No time, for morning rises
On the memory born from the ashes
with the heavens to sunset.
Blood red skies tranquil after the storm.
Blesséd shadow
Turning, wending, always night follows day
The sun will shine again.
Walk on, never look back.
Through you, we live.
Tales of loss and fire and faith,
Every word our hearts engraved.
In the dark, you will not stray.
Forge ahead 'til the end, we pray.
********
'Found it.'
Tsunade didn't let the mental conversation her Family was having shake her hand in the slightest as she deftly cut the charred remains of an arm from its stump with one hand and closed the resulting wound with the other.
Panacea would be able to regrow it later. Right now, keeping damage to a minimum and people alive was a priority.
Already, herself, five shadow clones, three hero healers she was unfamiliar with but would look into later, Melina and Panaca were rushing around to keep as many people alive as possible.
Between them all, if a hero made it to the healing station, they were going practically guaranteed to survive and eventually recover. But time was not a luxury they had.
Every second, the ground rumbled, and the heat rose as Behemoth rampaged around the city despite the defender's best efforts.
Heroes in the rescue team kept bringing in new patients, those whose lives could still be saved at least. The Flash was the face she saw the most often, depositing a new hero every few seconds, but others were doing what they could.
Early on, they had been able to heal their patients enough to get them back on their feet to fight. Superman, after Tsunade had pulled the kryptonite radiation from him, had flown right back into the melee to peel more injured or dying heroes from the Behemoth's fires.
Now they didn't have that time. They only had enough time to do the bare minimum to keep the survivors alive, knock them out so they weren't in pain, and move on to the next. All their beds were already full, and the injured were being laid out on cots on the floor so the healers could access them.
And these were the lucky ones.
Tsunade was infinitely grateful this world did not have the habit of calling out the names of the fallen and lost that she had heard happened in the novel this monster had come from.
There was nothing worse for a healer than to be reminded of all those they could not save.
'Where?' Yoruichi asked, her mental voice coming in a feral growl.
Tsunade felt a stab of worry for her friend and lover. She understood that the Shinigami was ideally suited to deal with the rotund Endbringer, but that didn't change the fact that she was fighting one by herself with only one of Raven's Emoticlones as a backup.
The Flash arrived with a new patient, and Tsunade took them without a hitch in her stride. Ash was pulled from a pair of punctured lungs, shrapnel pulled from their chest and flesh knit together under the green glow of her hand. It wasn't enough for any strenuous activity, but they'd live.
'The moon,' Ranni answered. 'It is... quite large.'
'How big,' Medea asked. 'Can you and Emma destroy it?'
An electronic drone of some sort laid two more patients at the entrance to the healing area. Only Tsunade approached, knowing only she was needed, thanks to her Element. Both were charred to an unrecognizable mess. The smell of burnt flesh already permeating the air intensified as she quickly approached.
One was already dead, not surviving the trip to them, but the other, possibly a brute of some sort, still drew wheezy, ragged, coughing breaths. Their clothes, hair, eyes, and genitalia had been burned away. Just looking at them, Tsunade knew they must be in excruciating pain, their raw nerves exposed to the hot air.
But they were here. They would live.
'Possibly,' Ranni hedged, sounding uncertain. 'I do not believe the combat will be quick. I do not fear its power but rather our ability to find and destroy its core. It covers a significant portion of this moon.'
'It's not like the others,' Emma explained further. 'Not thick. Wide. It looks almost two-dimensional, it's so thin. I don't even think it can move. It doesn't have limbs, like a blanket spread over the ground.'
'How big?' Medea asked again.
'Wider than Mikael's true body,' Emma explained, and Tsunade felt her breath hitch. That was insanely huge, so large her mind couldn't even wrap her head around it. 'It's covering most of the Ocean of Storms, blending into the dust. It's crystalline and see-through. We wouldn't have found it if Ranni didn't seed the moon with so many dolls.'
There was a beat of mental silence as everyone racked their brains on what to do.
A moan of pain refocused the former Hokage on a new arrival, appearing in a portal of light. She quickly knocked them out and, with steady hands, withdrew the piece of rebar impaled in their guts.
'... Shall I attack it,' Artoria asked, clearly hesitant. 'I would be able to slay it with the power I currently possess.'
'No,' Medea denied instantly. 'We can't be blinded by the current situation. The Stranger isn't our goal. Ensuring as many survivors as possible is, us included, and the other Endbringers are a greater threat. They aren't holding back, so there is every likelihood that they will go for the mutual destruction option if they lose their shield. Civilization on this planet will not survive if all five Endbringers go apocalyptic simultaneously.'
'I agree with Medea,' Glynda pipped in. 'Artoria, you need to stay where you are. But we do need to do something quickly. We cannot get Behemoth into the bay with the Stranger active, and the longer these fights last, the higher the death toll.'
Tsunade brought the three newest arrivals, each bleeding heavily from open wounds to Melina. While not a medic, the Kindling Maiden's Erdtree spell significantly accelerated the body's healing. It couldn't do anything complicated, but cuts and the like were easily fixable by bathing in its glow.
Tsunade took a brief instant to look over the one-eyed woman.
Physically she looked fine, focusing on channelling her magic and bathing the entire room in a golden glow. Emotionally... Tsunade noticed her clenched fists, fingers slightly dyed red from split palms that healed as soon as they opened.
