My eyes narrow carefully down at the scythe blade pointed at my Adam's apple, the tip dangerously close to piercing the little bump.
Tilting my head back, and turning it to glance at him, I find something I didn't expect.
His eyes. They're equal parts dead yet filled with desperate determination.
His knuckles were so pale they looked like they might crack under the sheer pressure of his grip.
Yet his teeth may be clenched even harder than that, as his face is locked in some sort of twisted unsure frown.
This…is not Tobio.
Or at the very least, it's some twisted version of him, brought about by Yomi.
His base principles, to protect those he loves at all costs, are warped by this tainted realm filled with beings who make you want to die.
Ah, I get it.
It's like Megumi, that one guy from Jujutsu Kaisen, but on crack.
Not good.
"Say…" I start, my tone clipped and simple, "I just want you to know, for after all this over? I don't blame you…" I pause.
As my power bubbles to the surface of my skin.
"And I hope you don't blame me either, for the bump I'm about to put on your head."
And for the second time on this trip, Yomi knows the color of honey, as it explodes out and wraps around my body.
My face burns and my vision clears, my max power is achieved, and even then, I barely have time to duck under the scythe blade as it sails for my neck.
I jump back, evading a second scythe rearing up for my chin, barely registering the frustrated grunt of my opponent before I kick the door out during my jump and land in the hallway.
"And right after I fed you too." I huff out in annoyance, drawing my sword as Tobio bursts out of the room, each hand holding a scythe.
Maybe I should just skip to this bit more often, saves me a whole lot of trouble!
I breathe, right as Tobio steps into my range before me.
Dance.
Fire erupts from the blade, bathing Yomi in ferocious light as my sword falls upon his form.
Only to strike air and soon the ground, clinking off it with enough force to send shivers up my arms.
It was quick, but I caught it just before it happened.
He melted into the shadow the light from my fire created and vanished.
Which means–
I leap into the air as the ground beneath me becomes blades, my halo appearing at my back to stop my accent further as the ceiling too becomes more blades.
Viscous pitch-black blades that seem to vibrate or growl all around me, I can feel the malice coming from them.
So, I respond in kind, by breathing out flames.
Crimson red fire splashes into blades, not destroying them, but rather, eliminating the shadows they came from, causing said blades to immediately detract.
I landed in the plume of flames, and only added more fuel to my powers pulsing out like flint on steel, sparking them up, and driving them higher.
There's nothing here to burn that'll spread these flames, unlike the forest the first time I did this, so I'm free to let them out and run wild.
I cover the shadows my flames create with even more fire, and when those fires eventually cast shadows, I add more.
The flames lick the ceiling, causing even those blades to quickly retract, and I breathe in the scent of something other than death, a smile on my face.
I wait, sliding into my stance.
I don't have to wait long.
I don't hear him. My instincts don't even register that he's there when he is.
No, it's my eyes and enhanced senses that manage to pick up the slightest movement in the flames, before he suddenly is there.
Right behind me.
My body twisted, flipping into the air over his cleaving scythe that would have cut me in half from the waistline had I gotten caught.
The flames around us part at the force of his swing, which I idly note was with two hands this time, him now holding a single scythe.
Improvised, Lateral Fire Wheel.
So I return the favor in kind, lashing out with a flaming horizontal cut, spinning my body with the strike as I do with the assistance of my flight ability for maximum power.
Tobio leans into it, meeting my blow with the shaft of his scythe, stopping it with a low grunt.
I look him straight in the eye, as we push back against one another.
"Still wanna go?" I ask through a strained breath.
"I…have to…" He strains out in reply, "I'm…sorry!"
"Me too, buddy! Me too!" I call out, before letting him win our clash.
His eyes widen as he's suddenly moving forward unexpectedly, with me slipping to the side, around his scythe.
So I can smash my head straight into his nose.
He lets out a dazed grunt of pain as a crack fills the air, before his scythe melts in his hand, turning into a spiraling glave of darkness around him.
These thin spiral arms lash against me like whips, forcing me back, the wounds itching coldly as they heal.
