Unholy Saintess & Archangel

Pontiff Malachi, his ancient, serene face now a mask of craven, pathetic terror, dragged Akari through a secret passage hidden behind the High Altar of the temple. The grand, golden doors slammed shut behind them, their thunderous boom muffling the sounds of the battle in the square, sealing them in a narrow, dusty darkness. They were plunged into a claustrophobic corridor carved from the living rock of the mountain, a place that had not seen the light of day in a thousand years. The only illumination came from the faint, holy glow of the blessed silver dagger Malachi pressed against her throat, its light casting their struggling, distorted shadows onto the damp stone walls.

His serene, melodic voice, the voice that had commanded the faith of millions, was gone, replaced by a high, wheezing panic that was little more than a terrified squeak. “This is your fault, heretic!” he hissed, his bony arm trembling around her neck, his breath hot and sour in her ear. “Your filth, your corruption, has brought the abyss to our gates! The Most High has abandoned us because of you!”

Akari said nothing. She did not struggle. She let her body go limp, a dead weight, a deliberate, calculated act of passive resistance. The change in leverage forced the frail old man to struggle and strain, his own panic and desperation working against him as he tried to drag her up a winding, narrow stone staircase that spiraled up into the darkness. He was no longer a Pontiff, a figure of absolute, divine authority. He was just a terrified animal, his luminous silver eyes wide and wild, his only thought to reach the western bell tower, where a hidden sky-port held a small, personal Cherub for his escape. He was focused on his escape. He was focused on his own fear. He had forgotten who, and what, he was holding. He was holding a girl who had faced down the King of the Void and seen him as a boy. He was holding a girl who had just watched the man she loved tear a hole in the sky for her. A scared old man with a knife was no longer a threat. He was an obstacle.

Akari waited for her moment, her mind a cold, clear, and calculating engine. As they reached a small, cramped landing on the spiral staircase, she deliberately let her legs buckle completely, causing her entire weight to drop with a sudden, deadening thud. The sudden shift in balance was too much for the frail, off-balance Malachi. He stumbled, his grip on her neck loosening for a fraction of a second as he tried to keep his footing on the uneven stone. It was all she needed.

A burst of Brilliant Light, not the annihilating, world-ending wave from her sword, but a sharp, focused, and blinding flash like a photographer's bulb, erupted from her body. Malachi cried out, a high-pitched, pathetic shriek, momentarily blinded, his sensitive, ancient eyes searing with a pain he had never known. In that single, precious instant of his disorientation, Akari twisted, her bound hands shooting up and grabbing the wrist that held the dagger. With a surge of adrenaline and a strength born of pure, desperate will, she slammed his arm against the rough stone wall with all her force. A wet, sickening crack echoed in the narrow stairwell, and the silver dagger clattered to the floor, its holy light flickering and dying.

Malachi stared down at his broken, twisted wrist, a look of pure, pathetic shock on his face. He looked back at her, his terror now mixed with a dawning, horrified disbelief. Stripped of his title, his faith, and his weapon, he was just a frail, weak old man. She was the Light-Bringer. She advanced on him. He scrambled backward, his reign of a thousand years of absolute, unquestioned dogma ending in a pathetic, terrified crawl up the stone steps. “Stay back, abomination!” he shrieked, his voice cracking. “Devil’s Bride!”

Akari didn’t answer. Her face was a cold, calm mask of judgment. She picked up the silver dagger, its handle cool and solid in her bound hands. She followed him up the stairs, her steps slow, steady, and deliberate. He reached the top of the tower, a small, circular chamber with an open archway looking out over the burning, besieged city. There was nowhere left to run. He turned to face her, his back pressed against the open air, the wind whipping his fine, white robes around his trembling legs. “The Most High will strike you down for this!”

“He can get in line,” Akari said, her voice a dead, cold whisper in the tongue of Eden. It was not a heroic slaying. It was not an act of rage. It was a quiet, grim necessity. A final, absolute act of purification for a man whose light had been the darkest lie of all.

Far below, the main gates of the Citadel of Zion, which had stood for ten thousand years, exploded inward in a shower of golden splinters and shattered stone. The full army of the Dominion of the Damned, a tide of black iron and shadow, poured into the city’s outer sanctums. Azazel and Lilith were at their head, their roars of triumph joining the chorus of a thousand demonic war cries. The full-scale invasion of Zion had begun.