The Hokage had no idea what was happening in the woman's head. She wasn't one to talk about herself, or much at all, really. Still, she could take a guess.
Helpless anger was all too common in situations like this.
Tsunade would have to ask Mikael to talk with the woman when he returned.
If he returned.
'We will,' Medea reassured. 'We just need to time it right. Raven, what's the situation there?'
'Not good,' Raven's voice was as monotone as ever, but Tsunade could detect the strain in it as she concentrated on maintaining her focus. She was the strongest of the Family apart from Mikael, but this wasn't a question of power but control. 'Half are out, more every second, but I cannot get to them all fast enough to save them all. Millions are dead. Tohu hasn't moved.'
'...Stay there and keep up the rescue effort, but Pride will deal with the Stranger.'
'Without Pride, I will not be able to kill Bohu,' Raven said, not countering Medea's order, just pointing out a fact.
'You won't. On my count, I want Ranni to trap the Stranger in her Diorama. Can you do it?'
'With the blessing of our Lord Husband? T'would be child's play.'
Tsunade shook her head at the maudlin thoughts.
Mikael would return.
No matter what he had gone through, he always came back. So long as his body remained safe, nothing could truly kill him.
More than that, Mikael was a cautious man. He would do all he could to ensure he survived and returned to his Family.
He was not Nawaki, Dan, Sarutobi, Jiraya, or Naruto.
Mikael would return.
He had to.
'I'm giving us a minute,' Medea continued. 'On the mark, have the Emoticlones start bringing every still active hero to Beijing. They will deal with Bohu while we focus on the others. They'll be confused but can't miss it, and the Stranger will be gone. With so many flyers, no defence and Glynda and I leading them, we should be able to kill it quickly.'
'And Tohu?' Melina asked. 'It will not remain idle as it is now.'
'If we're lucky, the loss of the Stranger, the other Endbringers, and Bohu will make it retreat. If we're unlucky, it will go all out,' Medea sighed. 'From there, it will depend on its limit.'
'Who will get Behemoth to the bay?'
'I will,' Tsunade answered Artoria for the caster. 'I'm the only one left.'
Already the former Hokage was leaving the medical area, trusting her shadow clones, Melina and the other healers, to keep the current injured alive.
After she was done here, she'd follow the other heroes to Beijing.
'Sixty seconds starting now. Get ready.'
Tsunade ran up the side of a nearby building, chakra keeping her sandals attached to the stone walls.
'Ready,' Emma reported immediately.
'I have been prepared since the beginning,' Artoria said, her voice dissatisfied as her roll forced her into passivity.
With a final push, Tsunade launched herself over Brockton Bay. She ascended quickly, looking around to find Behemoth.
'I am prepared as well,' Ranni said.
'Give the signal,' Glynda answered as well.
It was not hard to find the monster.
It towered over the skyline, a jagged obsidian giant lit up in the night by flames and lightning. Heat haze filled the evening, distorting the light. Zipping and flying heroes and attacks surrounded it like flies buzzing around a bonfire.
Tsunade landed on a roof and propelled herself toward the action with leaps that should have cratered the buildings if not stopped by her exquisite chakra control.
'Pride is in place. So are the others. I will focus on preventing further damage here.'
'Let me kill this thing already,' Yoruichi's mental voice growled along their minds.
Tsunade landed four blocks from the fight, the rumbling ground not affecting her even as the heat, fire and noise turned this city section into a smouldering ruin.
Tsunade planted her feet firmly amongst the rubble. Until it was time, she would not move. No matter that the street cracked and caved, that the house in front of her burned, or lightning crashed nearby, the Hokage remained unmoved.
Preparing.
'I'm ready,' she told the group.
Ignoring the screams was the worst part.
Tsunade didn't think of herself as a good person. She had fought too much, killed too many, and had others do magnitude more in her name during her time as the leader of the strongest hidden village in the world.
She had been a ninja, a kunoichi.
The strongest kunoichi in her world.
A mercenary killer and assassin.
40 D-Ranks. 236 C-Ranks. 467 B-Ranks. 418 A-Ranks. 95 S-Ranks. Three world wars.
Her record.
All the missions she had accomplished in her life. All the people she had killed, livelihoods ruined, and enemies sabotaged.
All the comrades lost.
A body fell near her with a meaty thud, features completely unidentifiable by the blackened flesh of someone burned and struck by lightning. Female, her medical knowledge told her based on the hips. Who she had been, what her story was, her dreams and aspirations, or if she had a family to mourn her, it was all unknown.
Tsunade did not let the familiar feeling of death, the scent of burnt flesh and the minor ache of regret break her focus.
Bright purple marks covered her body, winding in leaves and swirls from the diamond on her forehead.
Tsunade Senju was not a good person.
'On my mark.' For the first time since Mikael had left her in charge, Medea's voice was not the controlled tempo of a leader. It was angry, simmering with suppressed rage. 'These things have attacked our new home. Killed millions. Beseiged our sisters. Lured away our husband into a trap. They are trying to ruin our happy ending. We will not let them! Kill them all!'
The warcry of a vengeful woman.
Behemoth roared, and heroes froze for a second as the great mental blanket that covered the world disappeared along with its creator.