Hmm. Don't think that did it. Maybe I need to hit him multiple times to get it to work?
Time to find out.
I move, flames roaring and crackling and, most importantly, blazing with heat around me.
Fake Heat Haze.
Dozens of afterimages thrum to life around him, obscured by the heat haze caused by the bonfire of flames around us.
Tobio's head and eyes jet every which way, darkness pooling into his palm, his scythe forming as he lashes out with shocking precision.
The afterimages begin falling apart quickly, couples to a few at a time, as his scythe cuts through them and the heat in kind.
I pay his earlier sneak attack from before back, appearing behind him with my sword lashing out right as he swings for an afterimage.
An additional blade suddenly extends from the bottom of his scythe shaft, curling around him and blocking my strike.
I blink at the sheer bullshit I just bore witness to before Tobio spins his dual-bladed scythe around like some discount Darth Maul and knocks my blade away from him.
He whirls around, scythe still spinning as he does, forcing me to dodge an attempt to hook the blade around my neck by ducking, only to go further, falling prone into the sea of flames at my feet.
As soon as my body hits the floor, I pulse my power out, and a variable tidal wave of flames roars up to meet Tobio, forcing the Fallen Dog God to backpedal as the wall rises, and pushes down the hall.
I push myself back up onto my feet, then leap through the wall of fire, and swing down upon him, forcing him to block my swing as he moves back.
Unfortunately, the wall of raging fire doesn't stop.
It keeps going, at my back, forcing him to keep stepping back as I lay into him.
A strike aimed at his collar is blocked by the scythe shaft again.
He dodges to the side of my follow-up kick, lashing out with his scythe for my head as he moves.
I step back and catch the scythe blade with my sword, letting it hook around the blade, forcing him to play tug of war with me for a brief moment before the scythe blade dissolves, and he leaps back right before his arm gets caught by the firewall.
He narrows his eyes at me and the fire, taking a look around the small cramped hallway we're in, before settling back on me.
His scythe blade dissolves and melts away completely, as my eyebrow raises.
He doesn't give me much time to think about something beyond the obvious 'he's planning something' before he suddenly launches himself at me.
It was a clear-cut, obvious, straightforward charge.
I could have easily run him through, he was letting himself be open here.
But he knew I wouldn't do it. He wouldn't heal like me, he would die from something like that if I went for it sincerely.
So instead, I moved to meet his charge, head-on, with my fists.
Only for him to cleanly evade my punch for his face, glide around it, and get right up in my personal space.
His arm wrapped around my sword arm, locking it stiff, and before I could get off my trusted backup option of headbutting him, he grabbed me by the collar, lifted me, and kicked us off the ground, blasting through the air.
Not for the wall of fire though, no.
For the hallway wall.
It happened fast enough that I didn't fully register what had happened until my back was slamming into the stone, and making it give way.
In the next instance, the gray stone passage changed into a cave sky, with a Palace in the background, and a very familiar mountain pointing up to the rocky sky behind it.
Few things.
One. I just got used as a human battering ram!?
Two. Susanoo and Izanami's Palace is where the entrance to Yomi is on Earth.
I don't know which one to be more shocked about.
Following us, fire blasts out of the newly formed hole in the Palace like a liquid overflowing in a cup.
Yet without me there to fuel it, and no natural sources to propagate the flame, said overflowing flames quickly burn out into a simmer.
For a moment, we fall, before grunting as we…or mostly I…fit the ground, a gravel or sand ground befitting a courtyard.
Tobio quickly rolls off of me, barely avoiding my next act of breathing fire at where he was, said gout of flame splashing off the palace's stone exterior.
I hop back to my feet, taking a brief look around the new stage to find it's exactly the opposite of the real world.
On Earth, and in the Shinkai, this place was a swath of densely packed, overrun forest.
Here, it's a cleared-out courtyard of sand or gravel, going around the entire Palace.
The mountain further up retains its foliage, but that's no good for me down here.
I turn, slashing my sword down across the ground in front of me as I move, bringing forth a small wall of fire before me.
