Angels, Believers

{I absolutely didn't want to take even longer than the now 3 day gaps I've been releasing in, but yesterday something came up and I had to work three hours overtime.}

{Doing a bit of a flashback here}

Yuriy and Sarah Rockbell were hated by their own nation's upper stratum and loved by the common folk of the allies and the enemies alike. Men of Amestris, wounded by warriors of Ishval would walk into a tent and find Ishvalans being tended to alongside their own. Confusion at how such a tent could survive without becoming another small warzone abounded, but it wouldn't be long before they too joined the harmonious atmosphere.

A deep and earnest voice would echo lightly but firmly without disturbing anyone. It chided without being hurtful, it battled mindless thoughts with reason and likened each and every patient to another, it mustered honor from men who wished they could've used it before.

A smooth and soothing voice intoned patiently and most patients couldn't help but listen intently. It helped them ignore their pain, it garnered patience when they had thought they had lost it, it believed in them and brought stark contrast to a war they now had distaste with.

Amestrian men who had survived after going through the angels' clinic had an astonishingly high resignment rate, and Ishvalans who went through had an astonishingly high survival rate when they exited through the back and left the country. Wrath and his generals couldn't help but notice how this home field clinic became a thorn in their side.

Wrath had indeed sent a man, an Alchemist, to raze the clinic tent to the ground and ensure no survivors or witnesses were left. In the pursuit Wrath was truly sent here for, their lives were better spent toward soaking the earth and not being granted new amnesty.

The Alchemist would have been Solf himself, had he not died due to an unfortunate choking accident some years prior, and even Solf would have arrived late to a gruesome scene that the escaped and reborn 'Scar' had left.

"Honey, do we have any more morphine?" Sarah, the melodious voice of the clinic, asked her husband. Yuriy merely shook his head, causing Sarah to crease her brows and look back towards the Ishvalan who was tossing and turning with a delirious and sweaty fever while his hands stretched towards his missing leg.

'If only I had listened to Yuri's side more often. His wound-closing Alkahestric circles are doing wonders, but my wife and I can't even pull more than five of those off in a day.'

A flash of sepia light had brushed against Yuriy's face and he looked at the opening of the tent that cast it with curiosity. Another military visitor, this time a State Alchemist who came alone and uninjured. This wasn't the first time military came to look around and cast snide and cold stares.

He had a bad feeling about this and his patients weren't in critical condition at the moment so he approached. "What do you need, sir? Do you have any injured?" Sarah too looked up for a second but let her husband handle it while keeping an ear open.

"They were right, you guys really are treating those sand rats," The Alchemist groaned with a sneer in his teeth under a pair of sunglasses. "Have you no shame, working against your own military? Reversing our results?!"

Yuriy clenched his fist close to his pants and stood taller and wider than the Alchemist. "Sir, if you have no injured I suggest you leave the premises."

"I would worry about yourself first if I were you. By order of the Fuhrer, submit quietly and your deaths will be quick!" The Alchemist raised his hands, carved with rather ordinary stone-type circles which could bury whole areas in shifted rubble, and the palms they were on started to glow.

Yuriy's pupils dilated so fast they burned and he jumped forward in a bid to tackle the Alchemist before he could hurt his wife or anyone here. The Alchemist canceled the transmutation and swung one arm into Yuriy's solar plexus, causing his momentum to be stifled before the man threw another punch at Yuriy's jaw and sent him tumbling sideways.

"YURIY!"

"Nice try, string bean," He stepped on the back of Yuriy's hand, stopping him from getting up while he cocked a smirk. Sarah was charging over while the rest of the stabilized patients were groaning or murmuring with a tinge of fear. Of course something this good wouldn't last long out here.

"Second try's the charm!" Again, his palms lit up and he threw his arms down toward the ground. Sarah had barely reached Yuriy to try and get him off her husband, but he was faster. The people about to be caught in an unknown disaster flinched or closed their eyes while the doctor couple sought each other, but a wave of air passed through all of them.

The Alchemist's hands thudded to the floor without doing a single thing, and he couldn't help but glare in confusion just as pain assaulted him.

"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

The alchemist backpedaled while his eyes looked like they would pop out of his sockets, his veins were ready to burst with tension while steam was evaporating from his now sizzling red skin. He couldn't figure out where to put his hands, while his fingers flexed in odd directions and broke in odd angles from the sheer stress of pain.

