Well Then. Shall We Continue?

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A human head was driven into the earth. A hand blazing with rage had the back of the skull in its grip, and that hand allowed no resistance. Writhe the neck, and it answered with the sound of bone twisting out of true. Throw out an arm, and the hand dismissed it as if with a sneer.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Hawaii's sacred crater was being broken open by a human head.

"Haa. Haa."

The saintess dragged a hand across her brow. In the other she still held the Phantom Thief's head, its shape intact. She had tried it dozens of times, then hundreds, and the Phantom Thief was perfectly fine. The skull ought to have burst. Brain matter ought to have fouled her palm. Somewhere, under the crush of her grip, some corner of him ought to have caved in. Even if rage had kept her from using her strength with any efficiency. Even if she had not drawn on a shred of the Eclipse God's power, and had done it by pure muscle alone. There ought to have been some clear harm.

But the Phantom Thief did not take so much as a scratch, as if he were harder than anything in the world. Not even the mask he wore.

"Garbage......"

The saintess swallowed the bloody tang in her throat. Every time she looked at the loathsome mask in her hand, fury surged up in her. What did this damned devil know, to run his mouth so freely? Did he have any idea of the resolve it had taken her to come this far? She had walked a field of corpses. She had stood upon a mountain of the dead. Whether she had meant to or not, she had lived on other people's blood.

Ah. Yes. This, too, was a trial. If anything, a trial ought to feel like this. If this place, beneath the gaze of her God, had been nothing but easy, what reason would she have had to still be alive?

"Haa."

She breathed, and at that small act the air itself trembled. The saintess let her anger settle. It was a pity she had failed to kill this devil outright, but there would be time enough to punish that wagging tongue at her leisure. No. It had to be that ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠way. To settle the insult to the family she had loved with nothing more than death? Wasn't that far too cheap? A warped judgment had nearly left her with something to regret. It was a mercy he was still alive.

"......Later, I will draw that tongue out for you. Slowly."

She murmured it to the mask, fouled now with stone and dust.

A shiver. Unconscious though he was, the body trembled faintly, as if it had sensed the threat to its life. The saintess felt a thin thread of satisfaction. Yes. This was the proper response. She had become an apostle of the Eclipse God. Worms who had never received the great God's grace ought to bow their heads and be afraid. Just like them.

Crunch!

The saintess drove the Phantom Thief deeper with her foot and turned her gaze aside.

"A comrade of yours is dying, and you stand there watching at your ease. I suppose affection really is too distant a notion for a devil?"

She sneered at the red devil and the green devil. From under the dark they watched her, eyes gleaming.

"......Talk of him dying is one hell of a bluff."

The red devil set a long pipe between her lips. Poise? Bluster? Or the gesture of someone preparing to attack? The saintess did not relax. She watched, and she watched closely.

"Are those eyes ornamental? Did you fail to see it? This white devil, trampled without lifting a hand?"

The words were not what she believed. As if anyone could miss that the mask was perfectly intact.

"Well. Someone was helpless. You."

"Nonsense."

Her fingers twitched, soft and secret. She had become the Eclipse God's apostle, and this space lay beneath her feet, and still the saintess was cautious. She had to be. They said you only saw as much as you knew. Things she would never have noticed before were visible to her now. Green was a powerhouse without a rival even among the heroes she knew. Red—even now, as an apostle, she could not take the measure of that one's limit. Where did monsters like these come from? What kind of country was Korea, to harbor fighters of this order? When she returned to the Church, she would take Korea apart and look at it properly.

"Ha! Shaken by a handful of words, and you still claim you weren't helpless?"

Even while the saintess sank into thought, the red one's talk went on.

"Agreeing with my mask doesn't sit well with me. Today, though, I suppose I must."

The pipe leveled at the saintess.

"How many did you kill, wretch?"

"......"

"How many did you swallow to buy power like that?"

Crack!

The pipe folded in half. The red devil's eyes flared with white light.

"Do you truly ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mean to cast off the human shape and become an evil spirit?"

"An evil spirit. How vulgar your choice of words."

The saintess did not rage as she had before. She only wore a thin, sneering smile.

"And how, precisely, is this form an evil spirit?"

Flash!

Black wings unfurled behind her. Wrought of black flame, they dripped fire.

Hiss!

The fire melted stone.

"Count yourselves honored. It is a beautiful sight even our own faithful have never been shown."

"Filthy wings. Blood and meat."

The pipe spun away through the air, touched the saintess's wing, and burned to ash.

"Enough. Nothing left worth seeing. Nothing left worth saying."

A flick. Another.

"I'm tired. Let's end it before the evil god arrives."

"Heh heh heh."

The saintess covered her mouth with a hand.

"If that was a joke, I shall commend you. To make me laugh—quite the success."

"I meant it."

"Then you have no gift for comedy."

Fwoosh.

The saintess unleashed the attack she had been preparing all along.

"Waiting on a god? There is no need for that."

Rumble!