Tobio adjusts his sleeve, his fraying sleeve, as the clothing around his ankles and wrists is smoldering and burnt, his skin looking a little more red in those regions as well.
Yet beyond that, he seems unharmed.
I click my tongue, as he finally looks toward me, but the distant look in his eyes tells me he's truly elsewhere.
His Longinus, Canis Lykaon, its most basic ability is the power to create blades from any shadows in his line of sight.
Blades that can cut anything.
In the hallway, I could cut off the shadows themselves with the light from my flames, but out here?
Well. Yomi is one big shadowed realm.
Tobio's expression suddenly steels itself.
So, I'm not surprised when the world around me seemingly begins to growl.
Every single patch of darkness, every single shadow, seems to shudder.
I cut the flames from my sword, instead filling it with pure blinding white light, holding it up like a torch.
A circle around me fills with as bright of light as I can make in this realm, and yet…
I shudder, as blade tips from all directions stand mere inches away from piercing every part of my body.
Outside of my circle, blade hell sits. A forest of pitch black blades, pitch black death.
He can't make blades near me, but the blades he made can still try and reach for me, through my circle.
Thankfully, they aren't long enough.
Tobio walks through the black blades as if they were air and into my circle, completely unaffected by the light.
I stare at him, myself unmoving, mostly because I can't, or else I'll get pierced.
But also, because I have one last idea.
My eyes spin as they meet his, his hand twitching as I know he feels something is about to happen.
Yet, as I don't move he holds still.
Right until as much Holy Spirit Power as I think is feasibly safe enough to shove into a human brain assaults his mind, all at once.
He staggers back, his eyes suddenly going wide, and I speak through gritted teeth, "You must resist this place, Ikuse. I know, it's a lot. But there are people back on Earth waiting for you, and this isn't you."
"H-Huh…? I…" He grips his head with a hand, eyes straining, he looks...confused, like he doesn't know where he is, or what's happening.
Meanwhile, I keep trying to push my power through, but it's like slugging through a swamp.
Or a filter, made of a swamp.
There's so much taint around his head, confirming my earlier suspicions, his head has been majorly fucked up.
If I could get my light in there, I could probably cleanse it, but my raw Holy Spirit Power isn't made for that.
So it's stimmed against the wall of taint around and infusing his head.
He suddenly shakes his head, and my power slips off him as he faces toward me once more.
He holds his hand out to the side, and every instinct in my body screams at me to run.
It was so sudden, so foreign a feeling, that I followed it immediately.
I blasted into the sky, light-filled sword in my hand and both halos at my back, several dozen feet up just ascended.
My entire body shivered as I heard and felt it, a blade cutting through the air.
I turn, looking down, to find Tobio having lashed out with a pitch-black scythe coated in crimson and black flames, cutting the light I left behind in half.
Somehow.
But those flames, those cursed fucking flames.
Merely looking at them us giving my whole body the shivers as if simply touching them would fuck me up something fierce.
Ame-no-Ohabari. The blade that could slice apart Gods, Buddhas, and Kami, the flames also came from it.
A single cut, or burn, and I could…
Hah.
Die. This thing could kill me in one hit, couldn't it? As an Arahitogami, I'm still a Kami, a deity.
I should be terrified but for some reason…
I can't stop fucking smiling.
Tobio looks up at me and tilts his head slightly.
Up here, there are no shadows. You can't make blades out of the darkness in the air.
So, what will you do?
Black putrid smog erupted from around him, and the very shadows of Yomi began to seemingly crawl towards him.
Wrapping around and enveloping him, twisted black blades erupted from all around him, buzzing and growling in the air.
Then, Tobio spoke.
Quietly, deeply, yet chanted as if casting a curse.
—Behowlest the slaying of one thousand mortals
My smile widened as the darkness consumed him.
I've never seen it before, a Balance Breaker.
Especially not an Abyss Side Balance Breaker.
—Besingest the slaying of ten thousand goblins
His figure twisted within the darkness, limbs growing longer and thicker, the body becoming stocky, and his head?
—Mine name, immersed in deepest darkness, tis the Imitation God traversing the Polar Night
Turned into that of a beast.
