You Know You Know Nothing
[Yasaka]
"I don't like it," she said, very clearly and to the point.
Joshua, next to her, let a helpless smile form on his face and then chuckled with the same sentiment. Similarly, Yasaka didn't like the way he looked those days. Even after some of his breakthroughs, finding paths to attempt what he needed to, Joshua still looked weary and scared, weak. It was unlike him and she hated that she couldn't do anything significant to help him.
"I like it even less," the man said and she held back sharp words and doubt. Not because she wouldn't have meant it, but because she could feel it, the cold, hard edge hidden under Joshua's usual softness in his life energy. One that she'd seldom seen and even less so evident and blatant. "Maybe power isn't the answer, but I have to try anyway," he added, whatever facsimile of a smile he'd managed crumbling into nothing just as quickly as it had appeared. "I can't leave any rocks unturned, no matter how dangerous it might be or how little I want to touch them," he explained and even his analogy showed that he was half out of it, just like he had every single day since that night.
Yasaka wasn't sure what it was that had him like that. Initially, she thought it might be the scare, or maybe a lack of sleep. Then, Serafall had pointed out that it might be his ideas, running rampant now that he couldn't afford to reign them in. Gabriel had commented it could be the Gap's effect on him, or maybe True Longinus, although that last one was less likely. Unfortunately, the nature of his one of a kind miracle with the Sacred Gear threw any knowledge they had on holders of the spear out the window, really, even for the Seraph.
So, she didn't know if one of their guesses were right, if it was something else, or if it was some combination between those things.
"Do you trust your measures to contain him?" Yasaka said, eyes locked on Kokabiel, the subject of their conversation. He might not be one of those that had attacked her home, but he'd facilitated the entire thing and she hated him for it. She'd delighted in accompanying Joshua down to the dungeons once or twice for his experiments just to see him suffer for what he'd done. Admittedly, she'd gone there more for the others, but still.
"I do," he said confidently and that eased some of her worries. Only some of them though. "Friday and my spell arrays should have him nice and weak most of the time. I'll only ease the leash when I'm present and a hundred percent sure I can take him. Besides, he's by himself and surrounded by enemies. It's as well contained as he's ever going to be while being on hand," he added and she nodded along.
It all made sense, of course, but she couldn't help but worry.
Still, others had been one thing. The fallen trio he'd brought before had been weak and Raynare had proved herself plenty as time passed. Kuroka had been… less trustworthy, but senjutsu had alleviated most of Yasaka's worries with the reincarnated nekoshou. It had also taken her about one look towards Georg to know that the magician was harmless.
He was utterly terrified of Joshua and everyone else. To the point where he seemed to have decided that it was better to keep within their good graces, firmly. Interesting, but not really something she wanted to trust too much. Alas, it seemed to be the correct assessment so far and every day that passed reassured her further.
Kokabiel though? They all knew him, Yasaka and Serafall less so, admittedly, but Gabriel had a lot to say about her brother. Almost nothing was good, but then again, they were almost polar opposites. Where Kokabiel relished and thrived in war, Gabriel despised it, even with as much as she had still done for her faction during the conflicts they'd had to go through. If she never had to participate in another war, she'd die happy.
Not Kokabiel, however. The man seemed unable to withstand times of peace. To the point where he had to go out of his way to burn his own bridges in an effort to create and perpetuate conflict. That was not someone any of them wanted in their lives…
And yet, he was one of the necessary evils they had to put up with for the sake of their goals, she supposed. Simple as Joshua's reasoning had been, they had agreed that the fallen was a better prospect compared to Katerea. The devil might have been weaker, but she was also unpredictable. Serafall herself had agreed that she was too much of a loose cannon to give any amount of leeway. Kokabiel might be someone they didn't like, but none of them would call him an idiot and only an idiot would do something in the situation he was in.
Alas, Yasaka didn't feel any more confident with the situation, even knowing that.
"Kunou will never so much as look at the guy. I have Jeanne, Asia and Kuroka keeping an eye on her. Probably also Koneko whenever she drops by," Joshua said, taking her silence for what it was. For as socially inept as he thought himself to be, he could be surprisingly perceptive at times, they all noticed. In that instance, for example, Yasaka hadn't even known that was a worry of hers until he said that. "And as soon as I figure out what's up with his power boost, he'll go back in the hole. Or maybe we can finally negotiate him away with Grigori. Penemue might like that."
"Not Azazel?"
His silence was telling, but she didn't blame him for it. Yasaka herself hadn't forgiven the man. Her servants had died that day and her daughter had been put in danger. Joshua had had to fray his own soul to put out the fires of the Governor's harebrained scheme.
A scheme that hadn't even paid off, because Vali Lucifer seemed intent on only getting them the most useless pieces of information a spy could reasonably give without being called outright incompetent.
