Are You Prepared for Annihilation?

God.

An omnipotent absurdity, invented so humanity could rationalize a reality it could not comprehend. As the ages passed the word lost its color and fell from its height, and yet humanity's unconscious fear of gods, and its awe, ran terrifyingly deep. Even without feeling them. Even without seeing them. Even while knowing they were nothing but imagination.

Anyone who went by the name of god was met with respect and reverence. Exceptional ability users were granted the title of god. It was the highest praise even a primitive could offer — a name sometimes light, sometimes heavy.

And the Seventh Apostle understood why ancient humanity had defined natural disaster as the wrath of a god.

The sky was dark. Night had not come with the turning of the hours. No canopy of branches had shut out the sun. It was not raining. Something enormous — enormous things — had eaten the sky.

"Fuck."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

A thick curse tore out of the Seventh Apostle's mouth.

From the instant he faced the god, his mind had not rested for a single moment. He stacked prediction upon prediction and ran feedback back through feedback, until he understood that the majesty of the countless gods depicted in fiction could, in fact, be made ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠real. It had been arrogance. It had been conceit. Majesty spun from humanity's impoverished imagination was, set beside reality, nothing but a useless act of masturbation.

How many were there? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? Too many to count. They packed the sky solid. Meteors beyond number were falling, like starlight hung to decorate a nursery.

"Not meteors..."

Let that be corrected. They were not stones dropping out of space. They were volcanic bombs the god had forged with her own hands.

Hisssss.

Fluid poured like rain and melted the earth. Thick lava squirmed beneath his feet.

"Fifth Apostle! Ninth Apostle! Eighth Apostle! Kill the god, now!"

The Seventh Apostle shouted it through a mouthful of blood. The three who had been frozen under the god's power jolted back to themselves and charged the figure standing planted like wood and stone.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

The Seventh Apostle bit into his book.

Who has ever seen a god this insane?

The moment they ignored her warning and crossed the line, the god kept her word. She ended an exchange that had not lasted even a few seconds and unveiled her majesty.

Pele. The many divine names that adorned her: god of Hawaii, god of fire, and god of volcanoes. With her own body she called down a volcanic calamity. Ash like poisonous smoke. Magma spilling as if a dam had burst. Volcanic bombs falling like rain. Any one of them would have been fatal, and she had brought out all of them at once. That was the present.

The Seventh Apostle and the apostles who remained were driven into a corner.

KRA-KOOM!

A volcanic bomb struck just beside him. A tree the size of three grown men burned and collapsed without resistance.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The flood of bombs was not finished. They poured down in succession and turned the forest into an apocalyptic hell.

"Pele! You are making a mistake!"

The Seventh Apostle howled.

Wrapped in magma and holding three apostles at once, Pele turned indifferent eyes on him. Her lips moved.

"What."

Battle roared and disaster stormed, and still it was as if she were speaking at his ear.

"Are you not concerned for the others? Do you mean to leave the First Apostle unopposed?"

"Mm."

Pele burned away the Eighth Apostle's black mucus, smothered the Fifth Apostle's plasma cannon, shut down the Ninth Apostle's clone technique, and opened a gap in which to talk. There was no wasted motion in it. Her answer to them was like art.

"First. Nobody on the subjugation team is weak. Except the Japanese bastards."

The Eighth Apostle sacrificed his own arm and drew out an exceedingly fragile monster. From beneath the tentacles a grotesquely shaped fetus crawled, straining. Magma surged and swallowed it. The fetus swam through the magma.

"Second. I have no intention of taking the First Apostle."

The Ninth Apostle split the fetus. From its body another fetus was born again. Mechanical arms unfolded from the joints of the Fifth Apostle's wings, seized dozens of the things, and the fetuses shriveled in an instant. She gathered the energy she had drunk from them into a single point. Power to rival Pele's eruption condensed there.

The Fifth Apostle hurled out a battle cry laced with machine-noise and launched the energy. Erasing everything along its line of fire, that outrageous violence was not a thing even a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠god could ignore.

"Come."

Pele gathered the heat that was burning the forest into her fingertips. Every flame in the woods went out. A spear of fire, its shape revealed only once it had devoured the blaze, flew to meet the blast.

─────!!!

With a strange detonation, the Fifth Apostle's strike was annihilated.

"What is the meaning of that?"

"What do you think it means."

Pele said it as if bored.

"Killing scraps like you is my job."

"Are you prepared for annihilation?"

She was displaying a martial might no divine avatar ought to have been able to show. The Pele he had first seen was nothing like this. She was surely drawing power from her true body.

"Annihilation... Yeah. I'm pushing it a little, I'll give you that."

Pele conceded it easily.

"Even so. Well. It won't go as far as annihilation."

"Do not bluff."