Yuriy and Sarah were frowning at the horrid display as they got up, looking outside the tent where the man had gone. Three great bells had rung out into the air from an indiscernible direction.

The sizzling accelerated and the screaming didn't let up, the man had started getting shorter... no, his legs were melting into the floor and spreading into a layer of viscous red goo while Yuriy shut his wife's eyes and ears as best he could. Shouts from inside the tent asking what the hell was going on erupted, but Yuriy didn't answer. But then more exclamations came and the Ishvalans started disappearing.

"He vanished! He vanished!"

"My wound is healing!"

"MY LEG IS BACK!!!"

Yuriy couldn't figure out which expression to keep, he brought his wife further back into the tent as the man seemed to be mostly melted and done for, only to find his patients regenerating to perfect health and then vanishing in a blue puff of soft light!

"What the hell is going on??!!!" Yuriy shouted to nobody. The Amestrians were being healed as well, but they weren't being taken away! What is going on?!

The last Ishvalan was taken in seconds and silence descended. The two doctors walked outside and found a lone figure floating in the air and their jaws hung while their blond hair flew in the wind. The Amestrian soldiers were unsettled, coming out of their tents and approaching the same scene they did. No one spoke. Their camp was quite a ways from the battlefield, but they could still hear the sounds of rioting and the cries of men. Soldiers were running from the fields and some started to melt the same way the alchemist did before they toppled over and joined the earth, then evaporated to the sky.

The floating man tilted his head toward their little camp and smiled lightly before flicking his hands. Yuri was many miles away from them but they somehow still saw his face perfectly. The rest of the recent patients flinched and started a mad dash away from the battlefield. But the doctors stood still.

"Son of a bitch..." Yuriy muttered like a whisper.

"...It can't b- *poof*" Sarah lightly intoned but was cut off as the scenery before them changed.

The sounds of war and the sights of ruin and deprivation were replaced, their ears adjusted and caught only a gentle breeze while their eyes found green fields and blue skies. A very familiar house was in front of them, and their numb brains wouldn't register that the suitcases with all their belongings were somehow in their hands, letting them fall to the ground.

Sarah's legs went limp and she kneeled in the dirt road before letting tears of relief silently roll down her somehow dust-free cheeks. Yuriy didn't take the time to gather himself and instead kneeled as well and let Sarah lean on his chest.

As if on some mystical cue, the door of their house opened and a small blonde girl with a bob cut opened the door to let a healthy black and white dog out for a walk. It took barely a moment for their daughter to lock eyes on them while the dog decided to charge and tackle them.

"MOM! DAD!" Winry's little legs sprouted wings and she tripped her way down the stairs as she barreled into them. The couple was quickly brought back to reality at the sight of their daughter, only they knew how lucky this reunion was and held onto it like it would slip away at any moment.

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{Ever get a notification in the middle of the night when you forgot your phone was on ringtone? It turned my balls on vibrate while they tried to recede back into my bladder}

Yuri took a deep breath and opened his eyes, a two-pronged deluge of vitality gushed into him and he raised his chin towards the sky to symbolically take it in.

'I need to train to grow stronger, but having a dense amount of lifeforce before then instead of just as a result will make that process easier and my attacks will always be more powerful than I am. The spiritual power is the same, my ESP range and efficiency with everything I cast or transmute will be stronger and easier. Hell, I can pull a regular person's soul out without my domain like this.'

Yuri opened his Status for the first time in a while and wasn't ultimately surprised until he reached the end.

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Status: Yuri Nightingale

Titles: Akashic Archivist, Ignorant Man

Race: Arcane Spirit

Power: 520

Speed: 520

Perception: 2,400

Mana: 6,400

Stamina: 4,900

Record Points: 104,020

Skills: Record Domain, Arcane Mana Manipulation, Minor Elemental Manipulation, Shroud of the Hunter, Lightbringer, Shadowkeeper, Doormaster, Accelerated Processing, Accelerated Adaptation, Adept of Fate, Centered.

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'Hm? Still not turning notifications on, but I should check my status more often. Introduce Centered.'

[Centered: Weight of the soul is anchored by the vessel, weakness of the flesh is made whole with the spirit. Your vessel, cast in a shell of pure mana, regenerates at insane speeds and cannot be truly damaged without attacking both the soul and the flesh at once to dislodge the arcane form. In times of stress, Lifeforce and Spirit Energy may be converted to one another at the cost of their maximum capacity.]