Despite the terrible tragedies of the day, Tsunade felt herself form a grim smile.
Tsunade Senju wasn't a good woman. She wasn't a hero or a saint.
All she was, all she had ever been, was a woman fighting for her home.
For her friends and family.
That was all Tsunade Senju would ever be.
'We have it!'
The tree grew.
********
Unit 00 did not think.
It simply was.
A tool, a lesser one at that, it had no great thoughts or deep plans.
It simply was.
Unlike Unit 01, which advanced indomitably to achieve its goals.
Unlike Unit 02, which found purpose in the trickery and cruelty.
Unlike the former Unit 03, which sought out ever-increasing data for its prediction models to be increasingly accurate.
Unit 00 did not move.
Its current location was perfectly suitable.
Energy from light, radiation, and other sources were absorbed efficiently thanks to its unique body.
No being came to this location, which would require using energy to disrupt their cognitive functions.
And so, Unit 00 could fulfill its task of ensuring the continued function of the other Units.
Unit 00 did not feel any emotions.
It did not care that Unit 03 was lost.
It was not concerned that Unit 04 was being repeatedly destroyed.
It did not even feel confidence or satisfaction as it carried out the task of blocking the native inhabitants of the nearby planet from being able to destroy the other Units.
Unit 00 had a body more extensive than most countries to absorb more energy for use, but it did not have an identity like the other Units developed.
Like Unit 03, it could perceive the past. Unlike Unit 03, it could not calculate the future and instead saw the present. Unit 00 could only perceive the world through the minds of those it affected and those of the other Units.
With no senses of its own, no thoughts of its own, no goals of its own, Unit 00 was, in every definition, a machine.
It was simply a series of inputs and outputs.
All designed to push forward the Prime Objective.
Unit 00 continued to fulfill its task, resetting the other Units and directing focus away from specific topics.
It was energy intensive with so many active Units, so Unit 06 remained on standby while Unit 05 fulfilled their part of the objective.
Despite the significant power requirement from the constant resets, Unit 04 had accomplished 67% of the current mission objective.
Until the other Units finished their assigned tasks, Unit 00 would remain active, observing the world through the eyes of others.
Then it could observe no more.
"... It's not doing anything," a voice echoed through the Diorama.
Unit 00 could not hear it, lacking ears of its own.
"Perchance it is like the bird, the Ziz, that our Lord Husband killed? Unable know us though we be before it."
"...That sucks! I had this whole speech planned. This is my first actual use of Trigon's power!"
"Our enemies' weakness is our strength."
"I don't care! This was my moment! Saving people, blech! We should have killed the jumped-up pile of rubble and its stupid sister. That would have been fun. Not like flat face here."
Unit 00 could not see the blue doll argue with the monster of shadow and flame, for it had no eyes.
"Hath thee found its core?"
"I'm looking! Give me a minute. This thing is freaking big, even if it's boring. I wish I was with Daddy. I bet he's having fun. I wanna slap around some gods. Little pricks."
"Lady Raven deals with thee at all times? My regard for her patience hath increased."
"I'm awesome! Everyone knows red is better than blue. Ask Daddy. He'd rather be balls-deep in my cunt any day over spending a second with your frigid ass. I bet you're a dead fish in bed."
"How crass. And wrong. Our Lord Husband is all-loving in his tyranny to his consorts. Of which you are not one. Thou art a pet. His care for Lady Raven merely means he aids her in control of thee. The only joy he finds in thee is to, I believe the term be, 'smack a bitch.'"
Unit 00 knew nothing.
It was cut off from the other Units.
It was cut off from the Creator.
It was unable to fulfill the Prime Directive.
Unit 06 would activate with extreme parameters.
"... You wanna hate fuck when this is done?"
"What."
"It'll be hot. We can invite Daddy.
"... We shall see."
"Heh. Score. We'll get to see who's really better in- ah, found it. It's not round like the others. Flat, like the rest of this fucker. It's moving around pretty quickly."
"I cannot detect it. How can thee tell?"
"A slight change in its shadow where the light passes through. I got it now."
Unit 00 did not think.
It simply was not.
********
From below the earth, wooden roots crashed through the street, winding their way from chthonic depths at her call. They twirled and intertwined, weaving together in dense, intricate patterns so detailed and specific that any doctor or scientist would have goggled at their accuracy.
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Wooden spikes pierced Tsunades flesh, and the purple marks of her Strength of a Hundred Seal spread to the wood around her as it grew and grew.
The library of the mansion was enormous, containing anything ever written in their home worlds. So long as the books were not magic or the local equivalent, they were recorded in the library for their perusals.
Including her grandfather's notes on his techniques.
Senpou Mokuton: Shin Suusenju was perhaps one of the single most powerful jutsu her world had ever seen. The thousand-armed wooden Buddhist figure it summoned had been able to battle and defeat Madara Uchiha and the greatest-tailed beast clad in Susanoo's full armour.
Tsunade could not do that. She had her Element for far too short of time, only a few months, to be able to bring forth the greatest wood-release technique.
Even if she could, Tsunade would not summon the Veritable 1000-Armed Kan'on.
She was Tsunade Senju, not Hashirama Senju.