The Seventh Apostle looked around. The volcanic bombs that had seemed like meteors were gone, and the magma that had been a sea had thinned.

"Can you not see what surrounds you? You are at your limit. You have nothing further to show!"

"Are you stupid?"

Pele swept aside the apostles as they came at her again.

"Who am I? A god. A god. I've fought worse than this without a break, and I've been on the losing side more times than I can count. I even died once and came back."

"Don't tell me you're judging me by that first time you saw me. If you are, I'm disappointed... Seventh Apostle, aren't you the brain of the Heavenly Punishment?"

"Then why did you not bring your full strength to bear at that time?"

If she could wield power beyond even this, then guarding Heaven's daughter would have been a matter of course. She might have killed several apostles besides.

"Because I couldn't use this much power back then."

"......Don't tell me."

The Seventh Apostle reached for the hypothesis he did not want. He resented his own clever head. Grown? In so short a time? Not even two weeks? A god? He wanted to deny it. His instinct affirmed it. This was close to the answer.

"Oh. That face says you've guessed."

Pele grinned.

"You're right. More precisely, it isn't growth. It's recovery."

"......"

Words failed him. Just how great must she once have been...

Kkt.

The Seventh Apostle bit his tongue.

Idle thoughts later!

Common sense had collapsed long ago, and he had been a fool for just as long, but he could not let the god walk away like this.

"Hee...... Hee......"

"Hek."

"Hek."

The apostles gasped. Every face was a death mask. The Seventh Apostle opened his mouth with a feeling as if his chest were tearing.

"All of you. I believe it would be best if you abandoned any thought of surviving."

"Hee.... That so......?"

The Eighth Apostle tore off his dead arm with one hand. What spilled was not blood, but tentacles.

"No way back...... showing......?"

"There is nothing but the road to death."

"Aah. This is fucked......"

The Eighth Apostle laughed like a wicked child.

"A god. So fucking strong. No answer."

"Seventh Apostle."

"A method."

"Is there one?"

The Fifth Apostle and the Ninth Apostle propped each other up and glared. Her flank was torn open and half her back gouged away; his prosthetic and half his face had been blown off.

"There is."

The Seventh Apostle looked at the Eighth Apostle.

"Eighth Apostle. Please devour us."

"Creative way to commit suicide......"

The Eighth Apostle giggled.

"You're telling me to do something that crazy?"

"Is there a proper alternative?"

"Hee......!"

The corners of his mouth climbed as if they meant to split his face.

"Fifth Apostle. Ninth Apostle."

"We will."

"The future."

"That we cannot"

"see it"

"is a shame, but"

"the other apostles —"

"if it is for them,"

"we"

"can."

The Fifth Apostle and the Ninth Apostle set their faces hard. They did not fear death.

"We ask it of you. We entrust our hope to you."

"Hee!"

Black mucus streamed from the Eighth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Apostle's eyes.

"Heartless bastards. You're making me the bad guy."

"Were we not villains from the start?"

"Hee! Hee!"

The Eighth Apostle burst his own eyes. Light erupted from them and blinded the god's sight.

"If we're doing it, hurry. No telling how long the god keeps watching."

"Understood."

Eighth Apostle.

We leave our future in your hands.

"Bye."

"Bye."

"Eighth Apostle."

"We'll miss you."

The Fifth Apostle and the Ninth Apostle smiled wide. Without a word, the Eighth Apostle wound them in tentacles.

CRUNCH-CRACK!!!

Something was squeezed, and the sound of it went with them.

Of the apostles, he alone remained.

Crack!

"All done with your goodbyes?"

Pele came walking at her ease.

"Yeeeeeeessssss."

The Eighth Apostle forced the word out in a grotesque drawl. He could no longer be looked at as human.

"Ugly. Is that the result you chose?"

"Goooood. IIIII'llll eeeeeat yooouuuu."

"So that shape is the source of the power you use."

Pele's brow twitched.

"Why does it feel familiar?"

"IIIIII... aaaaammmm... greeeeaaaaat."

"Aigoo. Your mind's coming and going."

Pele opened and closed her hand.

"I'll finish it in one blow."

In her grip was a spear made in her own image.

Huu.

KYAAAAAAAAA!!!

The Divine Spear ran the monster through. Caught in the god's judgment, it vanished without a trace.

"Haaaaah. That was rough."

Pele pounded the small of her back and sprawled on the ground.

"......Rest a moment. Then we move."

She let herself sleep a little, and recover with it.

A footstep.

Someone, close beside her—

Pele rested at ease.

Even if someone drew near, she would not have known—

"Hm?"

Pele's eyes opened a crack.

"Uwah. Did I sleep too long?"

She scratched her backside hard and stretched.

"Was someone here?"

It felt as if something had been. Pele tipped her head, decided not to care, and launched herself. The battle was not over. Where she had lain, nothing remained.