Entering the outer sanctum of Heaven, Jack swept his gaze across the ruins of what had at once been a magnificent greeting to those entering the inner sanctum.
Standing beside the torn down metal gate, he could almost see the splendor of what it had once been.
A haven. A home.
A place where the brightest and strongest of humanity once gathered to discuss affairs around the world.
Sahaqiel crouched down, picking up a metallic plate and brushing off the dust that obscured the symbol etched on its surface.
“We need to push on,” Jack coaxed, staring down the entrance they had come from and the lack of sound.
Outside of the demonspawn in the sanctum that had come out to greet them, the enemies that had been nipping at their heels were gone, leaving an eerie silence in their wake.
Jack pushed forward to the hallway ahead, walking through the remnants of a history unknown to modern mankind.
At least, for Jack it was history, for Sahaqiel, it was a memory.
The angel paused, standing over the skeletal remains of warriors she once knew.
“Sara?”
Silence. The angel staring at the pair of remains.
“Sara, come on,” Jack repeated himself. When the angel didn't move, Jack stood beside her, hand on her shoulder that caused the woman to flinch.
“Sorry…” Sahaqiel whispered with her words seeming to be directed not at Jack, but to the twin bodies of sturdy bones that had withstood the hands of time.
The pair continued walking, moving down the hallway of dust and bones with nothing to accompany them but eerie silence and stench of decay.
“Did you know them?” Jack asked, stepping over an ancient shield.
“Epona and Toltecatl, friends who stayed behind so I could go ahead,” Sahaqiel replied softly.
“I'm sorry Sara,” Jack said, coming to a stop and turning to Sahaqiel, “I know I've been insensitive, but I am sorry.”
“It's… fine. Knowing the world you once knew is gone is one thing but… Actually seeing the remains… I guess it just didn't register. Almost like it was just a dream.”
Jack moved, embracing Sahaqiel in a hug with the angel caught off guard for a moment.
Her eyes widened, body frozen in time until her expression softened and she accepted Jack’s touch.
“Thank you…”
“I’m here for you Sara, now and forever. You won’t lose anyone else, I promise,” Jack said with such assurance that Sahaqiel could only softly smile.
“Yuck, you're gonna make me puke,” Lilith hissed, putting a finger in her mouth and making a gesture for throwing up.
““Lilith,”” Jack and Sahaqiel said in unison.
“What?”
““Shut up.””
Moving on, Jack activated fira, keeping a ball of light in his palm to pave the way through the near suffocating darkness of the confined hallway.
Walking, he could feel the call of the Infinity Machine. It was near. But so too were the lost.
Every step Jack took, he could feel whispers, echoes of those lost. Anguish souls crying out in warped confusion with some seeming to be faces he recognized.
But it was an illusion, the remnants of souls imitating the trauma and bloodshed that wafted off him.
"Tanji..." A specter resembling Ada called out, baring Jack's way with soulless eyes that bleed fetid blood across puss filled skin.
Jack waved his hand, destroying the corrupted data with Gehenna before pushing on.
A few more feet, Jack could make out an immense source of mana, a wall that hung ahead of that became almost akin to a blinding light to his angel senses.
“This is it,” Sahaqiel said as the pair came to the source of the mana, a large sealed stone door with intricate carvings along its otherwise smooth metallic surface.
Sahaqiel frowned, her face scrunching as her hand touched against the barrier.
“What's wrong?” Jack asked, standing beside the angel.
“This barrier… it's been untouched.”
“Untouched? Isn't that a good thing? Doesn't that mean we got here before-” Jack trailed off, realizing that he and Sahaqiel were no longer physically alone.
A tingle on Jack's skin, every hair on his body standing on in as a malicious smile broke out behind him.
“No no, don't stop talking on my account. Finish your senten-”
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Jack spun, swinging his blade only for the edge of Gram to be caught by the fedora wearing figure in a white suit.
“-ce... Rude, is that how you greet your father?” The man known to the world as the Black King said, goading Jack with a face that was eerily akin to his own.
Jack hadn't sensed him, in fact neither had Sahaqiel or Lilith for that matter.
To his vision, the man held no core, generated no mana, yet he could clearly see the shimmers in the space that announced his presence.
“Bastard!” Jack spat, releasing his sword and firing his gunblade as Sahaqiel flung a bolt of lightning at the man.
Both attacks proved ineffective. The bolt of lightning was caught and the bullets merely hung in the air as though stopped by time.
“Jack, wait!” Sahaqiel shouted as Jack took off, yet he didn't get far. A foot away from the archangel, Jack's hand, shaped into the visage of an electrified claw, froze in the air as Jack became unable to move.
Jack grit his teeth, his entire body shaking from his effort, but try as he might, he simply couldn't take a step forward to reach the man named Micheal.
Then it hit Jack, the reason there were no demonspawn pursuing them. No apostles coming for them despite their battles.
The Black King had been following them this entire time! Quietly eliminating each threat.
“Quite the zealous young thing aren't you?” Micheal said, a smirk on his face as dozens of silver wings left Jack's holsters to attack the archangel.
Yet much like Jack, they too didn't get far. Jack attempted to activate Gehenna, but with his body under the control of another, his energy wouldn’t rouse.
