Demiurge Isn't My Name

'I should not have done that; I can feel my insides aching.'

'Unfortunately, even something as simple as dodging Marshall's attack required more spiritual power than I currently possess. I can feel that the backlash will be quite painful. There's a bitter burning warmth in my throat and nose- must be the blood trying to gush out.'

'I must keep this in until I get inside. My words won't bear enough weight if I don't. I need to keep this in...'

'Oh... That feels good... Wait... Is it coming from the sword? It's helping me suppress the injuries- even if only for a little bit. If it keeps this up, I may eventually be able to stave them off on my own.'

'So, the spirit within the sword must have constantly been trying to reach out to me... It's just that my own spirit is far too weak to connect with it- to even hear its voice.'

'How pitiful...'

|Gilgamesh's Thoughts As He Speaks To The Siblings|

After dinner, Marshall and Sylvia went to the living room and fell asleep. Gilgamesh and Ishtar retreated to their room, and lay in bed watching TV. Ishtar wasn't at all tired, and was far more engrossed in the show than Gilgamesh was.

He was sitting on the bed, legs crossed, with the Demiurge Blade laid atop them. With a hand placed on the blade, Gilgamesh closed his eyes and adjusted his breathing in order to begin meditating. Ishtar recognized his resolve, and switched the TV off before leaving the room.

In the state he was now in, Gilgamesh was completely absent of the fact that she had left. It was not that he did not notice she left; he was entirely unaware that he had noticed it.

It was the mystifying effect of this form of meditation that enabled this. If one's mind was too weak, they would succumb to the effect and be lost in their own subconscious, drifting in a spiritual form.

Gilgamesh was currently doing just that. With a mental foundation as solid as his own, he could allow himself to be lost in meditation without worry; at the drop of a hat, he could completely recover his mind.

Gilgamesh floated in the grey space of his subconscious and felt all manner of things: his aching limbs, the pain of his organs, the eerie stillness of his heart-- he could even feel the nigh-lifeless state of his blood.

"I've completely localized my perception. I wasn't able to do this before since my spirit was far too vast, but now I need to use all of it in order to perform this simple introspection. Perhaps its a blessing in the shape of a curse..."

Gilgamesh's spirit sat and waited in that empty grey space. No sound was heard-- nothing existed.

As he waited and waited, a soft buzz reached his spiritual ears through a faint wave of sound. It stretched across the entire space in a pulsating cry, reaching out and touching him almost like a curious poke.

When Gilgamesh heard that buzz, and felt the pulse, he tried his utmost to respond with a pulse of his own. With as much of his spiritual power that he could muster, without harming himself, Gilgamesh sent out his own, weak response.

Following that, a silence returned that lasted for almost an hour. Gilgamesh felt himself grow bored, and briefly questioned it. He had been able to sit in silent meditation for days, waiting for memories to come back to him.

He found it odd that he could get bored so quickly, but that was all-- he just thought it was odd, and didn't waste too much of his focus thinking about it.

After two hours, he felt his spirit begin to waver; his physical body was likely regurgitating blood or having a nosebleed. Knowing this, he sighed and decided to bet everything on one final response. He summoned the waning strength of his spirit and sent out another message.

"There. If that doesn't work, then I can only give up for now."

Before Gilgamesh could even start waiting for a response, several buzzes reached his ears- each immensely more powerful than the first. They were so powerful that they distorted the space of his subconscious mind-- which was a representation of his current mental fortitude.

Those buzzes filled his ears until he could hear nothing else, and his physical ears started bleeding from the pressure they were experiencing.

That noise kept reverberating in his mind, and the pulses continued to grow stronger and stronger. Worried that his mind would suffer damage, and with no other choice, Gilgamesh had to force himself to adjust to the noise. The buzzing itself started to fade instantly, but the powerful pulses were not abated.

The volume of the sound remained the same, but the quality of the sound just got better and better. What started off as a clear-cut buzz was now a burst of semi-gibberish covered with static, then that itself became even clearer.

Gilgamesh's physical self was covered in blood at this point, but that was not because he was overdrawing his spirit. It was the exact opposite.

His spirit was being forced to grow in order to accommodate those sounds. The more he adjusted to it, the more his spirit would grow and the clearer the message would get. Though this was a painful way of doing it, it would have helpful effects in the short term.

In this instance, it was the perfect way for Gilgamesh to start communicating with the spirit within the Demiurge Blade.

Amidst the consistent echoes that Gilgamesh was doing his best to decipher, one clear message finally came through:

"Do you hear me, Demigod?"

The initial shock of finally hearing that voice almost caused Gilgamesh to wake from his meditation. He was aware that he was making progress, but he had never expected to hear the voice this clearly so soon.

Suppressing his amazement, Gilgamesh once again sent out a message.

"I hear you."

Having been awaiting confirmation all this time, once the sword heard Gilgamesh's words, it ceased its bombardment. Now that it was sure its voice was being heard, the sword no longer needed to batter Gilgamesh's brain with those mind-numbing messages.

"Finally. I do apologize for the damage; that was a last resort."

Gilgamesh could clearly hear a childish, feminine voice within his subconscious space. It was now firmly grasping onto his mind, and not allowing him to detach from it. His exhausted spirit was now being forced to maintain one exact frequency.