The heroes not teleported away immediately saw the giant wooden statue rise from the destroyed city. Towering at forty-five feet tall, fourteen metres, most could tell it was female thanks to the large breasts, even in the flickering lights of the fires. Those with better eyes could see it was made perfectly human but lacked the skin to cover the wooden muscles. It also lacked genitalia. Those with better eyes and medical knowledge immediately knew it was an anatomically perfect woman.
Only one Family knew that the surface wooden muscles, the internal organs, and blood flow were a perfect recreation of Tsunade Senju. The only thing it lacked was skin, as a layer of thin bark would not increase defence and would instead decrease mobility.
A combination of her medical knowledge, wood release, and the study of Swamp Thing had allowed the former Hokage to create this technique.
Tsunade Senju was the Female Titan, and the Female Titan was her.
(It should be noted that Mikael was the one to name the technique. Other alternatives had been suggested, but he refused to let anyone else try to change it. Tsunade had given up after the first day.
Now if only he would tell her why he kept singing 'Call Your Name' whenever he caught her practicing the technique. She liked the song, its lyrics and sad tone speaking to her on a deep level. It was just weird he would do it every time.
In the end, Tsunade chalked it up to Mikael being Mikael.)
The very last of the heroes to disappear into their own shadows saw the wooden Tsunade launch itself at Behemoth, crashing through buildings as its body darkened in a black layer of Armoured Haki and purple markings.
Nobody but drones and a few remaining building cameras were around to witness the Female Titan crash through a torrent of lightning and fire and smash the Endbringer in its craggy chest.
Behemoth was an energy manipulator. All forms of energy could be controlled. That included kinetic energy. Any sort of physical attack did nothing to it as it redirected or reflected that force back on its user with deadly results.
Silicone flesh cratered and caved under wooden fists, and the Herokiller crashed through a row of shops as Tsunade's punch launched the beast north.
The blonde had not focused solely on Haki like Yoruichi. Her Armament wasn't at the level of dealing internal damage, nor was her chakra so large that she could maintain this technique and deal her standard damage for long periods of time.
If the Female Titan had just been a wooden construct like her grandfather's technique, Tsunade would have had a tough but less dangerous technique than her regular chakra-enhanced punches and kicks.
But Tsunade was not a Wood-Dragon.
The access to wood release was just a byproduct of her genetic predisposition, her Element being close enough, and Soul Talent.
Like the others in her Family, Tsunade's expression of her Element was wholly unique to her. A combination of perfect chakra control and a connection to all the Life around her.
Like Naruto and Jiraiya before him, Tsunade Senju had become a Sage.
Tsunade chased Behemoth, each stride swallowing meters as the Female Titan cratered the city streets. Long gone was the consideration for collateral damage in this blasted ruin. All that was left was to kill these monsters that sought to rip her from her newest Family.
Behemoth, no longer able to reset with the loss of the Stranger, was forced to regenerate as it rose to its feet.
Tsunade's second punch took the monster on the spiked chin, sending it skidding further northeast for a few blocks.
Better prepared, the Endbringer kept its feet. Fire and lightning crashed into the Female Titan's armoured form, unable to burn the wood that made up its body.
Tsunade was not a woman piloting a giant robot.
She was the Female Titan, and it was her, down to the last cell.
This meant the Female Titan was protected by the Defences that kept the Endbringer from burning it from the inside out, as it had done so many heroes. Behemoth's energy manipulation could not work from within, and any blast from without met blackened Haki.
Left with only one foe immune to its kill aura and without the Stranger, Behemoth focused solely on killing this woman.
The heat haze, the aura of energy that surrounded the Herokiller, made up of radiation, fire, electricity and innumerable other forms of energy alien to Earth, disappeared as Behemoth judged it a waste of power.
The Female Titan spun a kick at the monster's chest, hoping to drive it closer to the sea.
Behemoth took the blow on its chest, unable to manipulate the Senjutsu of the attack as it deformed its torso with an air-shattering crash.
It did not move an inch, mountainous feet planted in the ruins of buildings as it dissipated its own kinetic energy. Observation Haki flared a warning, and senjutsu-enhanced reflexes kicked in, but unbalanced as she was, Tsunade could not withdraw her leg fast enough.
Ignorance kills.
Never in Worm had Behemoth done something like this, so the Family had been unprepared for this sudden change in tactics.
An obsidian fist held the Female Titan's ankle firmly in an unbreakable grip.
Behemoth heaved Tsunade over itself, smashing her onto and through a city block. Breach escaped wooden lungs as her back met unyielding earth.
Then Behemoth did it again, swinging the Female Titan over its head to crash her into another city section. Over and over again, Behemoth swung the wooden construct through more buildings and along the ground. Had any heroes still fought the first Endbringer, they might have been killed by its new improvised weapon.
No matter what strength the Female Titan used to try and dislodge its ankle, the Endbringers wrist was, quite literally, an immovable object.
Tsunade felt every blow, every crash and smash, every twisted piece metal, shard of glass or stone wall. Haki mitigated most of it, but she still felt pain.
She felt it as, with no other choice, she severed her own leg to free herself.
She felt it as Behemoth, having lost its hold, chased her body and pounced.
She felt it as a craggy, jagged, clawed fist, enhanced with more kinetic energy than physically possible, smashed through her Haki, the chest beneath it, the Buloke bones of her wooden skeleton, and grasped the wooden heart beneath.