'I'm even more invincible than I was. Tonilia's battery idea will play a huge role in helping me supersede the maximum capacity cost of using my own lifeforce or spirit power to convert between each other. Does this have anything to do with those two fish in my soul? Anyway, the final goal of this skill seems to be the union of the two energies. If the lines between them can be blurred, that would make me... unkillable? Perhaps the day my lifeforce, mana, and spirit energy are all one is the day I can truly call myself a god.'

As if on cue, a voice echoed lightly in his head like a whisper. It didn't feel like an invasion, more like a transmission, but his expression certainly took the same offense to it.

"Yuri? What's wrong?" Not much time had passed from the creation of the artifact to Yuri exiting his soul, seconds even, and Yuri frowning like this didn't bode well. "I thought the experiment was a success?" Toni looked at him with a concerned gaze and held his face.

"It was... sorry, I'm hearing a voice in my head. It slipped past me without much effort, but I think I know what it is now."

Toni knew full well how dangerous telepathy could be, but they were in Avalon. How was that possible in a Record where Yuri was god?

'Our Lord Nightingale, blessings be upon you on this eve of the Day of Salvation. Words fail me to express the gratitude that wells within me, for this new day and this new life that you have granted. But fret not, Lord Nightingale, with your blessing our people will never forget the thankfulness which saw every challenge as an opportunity and with relish in our daily victories. Our Lord Nightingale, I pray you show me your will in the power which I have been granted, that I may guide my people with a firm and unwavering hand in your name.'

Prayer. The Law of Faith was one of the few Laws which came into existence after the act of creation, and it created as many minor gods through the belief of mortals as it destroyed them when it waned. Mortals who garnered a following of avid believers arose to become those very gods and lasted even after their faith waned by being sublimated in more than just those who believed in them. Faith has created monsters from nothing, altered them as the narrative changed, and cast them aside as it left. And with Yuri, it was a new beginning.

"Faith... wait, Scar isn't the first person to liken me to their god, why is Scar my first believer?" Yuri thought for a moment before he snapped his fingers. "He's the first person to pray to me and not another god! But did he abandon Ishvala or does he think Ishvala is actually now me?"

Unbeknownst to him, Scar did try praying to Ishvala but his heart was leaning towards Yuri's words. That here, he was the only god. He decided to think of them as one and the same, using the name he was given and leaning towards the figure who gave results instead of silence as anyone would.

"So what's Faith about?" Toni let a sigh escape as he didn't seem harmed.

"I have a believer, which means his image of me will give me power according to the amount of Faith he has for me and the image he has of me. Normally, garnering Faith comes at the risk of becoming more like the person your believers perceive you as in exchange for the power and stability it grants, buuuuut..."

"But you have a workaround?" Toni cocked an amused smirk. Yuri smirked right back.

"Showing yourself as genuinely as you can is a good way to avoid this, your outstanding traits are merely amplified and you can gain a serious boost in things like durability since people perceive gods as invincible and untouchable. Manipulating the image you allow your followers to spread is another easy way. But I can ignore the need for it entirely."

Toni snorted. "[Ignorant Man] means you can take the benefits without being altered at all, right? Fuckin' cheater!"

"Hahaha! Even without it, I wouldn't be the Akashic Assimilator if I couldn't assimilate the intent of a believer without choking on the implications. But if that ever ends up hurting us anyway I should make a way to have the world's populace forget us to reset."

"I can definitely help with that. You can cut those voices out, right? Too many believers would start to hurt if not."

"Yeah, I mean the first one was a shock but they can be diluted into whatever strength and denomination I want to like a very weak telepathic link that can be ignored. I can even use it to send things through, which in Avalon would mean-"

"You can garner some actual faith by rewarding the behavior of certain followers. Good people are rewarded, your image leans that way. In Avalon you can reward however much you want and strengthen your own Faith, if it spreads your influence over the population does too!"

Yuri laughed lightly. "Not that I would ever use it so heavy handedly, but yes I would like to make sure those who prescribe to me correctly are kept happy."

"If I had the patience to handle all those lost sheep I would consider it too."

"I don't doubt you'll get powers like that which won't be inferior." {Wink wink} "Now, let's see how my first believer is doing."