Sophia

Breathing underwater was a different feeling, A different sensation than the one of breathing air. At first, when I forced my body to inhale the water in my lungs, I felt the sensation of my lungs being filled with liquid, how suffocating it felt for an instant until I was breathing again as if I was breathing air as if I was breathing even more easily than I did with air.

My essence was truly a wonder that never stopped giving. This was a limitless power. This was a power full of endless possibilities yet I felt stuck.

I had left the gardens and was now alone in one of the baths of the room given to me. I needed to think. I needed to rest. I wanted to stop thinking about everything happening right now I couldn't control.

I watched as the water boiled around my body. The only reason why it hadn't evaporated had been because I had used my demonic energy to stop the water from doing so.

The water should have been scalding, that should have killed me or left third level burn at best felt almost cool.

I increased the temperature again with my demonic energy. I increased it again so that I could feel something else than annoyance.

I increased it and it did fucking nothing. Would I never be able to enjoy a very hot shower because of my essence? As if I wasn't already in a bad mood.

My head rose out of the water. I pushed the hair covering my face back. Wet, my hair looked darker less like freshly spilled blood and more like dark veinous blood.

I grasped softly my demonic energy. This was a shapeless infinity. Only my will was needed to guide it. 

I began to experiment. I thought about an iron-wrought hero. Weirdly, I hadn't forgotten the words.

"I am the bone of my sword," I whispered. Those words were the ones of someone who only saw himself as a weapon, as a means, a tool of happiness for others, not himself. I felt them rang true. My demonic energy dropped and by that, I meant dropped a lot as if the world was realizing the impossibility I wanted to create. Reality marble was after all personal realities and rejections of the world and its rules. My essence worked in an instant replenishing my loss and increasing my demonic energy.

 "Steel is my body and fire is my blood," I continued. I bit my tongue as I felt something sharp grow from the inside of my right eye piercing it open and making me blind in this eye. The next moment, my essence activated, rushing into my injuries, the sharp object in my eyes and other things I could feel that similar objects had done in my body were negated into nothing. My essence broke them to nothing, healed me and I knew made my skin stronger and harder.

"I have created over a thousand blades," I said knowing it hadn't been the case. I hadn't created blades that only brought death. I did it with my bare hands. I committed sin after sin, things I would probably continue to do so in the future for them, for me.

 "Unknown to Death." I knew death, true death, not the merciful one known in this reality. Sometimes, I wondered if it wouldn't have been better if I had stayed asleep. 

"Nor known to Life." But then if I had, I wouldn't have Akeno, I wouldn't have Sirzechs, I wouldn't have the family that I wished for so long.

 "Have withstood pain to create many weapons" I said almost in the end. With each word spoken, all my demonic energy was consumed before being replenished by my essence. It made me wonder. With the amount of energy I had pumped into this incantation, what would truly happen? Would I just replicate the reality marble of Archer? Would I be creating something more, something twisted or would I be creating something new?

I closed my eyes and joined my hand like in a prayer "But yet, those hands will never hold anything," I whispered. I felt a wave of something, a strange melody I could not completely hear. I felt something twist. I opened my eyes expecting to see that things had changed. They hadn't. Nothing had happened or if it had happened, I wasn't able to see what had changed. Well, I had tried.

I summoned a simple green ball of demonic energy in the air. It floated just before my eyes. I moved my hand like a marionnetist even though I knew I didn't need to.

The orb spun following the movements of my finger. This was the first step, Rotation. I didn't add more demonic energy. Instead, I closed my hand and condensed the ball until what had been the size of a basketball was now the size of a tennis ball. This was the second step.

Now for the final, slowly, I infused the fire I usurped from Kagutsuchi into the little ball. The ball of demonic energy began to change colour taking a crimson hue.

I opened my palm and as if it was an obedient slave, the ball flew to sit on my palm. With this little thing, I knew I could render city blocks into nothing. With this, I could create until destruction.

I hadn't even tried yet I wasn't strong enough. Why was I doing here? This new life, this new opportunity, why wasn't I acting to conserve it?

I only grew stronger the more I fought. Unless I directly faced something of the same or of superior strength to the Endless, I knew I would not lose even if they were stronger than me.

The only reason there even was a war was because I was too complacent. Right now, nothing stopped me from attacking an enemy pantheon from my race and fighting them consuming their essences to get stronger.

Rias Gremory, you were scared of losing everything but you could only lose when there existed another side.

The dreamers who realized their dreams were those selfish enough, and cruel enough to disregard every moral concept going against what they wished.