Of course, Gilgamesh had no desire to resist, so he was essentially allowing this to happen. If he did resist, then his spirit would have been damaged instead.

"You are the Demiurge Blade?" He asked this probingly, wanting to be sure of who he was speaking to.

"Ugh! Don't call me-- That's not my name! Agh!"

Hearing the mixture of annoyance and disgust, Gilgamesh eased and went silent.

"I don't understand why everyone keeps calling me that! What, just because some old hermit found me and decided to name me after himself I'm supposed to just accept that!?"

"NO! I have my pride, and I will not stand for it!"

Gilgamesh's spiritual eyes blinked, "Mhm..."

"So you know what I did? Every time someone looked at me and called me by that horrible name, I shut my spirit off from them completely-- 'cause they don't deserve me! To them, I became nothing but a somewhat special sword, and that's the way I chose to remain until someone finally appreciated me for what I am."

"That when you came along."

Gilgamesh tilted his head, "Me?"

"That's right. Although you did annoy me when you took charge of my body without my permission, the situation called for such haste. I can forgive you for mistakenly calling me by the wrong name, since you appreciated me for being me, and not because that god called me the 'Demiurge Blade.' Thanks for that."

Somewhat understanding where the sword was coming from, Gilgamesh nodded, "No need for thanks; without you I may not have survived as long as I did."

"Oh please! I felt your spirit explode. I know just how powerful you were back then-- you didn't need me. Although, I will say that in your current state, needing me is a bit of an understatement."

Gilgamesh chuckled, "I hear that."

"Ha!"

After recounting a few minor details of his life, Gilgamesh posed the question that had been on his mind for quite some time.

"So, if you aren't the Demiurge Blade, what is your true name?"

There was a pause in the sword's voice that lingered for just a few seconds. Still, in that short space of time, Gilgamesh could feel the tumult of its emotion.

"It has been too long... Too long since someone asked me that... I guess I'm not all bitter after all."

The sword's voice was far softer now, and had broken a couple of times as it tried to speak.

"The day I was imbued into the forge that crafted my physical body, was also the day that I died. Isn't that funny?"

Gilgamesh wanted to speak up, but he did not. He felt a melancholic aura coming from the sword's spirit now, and he did not think now was the time to annoy it with questions.

"By the power of ancient magic, my spirit was blessed with endlessness, and placed into an enchanted sword. It has been so long since then that I had forgotten what my life was like before. I have not pondered upon my purpose for... how long has it even been?"

"I served that purpose, and my life became shrouded in darkness. That darkness became my home; I forgot myself in it. When I was finally freed of that darkness, it was by a face that I did not recognize. A god called Demiurge made me his own, but my spirit urged me to reject him."

"My physical body, the sword itself, is something made by the hand of the Old Power. It alone has the potential to rend the very aspects that our reality consists of. If one's spirit is strong-- I remember the words as I think on them-- it is most bizarre."

Gilgamesh swallowed. Hard. The very second he heard mention of the Old Power, he felt a powerful surge that disrupted his subconscious space. Much like how the sword's voice had wrought havoc, something else was beginning to wreak havoc in his subconscious.

"What is that?" The sword asked.

When Gilgamesh focused on it, he realized what was happening.

A memory was slipping out from under the seal, and fighting its way back into his mind. Not wanting it to disrupt his connection with the sword, he hurried to suppress it.

"I'll help," the sword jumped in to bolster Gilgamesh's concentration and aid in him temporarily suppressing his remembrance.

"That was a memory returning to me."

"Oh. Another one of those, huh?"

"Please, continue," Gilgamesh reminded the sword of what it had been explaining to him, and it only then remembered what it had been doing prior to the interruption.

"There isn't really much else to tell about my life after the darkness. I developed a deep hatred for that god, Demiurge, and ended up feeling instinctual resentment toward the name he deigned to give me. No matter which god it was, the moment they used that name to refer to me, I became averse to ever allowing them to tap into my spiritual power."

"That is how it has been for a very long time- passing from god to god until they died."

Gilgamesh sighed, "That seems a boring life. Luckily, you landed in my hands; you will never be bored again."

There was a chuckle that came from the sword, and Gilgamesh returned in kind.

"You still haven't told me what I should call you from now on."

The sword mocked itself with a laugh, "How foolish of me. I was taken so far aback by your question that I began to reminisce instead of answering."

"Heh," Gilgamesh shook his head, "I know the feeling."

"I do not recall what I was called before I came to exist as this sword, but I do know what I was named once I was reborn."

Gilgamesh's spiritual body subconsciously inched closer to the source of the voice. This was it, the moment he had been excitedly waiting for. Even though he had suppressed the memory, the sensation of a memory forcing its way back into his mind did not fade. He could not fight the feeling that there was something important he had forgotten-- something important about the 'Old Power.'

"As I was forged anew in this shape, the Old Power spoke:

'If spirit be strong, and fate be null, may this blade serve thee well. Take in your hands a weapon birthed of My essence. May it guide you to your final path. You are born, Samael.'

As those words were being spoken, my spirit was taking its new form. With those final words, I truly came to be."

"That is the name of the sword you now hold-- the name that belongs to me. I am not the 'Demiurge Blade.' I am Samael."