No, the price had been too high.
Maybe Joshua was on to something, the best fallen to deal with was Penemue… and maybe giving her some more open support could be useful…
Something to consider and discuss with the others, Yasaka decided.
[}-o-{]
[Joshua Davis]
Taking a step away from Project Spear, he went back to Project Silence once more.
Using True Longinus was, after all, a side project at the moment, a tangent for his mind to go through when he got tired of the main thing. That was all it was, nothing more, nothing less. It sounded funny when he considered that, for sure, since it was… well, True Longinus. Alas, the strongest spear in the verse wasn't going to be enough to face Infinity.
The weapon might be great if he were fighting gods and other such powerful beings, but Ophis and Great Red weren't in the same league. Hell, Joshua had doubts if they were even within three of those metaphorical leagues. Because as strong as they were, Sirzechs and Ajuka hadn't completely broken his spells and Friday by existing within them.
They were spikes, sharp, dramatic spikes, but they didn't make his arrays crash and his spell familiar have some very serious trauma. He wasn't even sure if they were close to causing that either. So, no, he wasn't about to go and use a pointy stick to the veritable personification of Infinity, no matter how fancy a stick it was.
So, for the moment, True Longinus was just a means by which he might reach the Dimensional Gap with his own power. Further than that… Well, there was a reason why Carnwennan and Setan Kober were always frustrated by lack of use. Joshua wasn't much of a frontal fighter if he could avoid it. He would be grateful for having such a powerful weapon at his disposal, but that was about it.
"Now, this is odd," he mumbled to himself, feeling his spell collapse into itself for the tenth time in a row. Not a strange occurrence for tests to do that. For every success, there were a myriad of failures in his past. Joshua's tests weren't merely defective successes. Most of them were failures, utter and complete ones.
'They are never the same kind of failure though,' he thought, casting the spell again and feeling it crumble inwards as if imploding, again.
Spell failures were feared because nobody knew what they could do. They could explode, or implode, or cause a completely unrelated effect to what you were trying to cast. One of the reasons why he figured people didn't do spellcrafting as much as he did was fear of such failures. The mortality rate of magicians that cast a failing spell, regardless of reason, was very high.
Yet, every single time he tried this particular spell array, it failed by collapsing on itself.
'That's not a coincidence,' he decided, taking a deep breath in and nodding to himself.
Then, he considered the thing.
It was a spell array that he was trying out. It was neither "create a Silence void" nor "replicate the mysterious Silence element". It also wasn't part of his idea to isolate a piece of the Gap nor cutting it apart. No, it was something much simpler, really… or more complicated, depending on how one looked at it.
What he was trying at the moment was to understand how the Dimensional Gap worked. For that, he was trying to reproduce the effects it had on… basically everything. After his attempt to cast spells in the place to gather information, he'd done a few other tests, like dropping stuff there and so on. It had all led to him having some idea of how the corrosive, aggressive dimension did what it did, at least in terms of damage.
So, now he was trying to figure out if he'd actually learned how or if he'd fooled himself.
As it turned out though…
'I might actually be onto something,' he thought, casting the array once more and watching it consume itself. Calling on deities of magic and other such domains to help him figure out what exactly was happening – on top of his usual spells and senses –, Joshua noticed that it was… similar to how the Gap consumed everything. Similar in the same way that a stickman drawing was similar to a person's photograph though.
'Hmm, might need to workshop this more, a lot more,' he thought. Because the spell was supposed to consume something else, not itself. He wasn't sure where the blunder was, but that was just how trial and error worked. At least it hadn't been something more embarrassing. Like the time when he was testing one of his sensing spells and he ended up blind for about half an hour.
Kunou had found that hilarious, at least, and it had been a bit fun to play with her as she guided him through the house.
Back on topic though, progress was made and Joshua had something else to tinker. Something that almost looked like it was going somewhere. That was very much appreciated, that was for sure. Every single actually significant step was a blessing, as far as he was concerned.
After stumbling in the dark for a good few days when he started, he finally was feeling like he was doing something. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Joshua was getting somewhere. That was reassuring…
But it was also concerning.
He didn't have infinite time. He needed to get stuff done and he needed to do it soon. Otherwise, Ophis would come for her visit and he might not have enough to show for it. So, much as he wanted to celebrate each step, they weren't coming fast enough.
He needed a proper success and soon, or he might run out of time.
'Don't think about that,' he thought, pursuing his lips and focusing on what he was doing. That was the productive thing to do, so he pushed away the worries and centered himself…
That did little to silence the thoughts though.
[}-o-{]
Absently, he stabbed something in his plate and brought it to his mouth.
He barely felt the taste of it, but he did notice that it was good.