The tradeoff she paid to use Haki and Sage mode through the wooden construct. A plant might not have a nervous system, but she did, and so extensive was the medical knowledge needed to create this technique, so did the Female Titan.
Tsunade was the Female Titan, and the Female Titan was her.
Tsunade's beating heart was ripped from her chest, and she felt every agonizing second of it.
Behemoth, the engine of murder and destruction that it was, did not celebrate its triumph.
It just turned southeastward, aiming for the parts of the city still unevacuated.
Indomitable.
Never slowing.
Always progressing forward.
That was how Behemothg fought.
Tsunade had been doing it wrong. She realized that now. She should not have been trying to punch and kick Behemoth into the ocean. She should have led it there.
Ah well.
Live and learn.
The tree grew.
Purple markings squirmed with power, her Creation Rebirth growing a new heart in her chest and a new leg from her stump.
Even before becoming a Life Dragon, Tsunade was hard to kill.
Now?
In the entire Family, only Artoria and Mikael were tougher.
********
The world's deadliest race ended quickly.
Yoruichi, even so deep into her beastly mindset, knew it had to.
Khonsu was different from the others. It could teleport without the Stranger's aid. If she gave it the opportunity, it would flee and live to fight another day.
Yoruichi refused to allow her prey to escape.
'Singapore.'
Black claws carved legs from a spherical chest.
Khonsu reset and fled.
'Paris.'
'We have it!'
Ranni's cry of triumph brought a feral grin to Yoruichi's maw.
This time, when her Haki-infused fist shattered Khonsu's chest, the Endbringer did not reset.
The fat Endbringer stuttered for a second as if in surprise, and Yoruichi used the opportunity to smash the monster into a nearby park.
Black claws tore deep, Haki shattering layers and layers of forcefields.
Then the Endbringer was gone, teleporting away without resetting or healing.
For a second that lasted an eternity, Yoruichi felt rage boil. Her prey was gone! Escaped to some other dimension or hiding hole that she could not find. There was no soul to track, no scent on the wind. It was just gone.
Then Emma's voice rang in her mind once more.
'D.C.'
Yoruichi was gone in an eye blink, reappearing in the sky over the U.S. capital.
Khonsu was there, still injured and standing in the ashes of its newest target. It had clearly sacrificed healing and speed for a greater attack. All six of its cones of temporal energy swirled around it, decimating the surrounding area.
Yoruichi was too far gone to care about where she was.
All she saw was her prey.
Khonsu, without its time fields to speed it up, was helpless when the Dragon of Speed tore it apart, earth-shaking with every blow. The fat monster struggled, trying to bring its circles of power to bear against the black dragon ripping into it.
Yoruichi let it, knowing that her hunt was at its end and this was the final flails of a dying animal.
Grey silicon sundered, forcefields shattered, and a pulsing black orb appeared to her Haki-enhanced senses.
Its core shattered on black and white claws, lightning crackling with deafening intensity.
Yoruichi, the Beastly Goddess clad in lightning, roared her victory in the deadly race in the shattered remains of Khonsu.
********
Tsunade's fist crashed into a mass of spiky rocks that resembled a face, not budging the monster as it negated it continued to negate its own movement but carving half its head away in jagged splinters.
The Female Titan dodged the retaliatory punch. It was fast and powerful, a testament to the enhancements Behemoth was placing on itself to keep up with her, but it was also unskilled.
Tsunade had been one of the greatest taijutsu specialists in her world. Then she gained Martial Talent and spent a year training with Yoruichi Shihouin, Artoria Pendragon, Scathach and Wonder Woman.
The day she lost a fistfight against a dumb brute was the day she gave up drinking entirely.
Another senjutsu-powered kick deformed its legs, and she flipped away from its attempt to grab her once more.
The Female Titan was a whirl of motion, punches and kicks. Any hold would have been suicide, so Tsunade kept up a tornado of attacks. She smashed and punched parts of the Endbringer clean off with each blow, shockwaves in the air ringing in the night.
The Endbringer advanced.
Lacking any external power expression, it focused everything on healing as it chased the target of its ire.
No building blocked its way.
No shattered limb slowed its march.
It would kill this woman, this being that so hurt it.
Nothing could stop it.
Not even the ocean.
The Female Titan stood upon the waves of the bay, rising and falling with its swell.
Behemoth advanced.
The ocean boiled, lava erupting under the monster's feet with every firm step. Superheated steam filled the air, enough to boil the lungs from within.
If the woman thought the ocean would slow it down, she was wrong.
The Female Titan retreated further upon the waves, the steam not impeding Behemoth's 'view' of the creature.
Then Tsunade was gone, the wooden giant disappearing into a doorway of light.
Behemoth kept its 'eye' on the spot, wary of any reemergence after the last trick pulled caught it with its back turned.
It was already too late.
"Gather here! Ye Heroes. Ye Knights. Ye masses praying for salvation. Gather here and Be Brilliant in Bright Ehangwen, My Radian Hall!"
Shining white, brilliant walls rose around Brockton Bay. Powered by a Command Seal, the massive edifice was large enough to encompass the entire city and its environs.
From above the clouds, atop Dun Stallion, Artoria breathed a sigh of relief. Even with her expanded Spirit Origin to accommodate her Goddess and Ruler versions, holding that much power within herself for so long had been taxing.
