Chapter 9:

Beginning of the End Conclusion

Crossover


Enyalius placed her right hand onto the right side of her face with a huge slash wound while white particles started to come out of it and said to herself, "Tch! They got to Aesculapius!"

As the wind blew stronger, there were more Daemons that were fighting against lesser Gotts. It's easy to assume that the Gott army had finally lost after a cunning plan of invading Gehenna with a total amount of 1500 soldiers, including their five Hauptmadns (German for Captains), and the Resistance army with a total number of about only 500, including the patrolled Praesidiums (Latin for Guards) soldiers. Can you really call it a victory for the Daemons' side when a mass number of casualties were made for both sides in just a few hours?

Enyalius observed her messy surroundings and thought to herself, "Our army is also basically done for. Since we can't invade Gehenna with these numbers, we have no choice but to retreat. This is one of the worst defeats ever. And since I can't detect the first three Hauptmadns for a while now, I'll assume that they were also killed so I'm the only one left. I'll have to be prepared to get an earful from our Oberbefehlshaber (German for Commander-in-Chief) and the king when we get back." She raised her left hand and continued to think, "I guess it's time to fire the retreat sig—" The strong cold wind suddenly blew on their battlefield while Natsu's jacket hood was blown away and caused his crimson red hair to be shown by everybody and raised his right hand in mid-air to try to reach it.

Enyalius's eyes widen of shock and thought to herself, "You've got to be kidding me. Red hair and he has the power of the 'Black Death'. Don't tell me this brat is...!"

A couple of years ago, in Elsysium, Enyalius was walking back to their squad's barracks from her usual routine of patrolling around their assigned region and head towards the locker room. As she was finished in changing into her new set of clean uniform, she folded and placed the ones that were covered in sweat into the locker and locked it while she heard three female squad members who were gossiping from the other side of the lockers in front of her.

The first squad member said in a cheerful tone, " ...and there he was, slicing his foes one after the other with just a swing of his mighty longsword. God! If only I could see him in action so I could admire his might and handsomeness more from the front row VIP seat, but unfortunately, he was stationed to a different squad. Worse, he belonged to a completely different platoon from us. Well, at least I could still see him whenever we patrol around the region and during our day off."

The second squad member cleared her throat to interrupt and eye-rolled as she complained, "Ahem! Can we just... you know, talk about something else besides talking about how amazing your boyfriend is when we wouldn't even care less about that guy since he's a total stranger to us. Even if you did say he is as amazing as you said he really is, we still couldn't relate or believed that since as you said, he was stationed to a different squad and platoon completely different from us. So, please... Can. We. Talk. About. Something. More. Interesting. Than. Your. Dumb. Boyfriend. Again. Please?" She breathed heavily continuously as she finished explaining elaborately.

"Sorry", the first squad member apologized quietly.

The third squad member volunteered and explained, "Oh! I have something interesting to tell. This was a true story that actually happened a couple of decades back, during the Daemons' attempted invasion of Elysium. They only managed to arrive at Elysium's border and didn't get to invade further since they lost the battle. At least, that's what the rumors said."

"Wait, I actually heard about this rumor but what do you mean by that? What are you implying to us?", the first squad member asked.

The third member replied and continued to tell the tale as she reminisced her memories,

"I'm implying that I was actually there when that happened, but I didn't say anything about it until now. I was lucky enough to survive that brief moment of Hell in Elysium. I also remembered it vividly like it was yesterday. When every Gott at that time had thought that they got it in the bag including myself, we would soon realize that we were very wrong when a lone Daemon had started to hover in the sky ominously for a couple of minutes. We were too late when the whole battlefield was engulfed with black smoke out of the blue and disintegrated everyone indiscriminately who came in contact with it. As soon as the Daemons realized that they also caused the deaths of their comrades through that attack, the survivors retreated from that place one after the other in a blink of an eye. One of them mentioned something about that Daemon being the 'Black Death' so the Gotts who hears that begun to dub him by that name as well. From the distance away from the dangerous smoke, I got a vivid view of what the culprit looked like as he was supported by one of his comrades and flew away to retreat. The ‘Black Death’ had hair as red as the appearance of scarlet and blood both combined. I don’t know why, but I suddenly thought at that time that he looked like someone that I saw once before. I think it was from the Daemons’ Regius (Latin for Royalty) who had the exact same hair color as his, but the army who invaded us was kind of different from the usual, though. They had this vibe different from the usual Daemons that we fought, and their leaders all have unfamiliar Nigrum Sanguinem (Latin for Black Blood). They must’ve been rookies who were capable enough to be promoted immediately.”

Enyalius, who was listening to every word they said, gasped in realization as she thought to herself, “Red hair from the Regius… Don’t tell me that Daemon was related to them! Holy sh*t! What kind of monster of a child did they raise there? Are they planning to obliterate everything into nothingness?!”

In the present, Enyalius immediately held her hammer in front of her on the shoulder level using her left hand and thought to herself, "I have to kill him now or we'll be in more trouble in the future! Heilige Dornen (German for Holy Thorns)!"

Multiple white whip-like thorns came out of her hammer just like what she did with her battle against Eryl and all swiftly head towards Natsu's direction.

