“That debree wasn’t even enough to slow him down..”
Yuri commented upon the scene they were witnessing.
When they had left the city of floating islands, all of the islands had lost their specific trait of floating. Which was due to magnetism holding up the pieces of metal at the core of each island.
Magnetism which originated from Fenrir. Or at the very least a godly relic of his.
Now, where there had once been rubble, lay an endless hole again. Leading to where Fenrir was kept for an unthinkable amount of time.
“To break the chains of Fenrir, his chains must have been struck directly with the dagger. It should be at the bottom.”
Slowly lowering their airship into the hole, Hikaru nodded at the other two.
“Back down there again..” Yuri sighed, looking over the edge of the ship. Despite Fenrir being gone, she still felt his presence. His moment of release had freed so much of his power that it was still thick in the air. Poisoning their air with residue dark mana.
A while later they had reached the pitch black of the bottom.
“I will stay behind here. I only agreed to help you with the fallen god. Not find lost toys”
Tane sat down in the airship, his motives were not completely due to stubborness. He needed time to process the dark mana in the air. Perhaps then he would get all the information he needed without even having to mess with an all mighty fallen god.
Shrugging, Yuri and Hikaru walked off, a small lantern to shine their way.
Pieces of metal glimmering around them. Shattered Chains.
Amongst the piles of broken chains, they find something else glimmering.
Excited at the prospect of finding her dagger, Yuri rushed forward, carelessly throwing the pieces of the giant chain out of her way. Discovering..
That the glinting she saw came not from her dagger at all. It was the glittering of blood. Blood which had stained shards of broken metal, reflecting the light from her lantern in a colourful manner, not unlike her dagger.
The source of the blood.
Was beneath the pile of metal.
A single bloodied hand stuck out. It was a small feminine hand, a hand reaching out helplessly for help.
A hand which no one could ever deny holding and helping get up.
“This..!?”
Hikaru had stepped forward to see what Yuri had found.
“No..No. This cannot be. This should not be.”
Frantically, he began removing the giant pieces of metal. Flinging them aside, while Yuri stood back, taken aback by his uncontrolled behaviour.
“Hikaru..? Who is that?”
Pulling aside one last metal piece, he revealed the form of the one hidden beneath.
Draped in a bloodied white mantle, with a face permanently contorted in pain, lay Sköll. Hikaru’s sister.
“...Sister….”
He sank to his knee, gently clutching her hand.
“...Hi..karu…?”
With words barely louder than a calm breath. She spoke up lightly. Her eyelids, while seeming closed, drifted apart by the smallest of measurements, allowing her at the very least, a glimpse of her brother.
“I had warned you of what was to come had you gone down this path..”
Softly holding up her hand, he held it against himself.
“..Foolish brother. You have known my conviction..perhaps. It’s me who was foolish..i think..sometimes. Convictions need to be broken..”
A pained smile rose upon her lips.
Glancing back at Yuri. Hikaru nodded. “Sometimes..our convictions need to change..for the sake of ourselves..”
“...It is too late for me now..I now understand why father is so obsessed with you..you..aren’t like us. You’re weak...your ideas change..but..that has led to..you being alive..it truly is..a mysterious thing..being strong despite weakness..”
“Sister. Do not speak. We will find the dagger and heal you. Save your energy.”
His gripp upon her hand tightened. His eyes shaking despite himself.
“Don’t..There is no point..my wounds..are filled with fathers mana..seeped in..it’s too late..you..you know. I did not mind death..but..the..fact i never seemed alive to him..it tears my soul..my conviction..was truly pathetic..”
With those words, her eyes shut completely, closing off the last bit of light she could see. Her last sight was of her brothers face, reflecting the lanterns light. His eyes seemed quite saddened. She wished to tell him to not be sad. He was right in the end.
All she could do as a last gesture was mutter a single word.
“..S..o.rry….”
“Sköll. Do not dare die. You dare unleash him into the world then merely die! Sköll! SKÖLL!”
Holding the lifeless body of his sister, he shook her by the shoulders. Her head hanging limply down.
“You got us into this mess! Now you just choose to RUN AWAY!? I THOUGHT BETTER OF YOU. WAKE UP DAMNIT!”
Continuing to shake her body, He only stopped when he felt a small presence on top of his shoulder.
Yuri had placed a hand on him, before wrapping her arms around his neck. Pulling him into a tight embrace.
“It’s okay to admit what you’re really thinking..”
Stroking his head, she whispered to him very gently, as if talking to a child.
Only then did Hikaru realise. His eyes were moist.
He was shedding tears.
Tears for a sister he had been in conflict with for many human lifetimes.
Yet he still felt..grief.
Her last words showed him as much.
She was his sister. Despite her foolish actions.
His sister who had not died from the wounds inflicted by his father.
She had died from the heartbreak of his fathers refusal to acknowledge her despite everything.