"You're getting better at this," he commented without looking up from the notebook that he'd laid beside his plate. His mother would have had his head if she saw him working at the table, he imagined. Alas, she wasn't around to scold him and he liked to think that he was somewhat justified, what with the danger of Infinity.
"Thanks," Asia said and he allowed himself a moment to look up and smile back at the beaming girl. "Jeanne and Kunou helped."
"I mean, I guess? But one's a brat and the other is a child," he pointed out, ignoring the two protests that were raised immediately in favor of the nun's giggles. "So, this is probably all on you. If anything, that just makes it seem even more impressive."
After that, he turned back to his notebook and nobody said anything to follow up, not even his glaring sister or his pouting daughter. He was working after all, and it was only his desire not to neglect his family that drove him to talk sometimes, like at that moment. He'd lost one family without properly getting to express how much they meant to him. He didn't want to lose another one like that.
He also didn't want to lose them because he didn't focus enough though.
It was a tough position to be in, for sure.
All the same, Joshua was making it work as best he could, but that wasn't saying much. In truth, he was failing miserably, really. Because he didn't remember the last meaningful interaction he'd had with Jeanne or Asia. His friends even less so. As it was, he was barely making time for a handful of people, like Kunou, or Yasaka, Gabriel and Serafall. At least it helped that Ravel and Koneko spent a lot of time with Kunou, but still…
Cheshire jumped on his lap then, curling up and offering some silent support that actually helped a lot. Her weight, her warmth and the softness of her fur helped ease his tense body and the knot in his chest. Through the bond, he felt the rest of his familiars reaching out too and he replied in kind, pushing gratefulness towards them.
He even noticed some Egyptians, their presence barely there at all. It was almost like they were peeking in, too shy to actually interfere in the moment. 'Thinking about it, they seem to stay away from my personal life, for the most part,' he thought then, pausing to consider that for a moment before shaking his head. If that wasn't wrong though, that was kind of them. Maybe he could do something nice for them.
Something to consider later, however.
Once his stomach stopped protesting the lack of food, Joshua pushed his plate away and set the notebook firmly in front of him. What he was working on at the moment was casting spells to isolate a space in the Gap and… He had several ideas, but he was almost positive none of them were going to work. He was hopeful of course, but if he'd learned something in the time since he started on that, it was that anything related to the Gap was a mess and not simple at all.
There was also the fact that he didn't know how Great Red was supposed to mess with the Gap enough to disturb Ophis' Silence. After further consideration, he had to wonder if any effort he made to isolate a piece of the place would just make it "not silent" as far as the Infinity Dragon was concerned. But then, if that was the case, anything he made would be like that, right?
If that was the case though, then nothing he made would work and… and he couldn't afford to let that be a possibility.
That was why he was going to try and apply something that'd erase his magic's presence too. Not like he hadn't done that a bunch of times while setting up traps and raids but… Yeah, he'd have to be more thorough than ever. He couldn't let a single hint of anything but what he set up for Ophis to be felt.
That was going to be a challenge by itself, but less of one than… well, everything else.
Joshua would tackle that beast when he got to it. For the moment, he'd set up some flavor of personal Gap for the dragon. If he didn't manage to make it as "Silent" as she wanted it, then Joshua would just have to hope that she'd allow him more time to fix any of the issues. He didn't remember Khaos Brigade doing much of anything to bring Ophis her Silence, so he was kind of banking a lot on the fact that him doing something would be enough to keep the dragon off his back.
Was that risky? Yes, but it wasn't like he had an abundance of options.
"Tea?" a voice asked and he blinked, looking up and noticing that the table was mostly empty. Everyone seemed to have long since finished dinner, by the looks of it.
He hadn't noticed.
His gaze turned to the side and he saw Asia holding the aforementioned beverage with a soft, warm smile and he returned the expression with a slight, weary half-smile of his own. Still, even if he couldn't manage to express it well at the moment, he was very grateful. Mostly because, somehow, the one that was the least affected by the entire situation was Asia, and her peaceful presence was a reassurance that he needed more than he often realized until he came across it, like at that moment.
"You're a gift, Asia, truly," he said, getting a beaming expression that soothed his fraying nerves. He'd have to go back to working in a moment, but that fleeting relief was plenty, as far as he was concerned.
[}-o-{]
"So, what are we doing?" Kokabiel asked flippantly after Joshua called for him. "Some more soul poking? Gonna try and divine the secrets of my race piece by piece?" he added and Joshua found it mildly interesting that he seemed genuinely curious. He'd also seen him looking at Raynare's wings a lot, which…. made sense.
"Nope, we're going to be testing whatever it is that you took to get stronger," Joshua answered, focusing back on the present. A corner of his mind stored the piece of knowledge he'd just noticed though. Maybe it'd come in useful later. "And for that, this time, we're gonna be drastic."