Now Mikael's Command was carried out, she could do her duty.
Behemoth threw itself against those pristine walls with an earthshaking force. When physical blows failed to fall the defensive fortification, it turned to fire, lightning, sound, and more, all fruitlessly thrown against white walls.
Behemoth released a miniature nuclear blast that failed to destroy the A+ ranked Noble Phantasm powered by the Elden Lords' command.
Those evacuated to the southeast, away from Behemoth's projected rampage, those still waiting for evacuation, and the recovering heroes in the medical area were finally safe.
But the fight was not over.
Mikael had not powered Ehangwen to defend against Behemoth.
He had powered it up with a Command Seal so the city would survive what came next.
"Sacred lance, removing restraints!"
Thirteen seals bound King Arthur's weapons. Thirteen strictures were placed to limit the power of the holy lance. Half needed to be released to deploy it at all.
The enemy must be more powerful than oneself,
The enemy must not be an elemental.
The battle must be one against evil.
The battle must not involve personal gain.
The battle must not be against humanity.
The battle must not be inhumane.
The battle must be to defend human order.
One's comrades-in-arms must be courageous.
The battle must not be against one pure of heart.
The battle must be an honourable one.
Eleven of thirteen seals were released, on Sir Palamedes' and Sir Kay's conditions remained unfulfilled as the battle was not one-on-one, nor was Behemoth capable of killing Artoria.
If all thirteen were ever released, it would cease to be a lance and return to being a tower of light, anchoring the layers of the world together with a power to sunder the planet.
"Light, may you be released from the ends of the world. Split the heavens and tether the earth, anchor of the storm!"
Night turned to day.
A tower of light, shaped into a spear miles wide, split the clouds. A Divine Construct, the Land that Shines to the Ends of the World fell upon the first Endbringer.
Golden radiance rained upon Brockton Bay, the white walls of Ehangwen gleaming with radiant light.
Behemoth disappeared in a waterfall of golden light, still flinging itself fruitlessly against the walls of King Arthur's halls looked up. The monster turned down, trying to escape the coming calamity by burrowing deep into the earth.
"Rhongomyniad!!"
It did not get deep enough.
The world buckled.
The seas of the bay disappeared, evaporating in an instant of gold as the Spear of the End destroyed silicone flesh and the core it contained within in a cataclysmic blast.
Brockton Bay survived, protected by a wall powered by Mikael's third seal.
Battered, ruined, burned, a trail of destruction started at the base of Captain's Hill Memorial and curved through the central city before emptying into the ocean.
But the city still lived.
And another Endbringer had died.
Everyone from New York to Boston saw the spear fall upon the bay.
Everyone worldwide watched the footage of the death of the first Endbringer.
Everyone watching saw that golden glow and felt hope for a new tomorrow.
If they could live through today.
The battle for humanity's future was not over.
********
Glory Girl had absolutely no freaking clue what was going on.
To be fair, that was a relatively common experience these days. One doesn't die and be resurrected six years later without some mental whiplash. Spending the next month in a secret Justice League underground bunker for M/S observation had not helped, seeing as she had been kept from outside influences like news or the internet.
Spending time with her sister had been nice, but Amy could get Amy-ish if she didn't get her alone time. The only other forms of entertainment in the isolated station had been movies, which Victoria had decimated quickly to help catch up on newer releases, and a small library of books.
The resurrected heroine had been so bored at one point, Amy caught up tinkering with the new limits of her power that, she had read a book.
Yuck.
The only time she had escaped had been that throwdown with Doomsday, but then it was right back into the boring hole.
Then the Endbringer sirens had rung. Behemoth was attacking her old home city.
Glory Girl had been alive when the Herokiller had first appeared, though she had not fought it on its first appearance.
She had been there for its second and third attacks, though. That was before the League had been formed, and people were scrambling to formulate a response to the monsters that seemed to be immortal. A young heroine at the time (though she was only about half a year older now, biologically speaking), Glory Girl had aided with search and rescue rather than confronting the monster directly.
The heat, the lightning, the sound, the fear. It had been overwhelming the first time and only slightly less so the second time.
Then Victoria Dallon died with her family, never seeing the first appearance of Leviathan or the Simurgh.
Bored out of her mind, filled with righteous anger to protect her home, and tempered by her experience with the Endbringer, Glory Girl was ready to lay some serious smackdown on the big bastard.
It helped that she didn't have to worry about its kill aura anymore, had a few new tricks to try out, and that the Bossman was there to ensure they killed the firey bastard.
So Glory Girl had been hyped to kick some rocky ass.
Then things got weird.
Everyone around her started acting freaky when Mikael explained how he had killed Ziz. Victoria knew she wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even she could understand 'find core, smash core.'
Everyone else?
It was like they weren't even listening and then getting angry at the Boss when he repeated himself.
Freaky.
Then Superman got all serious-like and told everyone to listen to the Boss, and things seemed to get better. At least they were ready to throwdown with Behemoth, and the Boss would worry about killing it.
Only, neither Bossman nor Behemoth were where they were supposed to be.
Behemoth was in the city, and Mikael was nowhere to be found.
Before she died, Glory Girl had been likened to a young and inexperienced Wonder Woman. A flying brick, she had sometimes been called. It wasn't wrong, per se, but it often dismissed just how useful being able to fly, hit hard, and take hits that would kill most others really was.