In the devastated public square, Ren stood over the broken form of General Gideon. He had shattered the General's sword and his faith in a single, contemptuous blow. He turned, his gaze locked on the golden doors of the High Temple, the path Malachi had taken. He was about to pursue.

And then, a colossal pillar of pure, blinding Brilliant Light descended from the heavens.

It struck the center of the square with a silent, concussive force that cracked the marble for a hundred feet in every direction, the power so immense, so absolute, it forced even Ren, in his Second Form, to raise a hand to shield his helmeted face. It was a raw, unfiltered manifestation of The Most High, a power that made Akari’s own feel like a candle to a supernova. The light faded, revealing a new figure standing in the crater. He was terrifyingly beautiful, his form that of a perfect man, but his skin seemed to be cast from polished sunlight, and his eyes were burning white flames. Two pairs of immense wings, made not of feather but of pure, white, celestial fire, blazed from his back, casting a warm, golden glow over the scene of carnage. In his hand, he held a sword that looked to be forged from a captured, solidified sunbeam. This was no mere soldier. This was an Archangel.

From the base of the pillar where he had been thrown, General Gideon, barely conscious, stirred. He pushed himself up on one arm, blood trickling from his lips, and looked upon the celestial being with eyes filled not with fear, but with a final, desperate surge of rapturous, unwavering faith. “Archangel… Michael,” he rasped, a broken, triumphant whisper that was half prayer, half exultation. “The Most High… did not abandon us.”

The words, a final, defiant declaration of faith from the man who embodied Zion’s martial pride, were an annoying, irrelevant buzz in the roaring silence of Ren's singular focus. He had seen what that faith did to children. He had just learned Akari was to be executed in its name. Without turning, his helmeted gaze still locked on the golden doors of the High Temple, Ren lifted a single, armored finger. The shadow cast by the broken pillar near Gideon writhed, thickened, and became a tangible, grasping claw of pure darkness. It wrapped around a massive, shattered slab of marble from the edge of the crater Ren had created, lifting the tons of stone into the air as if it weighed nothing. Then, with a casual flick of Ren’s finger, the shadow slammed the slab down onto the General. The sound was a sickening, wet crunch of stone on armor and bone, and then silence. Gideon was gone, buried and broken, his final prayer silenced.

The Archangel’s flaming eyes surveyed the scene with a cold, divine detachment: the unconscious civilians, the wounded knights, the now definitively defeated General, and the desecrated, cracked marble of the holy square. His gaze finally settled on the lone, black figure of the King of the Void.

“Abomination,” Michael’s voice was not a sound, but a perfect, multi-tonal chord that vibrated in Ren's very soul. “You have defiled the holy mountain. You have broken the Great Seal. You have struck down my General. You have trespassed upon the sacred ground of The Most High.”

Ren said nothing. He simply rose to his full, terrifying height, his own Void power swirling around him, a cloak of silent, devouring darkness, the two-bladed wings of his armor spreading in a gesture of silent, absolute defiance.

“Your existence is a blasphemy,” the Archangel declared, raising his sword of light, its brilliance intensifying. “By the will of The Unspoken Name, your reign and your life, end now.”

Michael moved. He did not run; he simply ceased to be in one place and appeared in another, crossing the fifty feet that separated them in an instant that was faster than thought. He was in front of Ren, his sun-forged blade descending in a flawless, beautiful, and unstoppable arc. Ren barely had time to bring his own arm up, the Void hardening into a desperate, makeshift shield around his gauntlet. The impact was a deafening, silent explosion of light and shadow, a clash of creation and unmaking. But the Archangel’s power was on another level, pure and absolute. The holy blade sliced through Ren's hardened Void shield as if it were smoke, through the thick, supernaturally durable plate of his armor as if it were paper, and deep into his side.

A searing, holy fire, the absolute antithesis of everything he was, flooded his body. It didn’t just cut; it purified, it unmade. Ren cried out, a raw, guttural sound of pure, soul-shattering agony, as he was thrown back, crashing into the base of a shattered pillar with enough force to crack the stone. He staggered to his feet, his hand clutching the deep, glowing wound in his side. Black smoke and golden light sizzled from the gash in his armor. It was a wound that could not be healed, a fatal blow from a divine weapon. He could feel his life force, already so fragile from the ritual, now draining away at a terrifying, unstoppable rate. But he did not fall. He looked up, his gaze locking with the Archangel’s burning, pitiless eyes. He thought of Akari, somewhere in that burning city, alone and in the hands of a monster. He would not die here. Not yet. His sheer, desperate, and loving will was the only thing left holding him together.