Raaz, who was in a considerable distance from his friends, he was shocked when he saw the enemy going to kill Natsu and screamed in panic, "Natsu, get out of there!"

"Sh*t! I lost too much Impuritas (Latin for Impurity) when healing Eryl so I don't have the strength to even stand", Natsu thought to himself as he used his own body to cover Eryl and shielded him from the inevitable attack that would surely kill them.

A loud stab was heard, and a lot of blood was spilled onto the ground. Raaz was frozen in shock while Natsu slowly rose up while wondering what was happening and looked behind him. His eyes widen and body shaking in shock as he saw Sirius having bat-like wing on his right side and a feathered wing on his left, who was standing completely still in front of him and was getting stabbed by the whip-like thorns from all over his body. Natsu was completely speechless as he witnessed the person he had first thought was his friend but was told that all of that turned out to be a complete lie just to get his trust... yet here he was, using his own body to protect Natsu from the impending doom. Natsu stammered as he tried to find the right words to say,

"Sirius! Wh-What—?"

Sirius coughed a lot of blood and weakly said in a forced smile, "It looks like I can't pull off the bad guy act, after all."

Enyalius retracted the thorns and it caused Sirius to fall down on the ground like a lifeless corpse. "So that's your choice, huh? But no matter, I can still kill that brat you're desperately trying to cov—", Enyalius said but suddenly a black slash came towards her direction in a very fast pace, and she tried to jump and dodge to the side.

Raaz, who had both of his wings out, was hovering slightly, and was in a stance where his double axe was raised in mid-air, and it was shown that he managed to cut off Enyalius's right arm from his current surprise attack. He clicked his tongue in fury and disappointment to himself that he wasn't able to finally finish his target with that last attack but only managed to deal a "slight" damage.

Enyalius's scream sounded like a monster who was in pain and screeched, "AAAAAAAGGHHH! It f*cking hurts!" She quickly fired a white orb to the sky in panic using her left hand while her right eye was closed due to the previous attack that she received from Eryl and demanded in a very loud voice, "Everyone, retreat this instant!" She then took her hammer using her left hand and brought it with her as her huge, feathered wings sprouted and flew away in total disgrace. All Gotts then followed her lead and quickly flew away from Gehenna's territory, for now.

"You're not getting away!", Raaz screamed on top of his lungs in rage as he tried to fly up and hastily chase them, but he suddenly fell on the ground, "F*ck! I lost too much Impuritas (Latin for Impurity) due to my injuries! What do you think you're doing?! Chase them down this instant!"

A Daemon, who was full of injuries, weakly replied, "We apologize, Sir Raaz. We also lost too much of our Impuritas. It took us everything just to prevent them from escaping but we failed."

Raaz could only punch the ground using his left hand in grief and helplessness, "Sh*t!"

Sirius, who was lying on the ground, lifeless, blank-eyed stared at the beautiful dawn sky as his wounds started to turn into white particles and ash. As his life started to fade away, he had reminisced his memories. He, who was still young, wore rags as his only clothing, hastily ran towards an alleyway while he was holding an apple on his right hand at such a strong grip. Behind him was an angry male vendor Gott, chasing him at a tremendous speed.

The vendor demanded, "Come back here, you trash!"

Sirius breathe heavily while he continued to run the dark and filthy alleyway. He suddenly stopped and gasped without warning, knelt down on the ground on all fours, and coughed non-stop. The vendor quickly approached Sirius and punched him right in the face using his huge right fist without hesitation in the poor lad's perspective and everything suddenly went black.

A few hours had passed, Sirius was still lying on the ground, already crouched and both of his hands were tucked into his stomach while his body was full of bruises and bleeding wounds. He slowly removed his arms from his stomach, and it turned out both of his hands were holding the same apple from earlier. He gently wiped it with his right hand to remove the dust.

Sirius thought to himself as he smiled, "After an hour of being beaten non-stop by that vendor, I finally have my first food in a while. It was totally worth it." He took a bite from the apple and tears suddenly flowed out from his eyes. He continued to munch slowly as he thought to himself, "It's delicious but... my body hurts so much..."

Another memory of himself when it was a bright and a sunny day, the guards were angrily chasing Sirius in the dark alleyways. He panted while running as he vigilantly observed his surroundings for any potential danger. Sirius passed by a wall of his wanted poster with a label of 'Brat', a huge 'Dead or Alive' caption right below his picture, and a bounty price of 100 Venly (V) (approximately $618)

The leader of the guards demanded as they were gaining on Sirius, "Just surrender, defect! Atone for your sins! In the name of the 'Kings', we command you to stop this instant!"

Sirius thought to himself as he kept on running and observing his surroundings, "I'm not a defect! I have a... I really love to say 'I have a name' to look totally cool but unfortunately, I grew up without even meeting my parents. But since the Gotts who grew up the same way as I have names, I'll assume that they didn't even bother in giving me a name. Why do I have to be always chased down by the guards and anyone else? Do I have to be chased down until the day I die?"

Sirius continued to run towards the clouds that served as their ground with a very big hole ahead of him. His back was right behind the hole while he was facing at the guards who were coming to him. He was cornered and had nowhere else to go.

Joe Gold
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