User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater ∂: Those Who Change History, final chapter

The atmosphere in the destroyed planning room was tense, impossibly so. In the center of the room stood the Orochi, straight out of myth, with the Oichi’s fresh-spilled blood dripping down its body.

Standing across from it was Oda Nobunaga, rage suffusing his body as he drew out the full powers of his sword. The air around him was rapidly dropping in temperature, the air itself beginning to freeze independent of Nobunaga’s will as small ice crystals began to form in the air and Nobunaga’s breath itself began to freeze.

Nobunaga himself was panting, not with exhaustion but with pure, unbridled rage. The atmosphere around him seemed to pulsate with that same feeling, an ominous, malefic aura that seemed to distort reality itself.

As the Orochi stood, assuming a stance of battle with Oichi’s blood steadily covering more and more of its body, it began to change. Little by little, the its majestic golden fur became stained with a deep, deep crimson, an aura of gold and crimson flames emanating from its body. The atmosphere began to rumble as the newly-awoken Crimson Orochi took a low stance, discarding Oichi’s lifeless body as it raised its arms on high.

Both sides were poised to strike down the other in a single instant. The Crimson Orochi prepared to fire a blast of golden flame—

—but Nobunaga was not about to afford it that luxury.

Before the Crimson Orochi could strike, Nobunaga dropped low to the ground, so low that those present anticipated a faceplant — but rather than slam into the ground, Nobunaga used his momentum to propel himself forward, closing the distance between him and the Crimson Orochi faster than anyone could process. With his sword arm held across his torso, he used his forward momentum to slash forward and upward, scarring the Crimson Orochi’s face and impaling its head with a massive spike of ice, immobilizing it.

Nobunaga grinned. “Not so tough now, are you?!”  He turned to face the Crimson Orochi and crossed his arms in front of him, using his left hand as a fulcrum to push his right arm outwards and deliver a devastating horizontal slash to the Crimson Orochi.

But Nobunaga wasn’t done. Planting his sword in the ground, he created a platform of ice below his feet that shot upwards, propelling Nobunaga into the air. From above the Crimson Orochi, he readied his sword beside his head and thrust downward, generating a massive pointed column of ice that he drove directly into the Crimson Orochi, landing as he fell on top of the spike’s flat top side.

“How’s that, you monster?!”  Nobunaga, still enraged, began to stomp on the top of the spike, driving it further and further into the ground and causing the Crimson Orochi to writhe in pain.

Mitsuhide, watching from the edge of the room, was shocked. “I knew Nobunaga was powerful, but I was not expecting this level of… overwhelming force…” exclaimed Mitsuhide, his voice shaking both from the room’s ambient temperature and from witnessing this awe-inspiring display of power.

“His rage fuels him,” responded Hideyoshi. “The God Arc draws power from his determination and willpower, which have been amplified tremendously by his rage. Right now, milord Nobunaga might be the single strongest human alive! But still… something’s not right. The awakened Orochi foretold in the Kojiki shouldn’t have been this—”

A sudden realization came over Hideyoshi.

“MILORD!” he called out. “Defend yourself! A counterattack is coming!”

Nobunaga took notice of Hideyoshi’s monitions — but at that instant, the Crimson Orochi roared a mighty roar, shattering the ice that impaled its body. Nobunaga landed on the ground at the Crimson Orochi’s side as the beast let loose with a mighty pillar of crimson and golden flame that erupted upwards and outwards, blasting through the ceiling of the planning room and leaving a hole through several more floors above.

As the flames subsided, the outline of a human figure could be seen amidst the smoke and fire. It was Nobunaga, who had shielded himself against the flames at the last possible moment with a multi-layer wall of ice. Shattering the wall, Nobunaga once more braced himself, raising his sword aloft and swinging it at an angle. At his command, countless ice spikes materialized in the air around the Crimson Orochi and, at a further command from Nobunaga, converged on their target simultaneously —

— but in a motion almost too fast to see, the Crimson Orochi moved for the first time, dodging out of the way of the hail of spikes and spinning in midair as it extended a seven-branched blade from one of its arms, slashing at Nobunaga as it spun. Nobunaga, however, was on top of his game, and, transferring his sword to his left hand in reverse and tossing it upwards behind his back, caught it in his right hand and blocked the Crimson Orochi’s strike with an impact that rang out across the destroyed planning room.

“I thought I told you,” exclaimed Nobunaga, his breath clearly visible in the sub-zero temperatures, “I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN!!”  Without moving, and while still engaging the Crimson Orochi’s blade, Nobunaga willed his God Arc to action, extending a massive blade of ice from the steel of the sword itself. He released his left hand from the flat of the blade behind him and spun around to face the Crimson Orochi, gripping the hilt with both hands and, with all his might, swinging his blade upwards —

And, before the eyes of all those present, the Crimson Orochi’s left-most head separated cleanly from its body, dropping to the ground in a spray of blood. Nobunaga had finally landed a clean hit.

“Not so tough now, are you, you maleficent beast?! And I’m only just getting started!”  Nobunaga cried out and removed his left hand from his God Arc’s hilt, taking with it a fragment of ice which lengthened and sharpened itself into a second blade. Nobunaga now wielded a blade in each hand as he assumed a low stance, his blades at the ready.