Yes, she had died, but that had been when she was taken by surprise in her own home by one of the craftiest villains in the world. Victoria was confident she could absolutely dismantle the Joker in any other circumstance.
Against Behemoth?
Glory Girl could do nothing.
Victoria punched hard. It was kind of her thing.
Her thing didn't work when the Endbringer dissipated all the kinetic energy of her punch into nothing.
Glory Girl almost died for a second time then, as a blast of lightning destroyed her energy shield, sending her flying through the air.
She would have died before she could catch herself if Glynda hadn't telekinetically caught her and levitated a piece of rubble between her and another bolt that would have fried her, Defences or no.
From there, Glory Girl returned to search and rescue, doing what she could even as she fumed with impotent helplessness to fight off the monster laying waste to her home, killing her comrades, and getting off without even a scratch, resetting to full functionality any time it took too much damage.
It was infuriating.
It was terrifying.
It was enough to drive a woman to despair.
Then Glory Girl felt her shadow try and swallow her, and she instinctively fought it off, knowing that if she didn't, it would teleport her... somewhere.
The other heroes, she saw, could not do the same and were subsumed into darkness. Some, the quickwitted or observant, tried to flee. But not even the Flash can run from his own shadow, and they were all caught in the end.
"What is happening?" Victoria asked herself, eyes wide with fear and not expecting a response.
"We're needed elsewhere," a stern voice answered her, to Glory Girl's surprise. Glynda Goodwitch, the woman who had saved her life earlier, telekinetically floated up toward the resurrected heroine. "Come on, let Raven take you. I think you'll appreciate being able to actually hit something."
Then she was gone, swallowed in an inky blanket.
When the feeling of sinking into her shadow overcame Victoria once more, she let it wrap her in its velvet embrace.
Then it was bright.
The darkness of the night, the blackness of shadow, gave way to bright midday sunshine.
No. That was wrong.
It was bright and sunny, certainly, but shadows still covered them. It fell from fifty-foot stone walls and, beyond, from the massive Tower that breached the blue sky so high that Victoria could not see the top.
She was in a clear field, surrounded by other heroes who were stumbling around in confusion, some gripping their heads and others blinking blearily at the change in lighting. The benefits of the Boss' Trump powers automatically translating half a dozen languages in her mind.
"What's going on?"
"Where are we?"
"Where's Behemoth?"
"My mind! Someone messed with my mind!"
"Our memories! The Endbringer blocked our memories!"
"We've been Mastered!"
Panic started to build, blind fear claiming a hold on usually intractable men and women as they realized the depths of the control they had been under. Memories of fighting Behemoth, Leviathan and even the Simurgh flowed through them.
The Stranger had not erased memories, as doing so for the entirety of the planet would have been wasteful. Instead, it simply redirected focus away and let the brains fill in the missing pieces for themselves. Not only was that more power efficient, but it also made it harder for people to notice the difference as it was their own minds doing the heavy lifting.
All that was gone now, leaving a world's worth of heroes scrambling with the realization that they had been puppets in a play. Fighting and dying without knowing they were accomplishing nothing.
It was enough to drive even normally sane men insane with fear, regret, and panic.
Thankfully, there were those present who could direct their attention away from their realizations and toward more viable and punchable targets.
"Everyone!" A magically enhanced voice echoed around the area, drawing attention to the woman floating in the sky. Blue hair, elven features, clad in a purple robe and with staff in hand, Medea addressed the gathering of the world's heroes. "You've been under the Stranger power of an Endbringer. It prevented you from truly fighting them. I understand what you are going through, more than you can imagine."
Victoria believed her.
There was pain and anger in Medea's voice, an empathetic rage that told the listeners that she had once been where they were, manipulated and controlled. That feeling, that empathy, was what kept the heroes listening more than her words.
"I wish you had time to recover, but you don't. Every second we waste, thousands die. Behemoth was a distraction. While we fought it, other, newer Endbringers have been laying waste to our homes."
"Endbringer attacks in Moscow, Beijing, Vatican City, London, Mumbai, Seoul, Toronto, Cairo..." Dragon reported, her voice stirring the crowd into a frenzy with every new city. Their homes were under attack. Their families and friends were in danger. More than one flyer started to leave, desperate to return home to save their loved ones.
"It is one Endbringer behind most of the attacks," Batman's gruff voice stopped many in their tracks.
"Khonsu," Medea answered their questioning gazes. "We know it from another world." Glory Girl supposed that made sense. They had a Raven and a Diana from other worlds. They must have faced versions of it before. "It, along with Behemoth, Leviathan, and the Stranger Endbringer, are being handled by my Family. We will kill them. But we cannot do everything."
"How can we help?" Eidolon asked, floating in front of the witch. He was joined by Superman and Dr. Strange a moment later.
"Rescue people. Kill an Endbringer. Be heroes." Medea answered, pointing her staff upward at the enormous stone Tower. "That is Bohu. A spatial manipulator that focuses on geokinesis. It has built its body out of Beijing, trapping over twenty million people in its labyrinth and killing thousands every second." There was an outcry of disbelief from most of the heroes, especially the Chinese, and some did not stay to listen to more, launching themselves at and over the stone walls. Medea continued as if undisturbed. "We have rescued half of them and are working on more, but we can't do that and kill it simultaneously. Its true body is hiding somewhere in that Tower."