"Ominous," the fallen replied with a grin that was almost mocking. Joshua didn't mind too much. He imagined he'd change his tune pretty quick when it was revealed what they were actually going to do. "Is that some other way to say what I just did?"
"No, because I ain't going to touch you, not even with spells… At least, not until things are already underway," he answered, taking a deep breath in and preparing himself. He checked his spells, the Egyptians and Friday. "Hope you're ready," he added, taking some pleasure in the confused expression on the fallen before turning towards Georg. "How about you?"
"Ready when you are, Mr. Davis," the man replied obediently.
Joshua knew he was doing that on purpose, to get on his good side. It was difficult not to notice when he was so obvious. And even if he were as socially adept as a rock, which he wasn't, everyone else had pointed it out too, so he'd have known anyway. Yet, he found himself appreciating that. It was straightforward, the same way Raynare was, if for different reasons.
Raynare wanted power.
Georg wanted to survive.
Joshua could work with both, so he did. So long as nobody noticed anything off with the magician, then it was all fine. He'd been an enemy, but so had Raynare, so had Kalawarna and Mittlet, even Kuroka. Of all his enemies, the only ones that he couldn't forgive were Kokabiel, Vali's Team and the higher ups of Khaos. All of them were directly responsible for attacks on his family, his loved ones.
And they did it because they felt like it.
That was unforgivable.
Everyone else had been either only tangentially related or not at all.
And again, Joshua's anger – something he hadn't quite known much about himself until after his life changed drastically – was something that burned bright immediately but also burned out just as fast. He wouldn't be surprised if, eventually, he forgave everyone. That is, so long as they showed change, they showed they weren't the same maniacs that had made him angry to begin with.
He'd find it odd at that moment, but then again, he'd have felt the same about Raynare and the other fallen back in the day…
"Mr. Davis?" Georg called and he blinked. 'Feels like it's been a while since I zoned out quite like that in the middle of something,' he thought to himself, taking another deep breath in and focusing.
"Right, let's go."
"Where, exactly?" Kokabiel asked, looking between them curious and confused.
"To the Dimensional Gap," Joshua answered and he relished the paling of the fallen's face and the widening of his eyes a little too much. He didn't feel bad about it at all though, nor did he care for holding back the grin on his face as the purple mist surrounded them and pulled them into the corrosive dimensional limbo.
A second later, the tests had begun.
Joshua focused all his efforts on Kokabiel this time. He wanted to see how the sliver of Ophis' power that he'd taken interacted with the Gap and vice versa. He wasn't expecting much, but it was something that could help somehow. It was a piece of her – or at least that was the assumption he was working with – or her power or some flavor of that, so that meant that it might react or otherwise show something in the Dimensional Gap.
Despite it being the intent though, he was surprised to see something right off the bat.
What was it though? Well, that was a different matter altogether. He had no idea what he was seeing, but he knew it was different from the usual. The Gap still seemed to be trying to make Kokabiel disappear, but it wasn't working in the same way as usual. He couldn't quite tell how though, but he knew there was something there.
After some time observing it though, his best explanation was that normally the Gap acting like acid, trying to eat away at whatever was dropped inside it. With Kokabiel though, it felt like the stillness had turned into a maelstrom mixed with a powerwasher, trying to forcibly erode him until he disappeared.
That was…
'That's active,' Joshua thought, eyes a little wide. That was… huge, even if he didn't know why or how it could affect his projects. That was a massive bit of info, and right when he'd been wondering about the difference between what Ophis wanted and what he might be able to make. 'Now though… is what we experience Silence or is that Silence? Maybe neither?' he wondered, brows furrowed as he considered that.
What caused the difference to begin with?
Lots of questions had suddenly popped in his mind and he had not an inkling of where to begin. How vexing… but it was what it was. He'd have to work with that. No two ways about it, sadly. So, he observed as best he could and eventually told Georg to get them out.
Joshua almost didn't pay any attention to Kokabiel dropping to his knees on the ground of his training facilities. 'So, the Gap felt more aggressive for him too,' he noted, tilting his head. Interesting.
How very interesting indeed.
'Lots to work on, but this was a very productive little experiment,' he thought with a nod.
[} Chapter End {]
Hey guys! How's it going?
Not gonna lie, it's kind of fun to write this Gap arc. It's like a long, very drawn out headcanon brainstorming session. Because yes, I'm figuring this out as we go, just like I do with all my writing. Is anyone even surprised at this point?
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.
As always, if you can't wait until next week for the next chapter, or if you just feel like supporting my writing, there's up to three new chapters in my Patreon (linked below).
Random Question: Would any of you be interested in a K-Pop Demon Hunters story or three? They've been living rent-free in my head since I watched the movie and I've got plotbunnies for days. I might even be able to work it on top of my current stories, since my plot bunnies don't sound too long when it comes to this fandom… I know, I'm shocked too.