "That's probably it. We didn't know from the start, but they'd been holding the hands of our children. If I were to guess their intentions for doing so, they wanted to jumpstart everyone's improvement until they could run on their own."
"That's also the only reason that I could think of too. Since they also provided the Ki training methods and Magic construction, I couldn't think of anything else they wanted.", Freya added on.
Miach raised his eyebrows and asked, "...They're the ones who spread that? I thought it was found in some ruins and the Magic construction was some kind of breakthrough that the Loki and Freya Familia achieved."
Loki grinned at him and said, "Much more trustworthy and believable, isn't it? If it came from them, then no one would believe them and it wouldn't have spread as fast."
Takemikazuchi crossed his arms and asked, "Then the big question is why? Charity? But after what we've seen, that's the farthest possibility."
Loki hesitated for a moment before sighing once again, "Once, I talked to Kisuke regarding this. And the only answer he provided at that time was that it was to give us a fighting chance. Against who, what or when, he never specified."
Everyone became quiet and each one of them tried guessing what's the meaning behind those words with the information that they had.
"How about ruffling some feathers to get some information? As we are now, the best we could do is blindly guess what's about to happen.", Ganesha suggested.
"Never do that!" Loki instantly rebuked him, "It seems that you've already forgotten, but we could easily guess that they are 'Crimson Apocalypse Thieving Group' that ended numerous Familias in a single night! And for what reason? They didn't like the names they received in the Naming Ceremony!"
Ganesha immediately shuddered along with others before taking back what he said, "Forget it then." His eyes then went towards the quiet Hermes and changed the subject, "What about you, Hermes? What did you get out of the old man?"
However, Hermes simply shook his head, "None. Ouranos' lips are sealed tight whenever I ask about what would happen when the Dungeon's challenges are overcome. He won't even give a clue nor an excuse to his silence."
While he let all of that out calmly, he couldn't really hide his frustration from everyone. Hermes gritted his teeth and stood up, "I'm going to take my leave first."
"You're going to find Zeus?" asked Loki.
Hermes stopped before leaving through the door, "I just want my answers."
"I'll spare you the effort of searching. He's currently in the Dizara Region."
"...Thanks." Hermes didn't have to confirm where that information came from as he could easily guess it. Since he guessed that he wouldn't be getting any more clues out of them, Hermes decided to go after another leading figure, "How about Odin? Do you know where he is?"
"That shithead? No. But he's probably somewhere messing around.", answered Loki.
Hermes then faced the other three and asked, "How about Dagda, Brahma, and Amaterasu?"
However, Hermes received similar answers from Miach, Ganesha, and Takemikazuchi. It was then that Hermes and the others realized that the de facto representative of each region of Heaven is all secretive about their activities.
"It might not be much, but it's a telling story that something's going on other than what's publicly available for Gods.", Ganesha muttered to himself.
Naturally, it's impossible that they were the only ones who'd realized, but as Deities that only wanted to enjoy their stay in the Lower World, they couldn't care less.
Hermes left with a lot more questions in his mind while the remaining people argued and questioned each other but after a few rounds of that, they ultimately came to a conclusion that they wouldn't arrive at anything. After a while, everyone else except for Loki and Freya, left.
"He might not have disclosed to you about what was to come, but you have your guesses, right?" Freya suddenly asked Loki.
"I do and he did indeed insinuate something for me to work around. But it's so ridiculous that even I don't really believe in it fully. If I were to tell them this, it'd only cause a panic and some of them might even start killing their own children to bring them back to Heaven and safeguard them."
Freya was surprised by her claim but after thinking about it, she also knew that some Gods love their children so much that they might actually do that in face of total annihilation, 'I might have taken Kisuke's side, but if what's to come is really an all out war against 'him', then without proving that he has a fighting chance, Kisuke won't be able to get her or anyone's support. At most, he'll just be the third player.'
END OF VOLUME 13