“Any other tricks you care to indulge me with?” The Black King asked, standing before Jack with a nonchalant look upon his face. “No? Is that all? Very disappointing Jack.”
“Micheal…” Sahaqiel let out, pointing her lightning bolt at the man. “Let him go.”
“Or what?” The angel asked, forcing Jack to his knees from some unseen power. “What are you going to do? Please, unleash your wraith upon this sinner."
Sahaqiel clenched her jaw, her face one of absolute rage as her body cackled with the essence of a storm and her eyes danced with lightning.
"Oh please, turn off that little light show. From the looks of things, it seems you aren't even at full power, let alone accustomed to your own body.”
An accurate assessment, one Jack also surmised as he suddenly found himself on all fours with his body sweating profusely as he tried to resist the Black King's control.
Lilith! Options?!
“Working on it! He’s moving the metal in your blood, constricting movement. I can purge his control over the mana but he'll know as soon as I do it!” Lilith replied, the specter identifying the threat of the Black King.
“After all this time... I didn't want it to be you...” Sahaqiel whispered, her eyes meeting Jack's gaze with the pair coming to an understanding as Lilith manifested behind the Black King mouthing Stall. “What happened to you? The leader I followed would have never done the things you've done."
Micheal paused.
“The leader you followed died when our world ended. But fret not, I will make it anew, better even,” Micheal said, standing before Sahaqiel with open arms. “Now... Little bird, I will ask once nicely, out of difference to our shared bond. Would thy kindly open the door.”
Sahaqiel's eyes blazed, her body wafting with lightning as the air ionized. She threw her palm out, blasting an electrifying stream of radiant energy that flooded the cramped hallway and hit the Black King directly.
For a moment, Jack could feel himself regaining control of his body, but it was only for a moment, a false hope that was squashed by a chuckle.
Sahaqiel’s eyes widened as the man calmly waded through her beam of power.
“Disappointing,” Micheal said, standing before Sahaqiel who could only stare at the man who grabbed her wrist. “I didn't take you for one dull enough to raise thy arms against me.”
Micheal dusted his pristine white suit, taking a moment to clean himself before-
*Smack.*
Sahaqiel fell, the woman on the floor from the force of the Black King backhanding her.
Jack's eye twitched, his rage boiling up within.
“Ready?”
No. Hold on. Jack sent back, his eye hyper-focused on the angel.
Despite the anger coursing through his veins, Jack reeled in his temper, deciding to bide his time.
“Since you didn't respond tactifully to my asking, I will now offer you a proposition,” Micheal said, raising his hand coated with runes with Jack's body suddenly rising as mana began to pull at his body. "Open the door, or your boy toy dies,"
Jack winced, his body being constricted as his armor became a crushing cage.
“Now?!” Lilith shouted in alarm but Jack shut her down.
No!
Seeing Jack in pain, Sahaqiel sparked with power only to stop as Jack's armor crumpled and his bones let out an audible crack.
“Now. Little bird, tick tock,” Micheal goaded, his face twisted with a gleeful look that unsettled Sahaqiel.
“Micheal… Please, there's still time to undo this. I know you, think about what you’re doing!” Sahaqiel pleaded as a firm hand found her throat.
“And what is it I’m doing?” Micheal replied, hoisting the angel up. “Do you know? Do you have an inkling? An understanding of my scheme? Who are you to presume to know me, shadow?”
“I'm your sister…” Sahaqiel whispered, struggling to breathe. “Please.”
“NOW?! He’s choking her!” Lilith hissed, the specter brimming with such rage the archangel turned to face Jack, almost as if he could feel Lilith squirming.
No! Wait. We’ll have our moment! Jack replied, his eye locked onto the Smiling Man.
“Don’t let your anger get the better of you Jack,” Micheal said as Jack’s neck began to twist, his head moving at an awkward angle that would snap his spine. “Sahaqiel, you're trying my patience.”
“Please, Micheal…”
“Now,” Micheal demanded coldly, ignoring Sahaqiel's tears as Jack let out a groan of pain upon his arms bending at awkward angles.
“If you kill him! You’ll never get it open!” Sahaqiel hissed, “And If I die, you’ll always be denied!”
“But then you’ll doom the world,” Micheal pursed his lips, his expression almost playful as he cocked his head to the side, “Would you rather you both die and everyone else you love, or simply do one task for me?”
Sahaqiel squeezed her eyes shut, the woman’s body tensing momentarily before her shoulders slumped.
Then her hand came up, the angel displaying a middle finger to Micheal's face.
“Fuck you,” Sahaqiel swore, much to the Black King’s surprise.
“Very well,” Micheal said, lifting his hand with Jack rising into the air.
Shit, I-
Then Jack fell, hitting the earth as Sahaqiel’s body also fell, the pair suddenly released from the archangel’s control.
Shaking his head, Jack spun, ready to attack but freezing in place as the translucent light that secured the sanctum of the Infinity Machine died down.
"It matters not really," Micheal smiled, his face contorted with amusement as the sealed entrance fell away, revealing the pathway to his prize. Beside him, a blonde woman with snow-white wings and gold eyes manifested. A familiar figure that shared the same face of the angel of freedom glaring up in horror. “Fortunately, I brought my own key.”