Astrid could not see in this darkness. She could not feel anything outside of her body as well, but she knew that man's body was being assimilated and transformed.
"A heart." She had finally created one.
Heralds of chaos and disaster— creatures who would eventually wreak havoc in the worlds all possessed certain fragments that Heaven's Favourite Children could amplify, extract and purify to rebuild their human bodies. She convinced herself that she was in the right. Ikky would eventually grow up to become a monster anyway. And with her amplification of his destiny improving his chances of actually becoming a threat, Astrid could no longer afford to turn back. The things she had seen, what she had surmised... Equinox just had to die.
Finally gathering all the fragments she would need for now, Astrid sat in the dark starry mist and soon begun to meditate, her wings retracting back into her body.
———
Ikky found solace in the sound of the howling grass. He was here again... here where he has been most familiar with all his life.
The sky churned and the constellations turned into a young man with a sword, fighting a demon with wings too many to count. Equinox flicked his fingers as he laid in the black grass. The monstrous winged creature burst into tiny sparks; he clenched his fist and the creature reformed, turning into a kneeling human.
The man constellation walked up to her with his sword in hand and obviously slew the woman.
"Well that's not fair." The winged woman suddenly came back full of life and strength. She overpowered the man and slew him instead.
Equinox looked to his side and found 'himself' sitting on the grass, looking up at the sky with a calm smile.
"Yaga?" Ikky called out. "Am I... dead?"
"Evidently." This person that looked like himself sighed. "You were consumed whole. You're a child without any training of the supernatural and none at all about how to manage your spirit."
Equinox turned back to the sky. "Why did you make her kill me?"
"Hmm... if I had to guess, it might be because your persistence is outrageous. And your constant mutilation is an eyesore."
"..."
The winds continued to whistle, carrying strange floating black veils in the sky. Ikky sat up and rested his back on a black flower shaped tree with white leaves. He took in a good sniff of the air and shut his eyes, enjoying the tranquility of this night realm dream.
"Everyday could have been like this one if you had just chosen to stay back in the second Lokah with the Starlights. Your wish for a place to be accepted had been fulfilled. So why did you dare to seek out more?"
Ikky snorted. "That's secondary. Besides, aren't you the one who told me not to settle? You didn't quite say the words, but I could tell. You seemed like your aspirations were beyond my potential, and that you would change Prophets at the slightest chance."
This time, it was the other 'him's' turn to chuckle. "What aspiration could possibly be bigger than yours? Your obsession with understanding and becoming the Absolute was so great, it manifested as your greatest Virtue and your Mark. I have always been, so did you have to call me so many times?"
He opened one eye. What was Yaga talking about?
The other him turned to his face, its gaze dark and profound, lone stars shining brightly in its eyes. "If you had a chance to wish for anything you could ever think of, what would it be?"
Ikky shook his head. If this was the afterlife anyway, they had an infinite number of years together, so why not humour her. "Obviously I'd wish for the power to grant my own wishes." He scoffed.
"And what would be the first wish you would make after that be?" The other him asked again.
"You are not letting this go, huh?" He was getting annoyed. He shut his eyes and went to sleep.
The other him continued to stare, his eerie eyes shining with curiosity. The wind pushed his long hair to cover those weird black eyes, but he just pushed it away and continued to look. Ikky fell into the tree. Now Yaga's gaze could no longer disturb him.
"Hmm." Ikky groaned, finally giving in to her persistence. "I squandered the chances Nox's mother gave him. So at the very least I'd... wish her back to life. I mean, I might as well. She went through all that trouble just for... just for her kid to die so soon."
The other him sighed. "How pitiful that you didn't get the chance to properly experience a mother's love. But something tells me that you know somehow that she would not accept that wish. Maybe you even think deep down that, if it were just five more days, she would climb all the way to the farthest heavens once again to grant you those five days of life; and that she would do it again for just five more minutes."
Ikky fell back into the tree, his face hidden inside the tree's stem. "How could I waste such a valuable life? Who gave me the right to die..." His voice gradually became shaky and inaudible.
"Your resilience is something you possess because of the idea that your life is not yours to waste. Do you also thirst for power because you want to make it seem like she had made a worthy sacrifice?" The other him asked.
"You did not hear me the first time? Could you have forgotten? I did say that I would raze it all to the ground if I had the breath of an all powerful dragon, that I would fix obedient pawns in place of the rabble throughout all the Realms and Lokahs. If the gods are not stupid, and the only creator I know who performed a notable divine feat is Nox's mother; then why are the who possess Absolute power so complacent?
But the gods surely are not stupid. So I want to understand. If I hold absolute power... would I use it to cure the cancer of existence, or would I finally know why they do not interfere."
Ikky, Equinox, Nox was quite unrecognisable at times. It is hard to believe that underneath the bold jokes and facade of foolishness, Ikky would be capable of such deep—and more worrying, blasphemous thoughts.
"What about the Starlights? Where would they fit into in your perfect world?" The other him asked.
Ikky shook his head. "Don't even bring them into this. Twenty-eight years of my life and you're telling me the people who gave a proper shit about me were in an entirely different dimension? I was dropped in the middle of the fucking forest, Yaga! I remember clearly, having to sleep under leaves and eat raw snake eggs when I was three years old! I still have memories older than even that, do you know how messed up it is to think that I was aware of my own existence before I could even run?! I wouldn't have to go through all that if the dang heavens chose to drop me in front of the Starlight's doorstep! A hundred gods, and a hundred more with immeasurable power, and for some reason they leave an incapable child to his own devices!"
Equinox raised good points, but he realised his unfiltered words and reasoning was the cause of his death.
"If you really possessed absolute power, you would burn it all?" His other self asked a question with an obvious answer. She laughed when Equinox said nothing after, and stood up.
Her clothes turned into a dress, and a veil covered her head. She said,
"You were killed by a Prophet blessed with our Edict. And from our conversation, it is clear that they had used their power for the right cause." They, the figure concealed under the dark veil stretched their hand out to him.
Equinox looked in awe at her beautiful hands, black as night, and devouring the concept of illumination itself. Her ensemble was covered in a silhouette of light, glory, joy, happiness and all that is good was drawn to her. She truly was the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. This woman was not Yaga.
"For every Vice, there is a Virtue, for every suffering is a reward sure and promised, and for every child is love of the purest form. Come with us, child. We did not forsake you." Her words echoed forever and her voice was an endless ever changing beautiful song. "It took you quite a while to reach us, so allow us to embrace you for every second you spent alone with those same tears in your eyes."
His hand fell into their's, all reaching, yet so close and snug.
Ikky walked into their open arms and spent an innumerable amount of years in their embrace. By the time he let go, he found himself in a dark cave with a wide hole in the roof.
His dark eyes blinked in confusion as the black slowly disappeared. His hair turned from the incomprehensible night to its old pale white, and his skin looked as chalky as ever.
Ikky blew the strands of hair covering his face. "Ugh. I'm starting to regret my decisions. Why does this body feel so gross now?"
"Heh. Your stubborness is the only reason I let you go in the first place."
"Who?" Ikky turned to the side to find a creature made of darkness resting on the wall beside him. "Ah, Y'vaga. You've got a lot of shit to answer for."
Yaga scowled. "Do not pronounce my name properly just to follow with vulgar language. Just say, Yu."
A loud explosion shook the forest above, making tunnel become more unstable by the second.
M'raj sighed. "Well, your prophet is here... as you said, so let's get going. The fight in the forest above is not something you want to find yourself in the middle of."
... This was the fight between the two Believers: Kneeling Light and Endless Fault.