Kicking himself off the ground into the air with another ice pillar, Nobunaga threw himself into a forward roll and used his centrifugal force to fuel a further strike, cleaving into the Crimson Orochi like a spinning saw blade and sending more blood spraying into the air around him which promptly froze into crimson spikes.

By this point, Nobunaga was beginning to show signs of fatigue, but so was the Crimson Orochi. Mitsuhide, seeing this, made a move to unsheathe his blade — but Nobunaga held up his hand as if to say “Leave this one to me.”  If there was one thing Mitsuhide had in abundance, it was trust in and loyalty to Nobunaga, and that wasn’t about to change. Besides, this was a battle that Nobunaga needed to fight alone.

Raising his sword, blade pointed downwards, Nobunaga gripped the hilt with both hands and slammed the blade into the ground, sending multiple trails of ice traveling across the floor of the planning room and converging on the Crimson Orochi, trapping its legs and binding it in place.

“I HAVE YOU NOW!” came Nobunaga’s yell as he readied multiple midair ice spikes pointing directly at the Crimson Orochi’s head. “There shall be no escape!!”

With those words, Nobunaga began his final assault. As he thrust again and again, waves upon waves of ice spikes soared through the air and sunk themselves into the Crimson Orochi, rendering the beast into nothing more than a red and black pincushion. Over and over, over a period of seconds that seemed to stretch on into minutes, the Crimson Orochi was pounded again and again by Nobunaga’s relentless assault until the last of its strength had left its body and it could no longer move.

The sight that lay before those present was a definitive reversal of what had been not an hour ago. Nobunaga stood proud before the quivering Crimson Orochi, its body trembling as blood leaked from its many ice-inflicted wounds.

“You…” Nobunaga panted. “You murdered Oichi… my sister, the one beacon of light in my warrior’s existence. So this—”  Nobunaga stabbed his God Arc directly through the Crimson Orochi’s head. “—is for Oichi!”  The beast cried out in pain, attempting to writhe against Nobunaga’s blade but finding itself unable to do so because of the innumerable ice spikes piercing its body.

“And furthermore,” Nobunaga continued, withdrawing his blade, “you had the nerve, the gall, to destroy my castle, the base from which I would unify all of Japan… so this—”  Nobunaga once more stabbed the Crimson Orochi in the head, this time from the front, between its eyes.. “—is for getting in the way of my ambition!”

Withdrawing his blade one more time, Nobunaga held it pointed directly at the now near-dead Crimson Orochi. “And finally… you dared raise your hand against me, Oda Nobunaga. You fought me to a near-standstill, and for that, I admire you and respect you as a warrior… however, you still committed the grievous crime of attempting to strike me down, and for that, I give you my final strike. This—”

With one final motion, Nobunaga raised his sword above him, held it in a reverse grip, and brought it striking down, impaling the Crimson Orochi’s head from the top and silencing its cries with a single decisive blow.

“This… IS FOR ME!!!”

And with that, all was silent. The greatest threat the world had ever known had been defeated, and Nobunaga’s struggles were at an end.

...Or were they?

“Milord,” Mitsuhide called out, “what will you do now that the beast has been slain? Will you attempt to rebuild Kiyosu Castle? Surely you cannot intend on—”

Nobunaga turned back towards Mitsuhide, a wicked grin across his lips.

“Oh, but I can, Mitsuhide. For you see, as of now, the final obstacle to my total unification of Japan has been eradicated by my own hands! Now, there is nothing to stop me from accomplishing my final, ultimate goal!”

Mitsuhide could only watch in horror as Nobunaga willed his God Arc into its predatory form, devouring the Crimson Orochi’s fallen body and taking it in.

The world had been saved… but at what cost…?

-

And with that, our story comes to an end. From here, Nobunaga would go onto wage a massive campaign all across Japan, bringing every province and local daimyō under his control. Even his former sworn ally, Mitsuhide, cut his ties with Nobunaga, unable to abide the numerous inhumane acts committed by his former sworn friend and brother. Hideyoshi, his contract completed, went his own separate way from his former contractor, likely returning to Kamigui headquarters to await his next assignment.

As for what happened next…?

-

“Are you certain about this, milord?”

Behind Akechi Mitsuhide stood a number of his most trusted generals, former vassals of Nobunaga who swore their fealty to Mitsuhide after witnessing Nobunaga’s many atrocities committed in the name of unifying Japan.

And now, here they stood at the gates of Honnō-ji temple, preparing for one final assault on Nobunaga’s last stronghold in order to end his ambitions once and for all.

“I am,” came Mitsuhide’s reply. “As Nobunaga’s… as his friend and sworn brother, it is my duty to put an end to him by my own hands. I cannot allow his actions to continue any further.”

With those words, Mitsuhide raised his blade on high, a familiar blade that sparkled with countless stars of the night sky and crackled with lightning.

“Forgive me, my friend…!”

Mitsuhide brought his sword down, and with it, a colossal bolt of lightning streaked down the sky and crashed down on Honnō-ji, igniting it at once and sending flames spreading across it within seconds.

One of Mitsuhide’s generals spoke up. “Will that be all, milord?”

“No…” responded Mitsuhide, his voice sullen. “I must enter the conflagration myself. Nobunaga must… nay, Nobunaga SHALL meet his end at the end of my blade!”

And with that, Mitsuhide steeled himself and stepped forward, into the blaze and towards a decisive conclusion…

-

THE END