It was always him. He was at the root for everything.
He had been the cause for his sister to spiral down into her debased conviction.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Sister..Do not worry. I will make sure he acknowledges you. By forcing him to do so at the brink of his death. I shall make him realise. That you were all he had. And he squandered away the only person who truly cared for him. I will avenge your broken heart..Sister.”
Laying her down softly. He resolved himself to come back later. And give her a proper burial. For now. He merely wrapped her mantle around her. Giving her some comfort in this darkness of abyss and black mana.
In his mind. He did not hold a grudge against her for granting escape to their father.
It was never her fault.
He had tricked her. He had manipulated her. Without even doing as much as speaking to her.
He knew she had only him. For her brother was strange and it was his fault they had been thrown out from the heavens.
Hikaru was sure. Had his father actually spoken to Sköll, she would have immediately realised his true thoughts of her..or lack thereof. Perhaps then her actions would have been different. Perhaps then she might have searched for another conviction.
He had found his own conviction. His conviction in that his sister was innocent of any crime. It was his father.
And his father would pay dearly.
“I will erase your entire existence.”
They spent some time in the deep abyss, scouring through the rubble, searching for the dagger.
They finally found it, stuck deep with its blade inside of a metal chunk.
Sliding her hand around the handle, she found it slid out of the metal surprisingly easily.
“We have it, let’s hope it works.”
Testing out a simple fireball spell by drawing runes on the ground. Her dagger began glowing. Something it had never done before.
Usually it was the runes that would glow due to being infused with a great amount of mana.
Now however, the glow of her runes seemed much weaker.
The resulting fireball spell, was greater than a normal one. However, it was not even close to the ones she was able to create before. It was not even half the size of the fireball she had created when she first met Hikaru.
“Yuri..your dagger.”
Pointing out something strange about the dagger, Hikaru wipes the dust covering its blade.
Revealing a deep crack in the small dagger. Moving from the handle and towards the very tip of it.
“It’s broken..!?”
Widening her eyes, Yuri felt a deep worry. This was her only tool of retaliation. Without it, she would be a mere thief surrounded by gods.
“It is damaged but not broken. You should still be able to use it. However..it seems to now spill out a lot of its mana through that crack..resulting in weaker runic spells..”
Looking around at the pieces of broken chain, Hikaru nodded in realisation.
“Breaking chains meant to hold down a god..we should be thankful the blade was not shattered completely.”
“This will have to do either way. Now let’s go. Before Fenrir reaches the city and grows even more powerful, broken dagger or not, i will shove the broken pieces of it into his eyes if i have to! Because he, he made my b-boyfriend cry!”
Stuttering slightly at that word, she held the dagger in front of her, a slight blush sneaking onto her cheeks.
“Thank you, Yuri” A slightly smile on his lips, Hikaru held her hands, while they slowly walked back to their airship.
He gave a last glance back at the body of his sister. Giving her a solemn yet serious nod. A last farewell.
“Well what took you so long?” Yawning, Tane stood up, pretending to not have been attempting to collect the mass of dark mana in the air around them.
“Nothing. We must hurry back.”
Quickly preparing the ship. Hikaru lifted them up into the air, heading back towards where they came.
“I hope those reinforcements get here in time..without them it will be fairly..tricky.”
Twirling her newly reacquired dagger in her hand, she looked up at the sky above them.
She continued looking up until they had reached the exit of the deep cavern they were in.
Finally able to breathe easily, in the absence of the dark mana.
“I knew it was you young lass and not so young lad!”
A ship suddenly appeared from behind some rubble, approaching them.
“Ahab? What are you doing here”
Yuri asked, slightly surprised at his appearance.
“What’dya mean what i’m doin here. I live here remember?”
“Oh yeah. Sorry Ahab we are in a hurry”
She tried to shake him off, telling Hikaru to move the airship faster.
“To go battle that giant beast, no?”
Ahab asked, one eye open much wider than the other.
“Yes, we are, and we need to get there soon, or else that bastard will get to the next city and absorb all of the people’s mana. Growing much stronger than he is now.”
She sighed.
“So unless you’re willing to sacrifice your life and ship to pose as a distraction, we need to hurry and go”
“In fact, that was my plan.”
Ahab nodded, surprising Yuri.
“R-really?”
“Well yes lass, did ya forget, that beast and i have unfinished business, he was the cause for my fathers sufferin. Now i’ll avenge his humiliation! What kinda captain lets the reputation of his father, who was also a captain, stay in the dirt!”
“Well in that case, hop on and let’s go”
She motioned for him to come aboard.
“No offense lass, but that is barely an airship, it’s more of a bucket”
Blowing a whistle, several more ships like the one driven by Ahab, came from behind the rubble.
They were all small ships, fitting at most a single or two passengers.