"Got it," Eidolon said, jettisoning towards the enormous rocky monster, power gathering in a ball of light in his hands.
Even as other heroes followed, some faster than others, Medea continued to talk, her voice enhanced even further to ensure everyone heard.
"Its actual body is small. Find its core and destroy it, and you will kill the Endbringer. Be careful, though. It has a twin with it. Tohu can manifest any three powers. If you see anything with three heads, be prepared to run."
Glory Girl had only the barest understanding of what was going on, but what she did know was that she had a large target to take her frustration out on.
Flying over the massive city, Victoria Dallon watched the hive of heroes set to quick work. Like ants on a hill, they swarmed over distorted buildings, through knotted streets, and under ceilings and walls made into caricatures of modern art.
They smashed through stone spikes that rose to meet them.
They flew over pits and traps.
When the walls closed in, they shattered them as well.
Bohu was not inactive, claiming the lives of a few who made mistakes in their unfamiliarity with this new enemy. Stone crushed, battered, and impaled those unprepared for this latest battle.
Still, the heroes advanced in the destroyed city.
For a brief, wild instant, Victoria felt a burst of pride as she watched them press forward.
Their lives were dangerous, frequently unrewarding and fraught with peril. But there were still heroes in the world.
Then she was there, the stone tower rising like a mountain before her.
She punched it.
Stone shattered under her fists, not the unbending flesh of Endbringers she was used to but actual stone.
Above her, Eidolon severed a section of the edifice with a blade of crackling green energy as Superman and Supergirl rained eyebeams of fire down, carving huge swathes from the mountain of stone. Dr. Strange waved his hand, and an entire ten-meter-thick part disappeared as if it had never existed in the first place.
Even as building-sized pieces of stone rained from the sky, the Tower did not fall, held up by Bohu's power. The Endbringer didn't actually need to be connected to the stuff it manipulated, so it made no difference if they removed the support or not. From the falling pieces, spikes of rock and metal rained down on the flyers.
Glory Girl grimaced as she dodged a piece of metal the size of her leg that whirled like a saw, fist lashing out to smash another section of Bohu's body.
Then she heard the roar of lightning.
Suddenly it was there, a black and white beast clad in electricity.
The dragon ran up the Tower faster than most could blink, claws tearing huge groves in stone, metal and glass. Then it ran down again, more and more pieces of Bohu's body falling to the earth like a deadly rain that forced the attackers to dodge and weave lest they be crushed by the landslide.
More than anything else, it was luck that ended the battle quickly.
The heroes systematically destroyed Bohu from the bottom up, but it would have been a protracted battle. The Endbringer was simply too large for it to be anything, but as they searched the falling rubble for its actual body.
Then, as Glory Girl dodged a rain of jagged rocks and punched a new hole through the monster's fake body in search of the core, a slab of stone the size of a house smacked her on the head.
She fell, shield shattered by the blow.
It would take a second for it to come back, and until then, she'd be flying defenceless against the rain of death around her. So she flew low, closer to the ground but still far enough away that she wasn't within range of an easy attack.
Her intention had been to fly right back up into the thick of the fighting, to keep searching for the core.
Instead, Victoria felt something in her head twinge. Some instinct, some sixth sense she had never felt before, told her to turn her head.
Unknown to Victoria, the seed of Haki that all who were bound to Mikael gained, planted in the rich soil of Soul Talent, and watered with so many recent near-death experiences, had germinated into the tiniest of buds.
Without any training or even knowing it existed, Victoria had no way of directing the Observation Haki anywhere useful.
All it did was give her the impulse to turn her head down instead of up.
When she looked down at the pile of fallen rubble, she didn't miraculously find an Endbringer core. All she saw was part of the Tower's feet and the stone that had fallen around.
Thankfully Victoria Dallon was a very impulsive woman.
So she punched it.
A simple punch that should have shattered the stone and dented steel instead carved only a chunk of rock from the 'feet' of the Tower.
The stone exploded around her, deadly shrapnel that shattered her shield for the second time in five seconds.
"Here!" Glory Girl shouted upwards, desperately hoping someone would hear her.
Fear filled her as she tried to fly away, knowing it was hopeless.
More stone spikes filled her vision.
Then she was in the air, passing through one of Strange's portals into the sky.
Superman blasted downward, lost to all who could not keep up with sub-light speed. He tackled the stone feet of the Tower, rendering the material into dust with the impact and flying upward with a broken, small silicone body in his grasp.
Stone tried to attack him still, but the Man of Steel would not be denied and smashed through it all.
Then Eidolon was in front of the Kryptonian, holding a glowing green sphere in his hands. Superman did not even blink as he threw Bohu into the swirling energy in a movement that spoke of years of cooperation.
As soon as it touched the green light, the Endbringer froze. For one long second, it seemed like it would live.
Then it started to stretch, like dough through a pasta maker. It unravelled into strands of material that were sucked into that small green ball.
Not even five seconds had passed between Glory Girl finding the Endbringer and its death.
That's when a magically enhanced cacophonous voice shouted at the top of its lungs so that everyone within miles could hear it.
"RUN!" Medea screamed.
And the singing started.