—O ye, perishest by mine own black blade
Ah…is what Ray Ray and her gang felt facing down a transforming Juggernaut Drive?
—Fools ye art, oh deformed Creator God.
I didn't envy them before, but oh man, did I miss out!
A howl, no, a roar, erupted from beneath me.
Then a dark wall, a mass of twisted midnight black darkness, erupted up from the entire courtyard.
And I saw nothing anymore.
~ A New Sun ~
My eyes snapped open, and I looked up.
I blinked, several times, before finally saying.
"Did I die, but like…stay here?" I ask, completely befuddled, to the beautiful undead Goddess that is my grandmother.
Who is looking down at me, amusedly, as she runs her fingers through my hair.
Oh shit, am I getting a lap pillow right now?
Best afterlife?
"No, dear, you are not dead, though you were very close." She huffs, then pats me on the head somewhat harshly, "That last 'attack' was my own, to separate the two of you."
I wince slightly at the head 'pat' before sighing and closing my eyes, "Well…that's good then. Thanks for that."
"You don't seem all that…stressed at nearly dying." She says, sounding a tad bit concerned.
I shrug at that, "Probably because I'm not. If I die, I die. Simple as that. I'll die eventually, won't go down without a fight I hope, but…otherwise, I ain't all too bent out of shape about it."
Maybe it's because I'm fairly sure I died once already, the me that came to on that mountain those months ago.
Or, maybe I'm just crazy. Or broken somewhere inside.
Most likely it's all three.
But in any case, I wasn't lying, that's for sure.
I slowly sat up, rubbing my head as I did, and opening back up my eyes.
It figures, but I am in a bedroom, likely her bedroom. Big master bedroom, with an equally ludicrously sized bed and all.
My sword is propped up against the foot of the bed, in its sheath.
I turned back towards Izanami, "Did you send him back to his grandma? Is he…alright now?" I ask tentatively.
She nods, giving a light sigh, "She's the only thing that will keep him…docile. Yomi has affected him far worse than even Susa believes, I think. He even threatened to attack me, seeing me as a threat, when I tried to keep that old woman company."
Damn, Tobio. Seriously?
"I can fix his head, if I can get close enough to grab onto it and start exorcizing the taint…" I muse aloud, "But he isn't going to just let me walk up and do it now, is he?"
At the shake of her head, I huffed out, "Damn. Well." I suddenly stood up, "Only one last thing to do, I suppose."
Izanami tilted her head to that, "Oh? What did you have in mind?"
"Beating up your son." I state casually, grabbing my sword.
Izanami stared at me in absolute silence as I fixed the sheathed blade to my back.
"...must you really?" She suddenly spoke up, my eyes widening at just how sad she sounded out of nowhere.
I turned back around, to find the woman looking down, clasping at the bedsheets, an unsteady look in her eyes.
"Well?" I started, unsure, "What other choice do I have? I doubt I can talk him out of this, so…"
Izanami chuckles dryly at that, "No, no you most certainly couldn't."
"Unless…you could help me?" I try, "He'd listen to you, right?"
Izanami gave a frustrated huff, "Listen, yes. But it wouldn't stick. I could have fixed all of this myself, most likely. But that only guarantees he'll try again, and that time, I'll know nothing of what my son plans. At least like this," she muttered, barely audible, "I can do something."
She slowly looks at me, "Listen, dear…I don't know exactly what Susa has planned for you now if you go to him…I don't suspect he'll kill you, but…I still worry."
"Planned for me now, huh?" I parrot back with a hum, "Ominous. You've been pretty ominous since we've met, you know?"
Izanami simply looks at me, before giving me a short sweet giggle, "Well, I do have appearances to keep…the spooky foreboding Goddess of Death, and all."
It's my turn to chuckle, before facing toward the door.
"I figured. Now, I should probably get going…can't let Tobio's condition continue to worsen. I remember my promise." I flash a smile back at her, "I'll catch up with you later, okay?"
She looks especially happy once I bring that up, "I'll hold you to that, grandson."
I wave back behind me at her as I step out.