The fact that they were so small, meant they were both easy to hide and to easily maneuver. At speeds far greater than that of a normal airship
Their Air balloons were small, yet they possessed something similar to wings on their sides, granting them the ability to swiftly glide through the air.
“We were hidin in the rubble, incase that beast came back. Luckily he didn’t, nor did he seem to sense our small base, so all our civilians are safe”
Raising his hand in the air, the other small airships took place into a formation behind him.
“We’’ll go distract him while you do what you gotta do to defeat him, i ain’t one to have delusions, i know i can’t beat him, but i know you can, or at least that lad can”
He looked at Hikaru, who nodded at him.
“Now let’s go, headin out! Once we reach our target, we stay as far apart as possible, workin mainly on distraction tactics!”
With that command, Ahab turned to Yuri and did a poor man's salute.
“See ya soon”
He nodded at Hikaru and Yuri.
With that, Ahab and his small airships headed off into the distance, towards the source of the black mana.
“Let’s not waste time either then, you ready tane?”
She asked.
“For a chance to delve into the mind of a literal god. I am always ready.”
With that, their airship headed off as well. Significantly slower than Ahab's ships and far more unstable, yet it still moved resolutely forward.
--
Rings of metal parts floated around a single black center. Not unlike the rings around saturn.
The only difference being that saturn was instead replaced with a gigantic tar-black form of a wolf-like beast.
Which slowly moved through the desert. Its steps resolute. Wherever in the sand it took a step, its paw prints were characterised by the unstable nature of the sand surrounding them. Sands which shifted and bubbled even long after the beast had moved past it.
Following this trail of shifting pawprints in the sand.
Were the small airships, led by Ahab.
Travelling as closely they could to the ground so as to avoid being seen.
The bottom of their ships gave off a slight bit of smoke.
The friction between the the bottom of their quickly moving ships and the sands below, causing the wood of their ships to leave a trail of faint smoke behind them.
White smoke with moved and mixed with the winds left behind them. Creating patterns of limitless complexity.
It was also what they used to in order to distract their target.
As they reached the feet of the gigantic beast.
They made sure to make a few circles around him. Creating even more smoke behind them.
When enough smoke had been created that they almost completely engulfed the bottom of the beasts legs.
Ahab's ships made a sharp turn upwards.
Splitting the air, and creating an upward drift in the air, which carried the smoke with it.
Carrying it quickly and powerfully. Shooting it straight into the beasts eyes.
“Take that ya damn beast! Ruinin my country! I’ll ruin yer damn sight for that!”
A deafning sound.
So powerful that the mere airwaves caused the airships to be blown back several hundreds of meters.
A roar from the beast.
Fenrir had become irritated by these small mosquitos buzzing around him.
Considering how meaningless they were to him. He did not want to expend any time or effort on them.
Instead. He used some of the debree floating around him.
Using his natural ability at controlling magnetism.
All Fenrir had to do was shift his gaze towards these small irritating ships that looked less than bugs.
Several sharp pieces of metal detached themselves from the ring slowly floating around Fenrir.
Flying towards the group of small ships.
“Watch out!”
Ahab was not quick enough in issuing that order.
Resulting in two of his ships to be hit by the metal.
Which sliced through the wood of the ships as if they were not even there. Cleaning slicing off the wings of one and Cutting the entire body of another in half.
“Men! Caution! Follow my lead!”
Issuing commands like these, they continued flying around Fenrir.
Which two of their brethren fell to the ground, one of their ships quickly moving to their aid and picking up the pilots.
But no matter how quick they flew. Or how many sharp turns they did.
All Fenrir had to do was give them a mere glance.
Resulting in their ships receiving extensive damage from pieces of metal flying faster than bullets.
“This is..harder than aye expected..yer ship really is slow..”
Breathing heavily, the constant stress of almost getting hit was taking away at Ahabs mental stamina.
Looking out towards the distance, he still could not see the Airship belonging to Yuri and Hikaru.
“At this rate. We will run out of steam before they arrive. Maybe we needta retreat..”
“Captain!”
One of the pilots of his ships yelled out at him, Ahab once again narrowly avoiding getting hit by a flying piece of metal. While Fenrir continued his leisurely walk, barely being slowed down.
“What is it! Can’t ye see i’m busy!”
Turning away his attention from the beast for the first time since he had arrived.
Ahab saw a sight, which had him rubbing his eyes in order to confirm.
The entire horizon behind him.
It was all glowing.
Brightly.
Not due to the setting sun.
He saw shadows and lights.
It was airships.
Ahab could recognize an airship no matter how far away it was.
But these were not just a few..and they were definitely not of a single variety.
Had he not been fearing for his life. He most likely would have squeeled in excitement at all the varieties of ships he saw.
And so. Many. of them.
This was a force larger than their entire cities force had ever been.
A force bigger than any of the airship forces of any city he had ever read or heard about.
It was an armada to surpass all armadas.
And it was heading towards them.