Aftermath Briefing: The Pure Asterio

"A Pure... Asterio? No, that's not right, there's no way I can be one... Dad is the only Pure Asterio…" Faith muttered to Avie, slowly reaching out to her hand. Avie caught one hand while Sky grabbed ahold of the other, watching specific markings appear on her face.

From under Faith's eyes, faint shades of black triangles appeared in the dead center right above her eyebrow, and in the center below her eye, barely reaching her cheek. The markings on her face were all that showed, but Sky and Avie could clearly see Black Strands connecting the markings on Faith's face to her hip.

"Sky got his Markings in the fight against Cole, I saw that much. You attacked him as the Deity of Wrath, not as Sky, and became a Pure Asterio from the output of power you slammed into his spinal cord. Since everything you did to Cole happened to Faith, when you struck him, you awakened something in her that boosted her strand production and morphed her DNA to become a Pure Asterio. Speaking by definition, the difference in the DNA you two have is so slight it cannot be observed anymore," Avie explained. Sky was surprised to hear her talk in such an analytical tone.

"Hikari and Umbra gave me my markings... I didn't get them by striking Cole," Sky clarified to Avie, who slowly turned toward him while tilting her head.

"Hikari? Umbra? Who are they?" She asked, peering toward Faith's tattoo soon after analyzing what Sky was saying.

"What? You know them, they're your sisters..." Sky said. He peered down at Faith, who was still looking at her hands, and then assumed the worst.

Upon healing Avie with Cole's lifespan that he transferred to her, he was afraid that her brain completely reset upon the strike, forcing her into a state of amnesia, but Avie didn't show signs of losing her memory, not while holding onto Faith's hand.

"What's happening right now? Avie, are you still the same Avie I know?" Sky asked. He stared at Faith again, who finally put her hand down by her side, and lifted the other, revealing a strange marking on her palm.

As the same had revealed with Ultima, Faith's hand lifted up and revealed to Sky that she had the Eternia Palm on her body, along with the Asterio Markings. Faith had shown signs of possessing two very powerful markings on her body that pushed her above the rankings of even Sky. She had the potential to be even more powerful.

Faith sat up, ruffling her hair all around her head, adjusting her eyes to match the light she just pushed herself into. While searching around the area, The Eye of Providence activated in her eye, and ice started to loom around her left hand.

"Faith... how do you have so much stuff? The Eye of Providence belonged to Dani... but you possess it now too?" Sky asked her. Faith fully stood up, stretching her muscles while looking at Khalil next.

"The Eye of Providence was an Artifact that Providence Achamo had... and she has Ultima's Eternia Marking... and she has the Asterio Markings. Most impressive, Faith has three different lineages worth of abilities stored in her body..." Khalil explained to Sky.

Sky started to lose himself in his thoughts, thinking about how she had attained so much. Everything Sky had done to Cole with damaging him happened to her, but what he didn't expect was so much of Cole's abilities to present themselves within her. At a moment's glance at her tattoo, a sharp feeling of something sinister flooded his mind.

"Wait a minute... you said, three lineages are present within Faith... from the Markings, the Palm, and the Eye... what are these tattoos on her body? And that ice on her wrist? Are those from other lineages?" Sky inquired to Khalil, pointing at each of the glowing features on Faith's body. The two slowly sat, watching Faith as she moved her body so they could look at it more in-depth.

"Are you suggesting these things appearing on her body constitute that many lineages are now in her bones? She doesn't have the proper Leyndell Aura around her... not that I sense at least," Khalil said. Sky found himself lost in thought once more, thinking about how the stuff on Faith's body could've possibly appeared.

He found himself thinking about the person from four-hundred years ago that tried to take his body from him. Asterio is the only way Sky referred to him, but he was a very powerful person that wanted Sky's memories. A person of immeasurable strength who could swap bodies with a host was somebody Sky learned to respect for his sake of power... but never even considered what made him such a threat.

Perhaps it was the fact that he was so compatible with all of Cole's abilities, even mimicking what Sky was capable of at a certain point. Sky found himself stuck on a certain thought, following right behind Khalil's train of thought before he blurted the answer out loud.

"Being a Pure Asterio means that you possess traits from all lineages, I get it now!" Khalil mustered out, snapping his fingers at the slight thought.

"Really? But, you said that you can't sense the Leyndell Aura around Faith," Acchi commented, crouching down beside Sky's daughter while putting her hand against her forehead.

"I feel... odd... Dad, where's Mom?" Faith asked, causing the entire bout of curiosity from the people around her to shoot down to nothingness. Everybody was silent.

"Dead, she gave her remaining lifespan to Sky," Avie answered, showing no emotions while standing up after she had been crouching beside Sky.

"I see... then... she has left us? Even after you condemned her to watch over me?" Faith asked Sky. He couldn't find the right answer, and only silently nodded while staring at Faith with dull eyes.

"I guess Mom found her escape... and, the fight with Quake is over, so what do we do? Are we supposed to live alone without her?" Faith asked. She didn't express her sadness through a shaky voice, but instead with light tears falling down the length of her cheeks.

"We'll do what we can. We'll rebuild Zealous, and make sure that her death means something to our progression--"

"BULLSHIT!" Faith screamed out. It was the first charge of vulgarity that Sky had ever heard from her, ringing her voice out all around the camp full of injured people, attracting all of their attention to the center of her bed.