~ A New Sun ~
I'm really starting to hate how short and clipped my conversations with Izanami have been so far.
It feels rude almost, that I can't spare any longer to sit and chat with her, truly.
But time is of the essence. And I don't know how long I've got.
What with the way Tobio is acting, it's leading me to believe not long.
So, I power walk to the throne room, where I'm fairly certain the Storm God would be at this time.
With way more confidence than I should have, but confidence nonetheless.
My working plan going into this, if he truly won't simply off me, is to annoy him until he gives in.
Or maybe I could make him realize how fucked his plan is?
Hnn. If Izanami couldn't, I doubt I could, as she said.
If all else fails…
Well, I'd rather not fight him, considering I'd lose so hard it wouldn't even be a fight, which leaves me getting additional help.
Like telling my mother what her stupid brother is doing.
But that…leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I scowl at the thought.
Me and my fucking pride. There's someone's life at risk here, I'll swallow it if I must.
I take barely a few steps into the throne room before his voice rumbles across the hall, "We all heard, and felt your…meeting." The deity noted with an uneasy smile, "Didn't go well, hmm?"
I deadpanned at my uncle, "What gave it away, the tunnel of fire, or the balance breaker?"
He snorted, "Cheeky brat. I hope you see the futility of your quest," he mocks the word with disdain, "Leave, Nephew. The mortal you came here for is gone."
"Because of you, right?" I raise an eyebrow while walking toward him, "I already know what you want, the sword is his gear." His growing smile falls off his face as I cut straight to the chase, "Honestly, it's shocking you haven't just ripped it out of him already. He's certainly weak enough for you to pull it off now."
He grips the side of his throne, gritting his teeth slightly, "...I can't. Killing the mortal myself, that would make mother sad…she…" he clicks his tongue, "she has had enough sadness for one eternity. But if the mortal gave it, willingly."
"Willingly with an asterisk, perhaps." I cut in.
Susanoo growls, lightning sparking across his body, "Willingly." He intones, sounding more like he's trying to convince himself more than anything, "Then it'll be…not fine, but good enough. Besides, I wasn't lying when I said he'd get to be with his grandmother again."
"As if that makes it better, uncle." I cross my arms.
Thunder claps from somewhere, and suddenly, Susanoo stands, a snarl leaving his lips, "You…sassy fucking brat. You sound just like your mother, you know that?" He walks to me, each step heavy, thundering throughout the hall.
He stops right before me, meeting me in the center of the room, eyes blazing as he looks down upon me.
"Why, why, are you so much like her but in the most annoying ways possible?" He ground out, foot rapidly tapping against the ground, like the patter of rain, "See, you've got her sass, her fucking attitude, even got her looks. But you're missing the thing that makes you bearable."
He looks me dead in the eye.
"You give too much of a shit, for no, fucking, reason!" His voice shook with barely contained wrath.
I narrowed my eyes back at him, my Holy Spirit Power boiling under my skin, "Oh yeah? Why shouldn't I care about a life? Is that so out of the blue, so inconceivable!?"
"Yes." He stated through gritted teeth, "You're a God. Better, even! You're a Living God. Why care about the life of one mortal you've never even meant before!"
"Because I still consider myself human." I ground out in turn, "At least in part. I only just recently, within the last few months, found out what I am! But before that, ultimately, I was human!"
Susanoo's eyebrow twitched, and lightning crackled throughout the hall before he suddenly whirled back around to face away from me, and stomped.
The entire room bends inward as his step craters and cracks the entire room.
He rears his head back, the entire Palace shaking as he roars, "FUCKING! DAMNIIIITTTT!"
I nearly fell on my ass but managed to dig my heels in and stay standing at the last second.
"This all should have been…so, easy!" The Storm God grabbed his head, and he started ranting.
"I thought the shinigami would have scared you away, but fucking nope! Not them, not the very horny oni," he shivers at that, and for a split second, I think we understand each other, "not even seeing the mortal you came here for like…that."
He whirls back around, looking dead at me, "Tell me. How could a brat 'raised' by a broken Goddess end up trying to be such a big damn hero, huh?"