The crater shook. The eclipse beneath the clouds darkened further, and the world around them dyed itself black. From within that black the saintess spoke, cold and bleak.

"You die by my hand. Quite miserably."

"A stale line. For a saintess, you've no way with words."

The immortal was not sitting idle either. She, like the saintess, had prepared.

Shimmer!

White heat blazed up in the immortal's hand. The only light in the dark, it became a second sun and rose into the sky. The saintess felt the danger of it.

"Hup!"

She seized the eclipse by will. Black flame reached out of the eclipse and tried to devour the sun that had trespassed on her domain.

"Play with me."

In the moment the saintess looked away, Life's Guardian was standing in front of her.

"......!"

"I don't come up short wherever I go, but it's a shame I only seem to exist at times like this."

Life's Guardian drove a fist into the saintess's face.

Thud!

"Your opponent is me."

"Get lost."

A blow to the face was nothing. Now that she was an apostle, the abilities of her body had long since left the human category behind. If someone meant to harm her with muscle alone, they would have to bring Captain Earth.

The saintess swung her sword. The black flame seemed to possess a will of its own; it slipped free and rushed at the Guardian. He folded at the waist, nearly to ninety degrees. The flexibility was astonishing.

"Eek!"

He had certainly dodged the sword, but the touch of the black flame he could not dodge. It tried to take him as its host and roar up into flame, and the white membrane covering the Guardian denied it.

"Saintess, that iron mace you showed before suits you better than swordplay. Why not switch?"

"Very well. I find this more comfortable myself."

The sword changed shape and became an iron mace. Spikes bristled from its head, jutting up and down.

"......It never comes out the way it does for Mr. Phantom."

Life's Guardian broke into a cold sweat and gave ground. He shook the black flame from his shoulder.

"Why are you doing something that doesn't suit you? Fight the way you usually do."

"Without the necklace I'm nothing but a scrub with a lot of muscle, so......"

Life's Guardian scratched his head.

"Even getting close isn't easy. I have to manage at least this much."

"Hold on a little longer. I'll do something about this space first."

The immortal looked to the sky. Two suns were fighting there. Sweat poured down her brow like a waterfall.

"......You can do it, can't you?"

"Be quiet. You think smothering a god's authority is easy?"

The immortal bit her lip.

"It would be easier if we had the mask, but he's over there sleeping it off, isn't he."

"......He isn't actually unconscious, is he?"

"As if that— incoming!"

Whoosh!

Black orbs bore down on them. Hundreds poured like rain.

"Burst."

Boom!

The explosions swallowed them. What wavered in the air was not smoke, but black flame.

"Kh!"

Life's Guardian burst out of it with the immortal in his arms. She was unhurt. Scorch marks scored him all over.

Crash!

The attack did not end there. Like a conductor before an orchestra, the saintess's hands fluttered, and beneath that conducting the formless black flame took on a thousand different wills. Sometimes a spear.

Shriek!

Sometimes a serpent.

Hiss!

Sometimes the air itself.

Roar!

Against the one-sided assault, the two were driven back with no answer at all.

"Ah. How wonderful."

The saintess let her head fall back. Her eyes rolled with the pleasure of omnipotence.

"Haa......"

She wrapped both arms around her own body.

"So this is the power of the Eclipse God."

The more time passed, the more familiar it became. A garment that did not fit her body tailored itself. She surpassed the self of one second ago. She killed the self of one minute ago. She grew. In real time.

"I am the Eclipse God's apostle. There is no need to insist on fighting as a saintess."

She had already lost to them once. Fight the same way, and the same result would only repeat. She needed a new way.

"Devils, become my nourishment."

They were thrashing merely to live. The end of that thrashing would be death, in the end......

"Kh......"

Zing!

A light grazed the saintess's neck, and a pained sound escaped her.

"What are you grinning at? Revolting."

Somehow the immortal was already beside ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her, grinning.

"When?"

"Over here."

Wham!

"Ghk!"

A tremendous impact struck her from behind. Before she could grasp what was happening, the bombardment continued.

Thud, thud, thud!

A flurry. A merciless flurry, aimed at nothing but vital points. The moment she tried to do anything, her head was caught and she could not move. The wings on her back became ornaments.

"Graaaah!"

The saintess erupted black flame from her entire body.

"A shame. The finishing blow didn't land."

"Mind your hand."

Life's Guardian shook off the hand steeped in black flame. The skin had burned, and blood dripped from it.

"A cheap little trick."

The saintess shot them a glare. The figures she had been watching until a moment ago vanished like a mirage.

"I'll take the compliment."

"........."

It was not easy. What good was strength, when experience and technique outclassed her so completely?

No. Not yet.

Let them have the advantage in experience and technique. The scale of her power was overwhelming. Drag this into a long fight, and they would be the ones to break.

Boom! Boom!

The two suns were still fighting. The immortal, holding the white sun together, would not last long. Neutralizing the advantage of the space was worth a word of praise. But that was as far as it went. Who stood at the end was already decided.