I had forgotten this. I had let myself sink into this dream hoping someone else would stop it from becoming a nightmare.

I rose completely from the bath. With one thought, every unwanted trace of liquid was removed from the surface of my skin. The water under me didn't touch my skin because I just wished for it to not do so.

One by one, my feet touched the marble floor. I took a step forward. The following one, I fell. It wasn't a normal but an embarrassing fall.

I fell in the sense that the ground opened under my feet like the opening of another world.

With a thought, I summoned my wings trying to fly back. Something, no someone stopped me, something that shouldn't be possible "Hi Rias," I heard her say before a punch sent me flying below.

With one move, I turned, stopping my fall by falling on my toes on what seemed to be a floating platform.

With one thought, clothes came into existence to hide my nakedness. A simple white dress shirt, black dress pants, a black tie and black sneakers. You never messed with the classics.

She came descending slowly from above like a celestial being. A grin was splattered on her face, one I hated. 

With one thought, a spear of destruction flew at her faster than lightning. Her demeanour changed even faster. With one swap of her hand, she crushed the spear into nothing.

"That's rude you know," she said softly as she stopped at my level.

"No more rude than punching me in the stomach." A grin split her face, a face that was identical to mine.

"It wasn't strong enough to do anything. I just wanted you to stop from trying to leave Rias," she spoke.

I didn't have time or was in the mood to play games with her "Who are you?" I asked her.

"Me," she smiled. "I am thou and you are I".

"Stop with the persona bullshit."

She floated on her back as if she was lying on a bed "If we were in this universe, I would have turned into a shadow and killed you."

"You would have tried. Now, tell me before I really get angry."

"You're not as fun as you were *******," she spoke. "Where is the happy-go-lucky kid who was always smiling and happy."

"Never call me like this again. That kid died with them a long time ago. Now speak before I disembowel you with my bare hands."

A sigh escaped the doppelganger "You forgot what you did? You tried to replicate Unlimited blade works but you're not Shirou. If it had been normal magic, a copy of the reality marble would have been created but you tried to replicate something really really close to what they called true magic and what is true magic if not communion with Akasha?"

"Bullshit," I immediately answered. 

"Is it though? This world was supposed to be more fiction. Probably still is but fiction can be reality. Is it impossible to believe other worlds exist? It was something already proven in the original novels."

"I never doubted about the existence of other worlds. Doing such a thing would be like a pure angel not believing in God. This was something that wasn't possible. What I don't believe is me having reached the root so easily."

"It wasn't easy though," she said back. "Probably was in your eyes with your cheat but not in the eyes of reality. You spent enough demonic energy to create a self-sufficient sun bigger than the one Earth is orbiting around."

She turned One of her fingers toward me "Bang! You blew a hole through the different layers of Akasha. If you still don't believe me." her finger pointed toward the vast expanse under us Try "try seriously to look downward." 

I followed the direction her fingers were pointing at. I focused my eyes gazing and piercing through the white realm. Downward, downward, downward until I saw, no glimpsed a fragment of the void.

I immediately removed my gaze from it. It had been less than an instant but I had seen a lot. I had seen too much. I felt something wet my face. I touched it and as expected, it was blood.

"So, Do you finally understand *******? I am you." 

She shifted, changing becoming as tall as a building. I could see stars die, the cosmos bleed in her form. "I am everything! I am infinity!

"I am god!" the entity before me shouted taking the appearance of the gigantic floating head of a smiling man with glasses, stubble, and an afro.

"I am the void." The entity turned back to look exactly like me "I am you Rias Gremory. You may call me Sophia and I'm here to give you the deepest desire of your heart."

I tried to stay calm even though I knew I was anything but calm "I never asked you to come. I'll just leave."

"You could," my replica said "Or you could ask me to give you what you wish for."

"What do you want In return?" I spoke.

"I never said I needed anything in return," she answered back.

"You are me and I am you. Nothing is free."

"I knew you were smart. You're after all me. You could say no and nothing will change. You'll just wake up in the bathroom as if this was a bad dream. I'll leave you alone and will stay alone, hidden in the confines of your soul until you call me back or you could say yes."

She snapped her fingers and images, portals began to appear. In one portal, I saw a golden man standing, floating over the ocean, in another one, I saw a green-eyed boy fighting against what I clearly recognized as a chimaera, in another world, I only saw the endless sea. She had created thousands of similar portals.

"Here is my proposal *******. I know your feelings, I know your thoughts. Give me the role of Rias Gremory and I'll send you to another world, one I assure you you would love more."