"I'm not trying to be a big damn hero, it's simply the right thing to do!" I retorted, before blinking, "Wait…broken? Uzume?"
Susanoo snorts, "Course you think that, and yeah, she hasn't been the same since the wars…not like my sister could see it, but I know it's because she died during it."
I snort straight back, "Sorry, but you don't exactly strike me as emotionally mature enough to notice things like that, Susan."
His eyebrow twitched, "I know because I saw the same thing once before. The same look on her face was on his when he came back from death."
"His? Wait, you mean…"
A feral grin spread across his face, "Kagustuchi. After dear old Dad killed him, I was there when he came back. Had the same look she did, he started ranting about…something, seeing things after death." He shrugged, "Didn't pay much attention to that though, I was too busy putting him in the ground again."
He cackles like lightning, "Then he came back again, and I killed him again. Then again, and again, and again. Until he eventually stopped coming back."
Wait, Kagustuchi is…then the blessings on the Himejima, that's why…
Suddenly, he grabs my shoulders, holding me still, "Don't you get it, kid!? Don't you see!?" His expression is borderline manic, "That sword…it's the last bit of him left. I don't blame the mortal for being born with it, it's just bad luck he got it! But…sacrifices must be made, for her."
"Izanami…?" I ask though I'm pretty sure I already knew where this was going.
"Yes! Mother! She doesn't deserve it, none of what happened to her!" He cries out, "And he is the start of everything going wrong in her life! She deserves to live in a world where nothing left of him exists."
…Is there a term that combines Yandere and Momma's boy into one?
Because even that wouldn't begin to describe the vibes I'm getting from him right now.
"And now, for the cherry on top of this shit mochi?" Susanoo continues, "You…she likes you. You're her grandson, after all. Of course she'd love you. Even if you weren't here for her originally, the fact that you promised to get to know her is…" the man looks away, the blaze in his eyes dimming into normal, sky blue eyes, "thank you, for that. Not even your mother has come down to say hi, ever. She looked so happy…that I…"
Holy shit he looks like he's going to cry.
Slowly, he lets me go, and turns away, rubbing his eyes where I can't sew.
With a deep, shaky sigh, he continues, "You…aren't going to give this up, are you."
I shake my head, "No, no I'm not, uncle. And you aren't either, are you?" I ask softly.
He gives a sad chuckle at that, "No, no I'm not. I will do what I must, even if she hates me for it…I must give her what Father ultimately could not…peace. Even if she isn't aware she's hurting. I…" He huffs, turning back to me, his eyes blazing.
"I take back what I said earlier, Nephew. You are better than your mother…which is why, I wouldn't kill you…but I can't have you here, yapping in Mother's or the mortal's ears." He takes a step forward, and I instinctively reach for and grasp the hilt of my sword, "Or even worse…have you flee, and tell your mother."
Another step. The Palace rumbles.
"All I need to do…is keep you busy, somewhere far away where you can't come back from, until I return you myself."
Lightning, darkness, and fire swirl around his form like a twister, a hurricane of energies mixed with divine power fills the throne room.
Susanoo draws a sword from the hurricane, as soon as the sword manifests, the sheer weight of its Holy Spirit Aura slams into me and forces me down to a knee with its pressure, alone.
Somewhere deep inside, something tells me the name of the blade despite having never seen it before.
Ama-no-Habakiri. The sword he used to kill Orochi.
"Take a break for a while, Nephew. When you come back, everything will be right." He intoned.
Then he swung his sword down upon me.
It wasn't a fast swing, by any means.
I pulled upon all my power, and swung up to meet it, to stop it.
Yet despite all that, his sword cut through mine like a knife through butter, with no resistance, breaking my blade into two before plunging itself down into my chest.
With a further push, he impaled me to the ground with his sword.
"Tell him hi for me, Nephew." Susanoo spoke down to me softly.
And at those last words, power exploded beneath me, and space tore apart at the seams.
In the next instance, my now broken sword in hand and a hole in my chest, I found myself free falling through a pure sea of white.