House Upon the Mountain

--Sky's Perspective--

"W-Where are we?" Faith asked Illya.

My body... it was still paralyzed. I couldn't move anything, I was trapped within my head.

As soon as we landed on a weird deck on top of the mountain, Illya collapsed and coughed up chunks of blood and flesh. It dripped from the edges of her teeth and she panted heavily while grasping the wood covering the ground and trying to recuperate herself.

"Mom?! What's wrong?!" Faith yelled out.

"That bitch... Ali... she purposefully pushed my control of this world to its limit while fighting Providence to weaken me. I can't believe she was thinking that far ahead..." She said, coughing up more blood.

"Will you be okay?!" Faith yelled out to Illya again.

I found tears in my eyes as I thought about my mom more and more. The strongest woman I've ever met, fighting two Gods at once and one of them didn't even know it. She pushed herself to death and weakened Illya to this point... it gave me hope, in a way, knowing that Mom, who was able to defeat Providence, weakened Illya. After all, I fought Providence as well. Illya was close in strength, she was... possible to defeat...

"Yeah, of course, I will, I'm your mother, I can't die," Illya said, resting her hand on the top of Faith's head as she pushed her body up.

"And... as for you... you're starting to scare me now as well. Fighting Providence like that was one thing, but winning? You scary man... I feel that you're already at your previous level." Illya said. She leaned herself against the balcony blocking my surroundings with the wooden supports and smiled.

"It's quite beautiful up here, and one day, when you don't have those red eyes, I'll let you look. I guess I can finally let my guard down now that I'm here, and away from the danger." She said.

Illya put her hands against her temples and her eyes shifted from that blood-red color to a baby-blue color, almost resembling Dani's. That was her true eye color?

"We've had a very tiring fourteen years, haven't we? You know, it's about time you ditch that Wrath and you join Faith and me inside, where it's sheltered, where there's food, and where there's our bed. You may have forgotten our family four hundred years ago, but teaching you again will not be a problem." Illya told me.

I couldn't open my mouth to respond, but there was more anger forming in my chest the more she spoke. I wanted to know what she was talking about... we don't have a family, and we never will.

"You make me sad, what do you mean that we don't have a family? Who is Faith to you?" She asked me.

…

Then, I'm not even safe in my own head. She can read my mind.

"It was too long ago, I don't blame you. Well, I do, and I'll punish you for it later, but the sooner you adjust to the conditions, the sooner you can obtain your old memories and resync with your old personality. Doesn't that sound good to you?" Illya asked me.

The way her eyes rested on mine as she crouched down by my face... something was amiss. Those eyes aren't hers. No, she stole them. Who did she steal them from?

"These are my eyes, believe it or not. I've just been in a Corrupted State since you met me, I usually wear this look quite often." She explained to me.

No, she misunderstood my thought. They might be her eyes, but Illya isn't a person capable of basic human emotion and understanding nature like the people I know are. She's violent, and destructive, and would manipulate anything in her path to get what she wanted.

"Correct, I would do all of those things and even more than you'd like to think. In this world, and especially as its Deity, I don't have time for resistance. I kill, I pillage, I destroy, and I smash the competition, even if they're mere children because when things are in my way, they don't deserve to live. I've been alive for four hundred and forty-four years now, I don't care about anybody anymore." She told me.

You're a monster... as soon as I regain control of my body, it's over for you, Illya. You will not kill another soul so long as I am present.

She smiled at my next thought and stretched her arms out. She stood up as Faith came back with a glass of ice water and a straw and thanked her. Faith returned inside and slowly closed the glass door blocking Illya and me from her.

That's when Illya grabbed my throat, flipped me over, and slammed me against the floor of the wooden deck.

Her hair fell onto my face and I could see her smile through the small opening my eye created to see the danger in front of me.

"You are going to be ruined when your friends get to me. I am going to kill almost all of them, and then, you'll kill the last one, completely ditching your emotions. I'm not afraid of your threats, and I'm not afraid of them. The only thing that settles their minds is thinking I have a limit, so I let them think that. You'll come to find out soon enough, Sky, that people love staying behind the limit because it keeps them safe. You can manipulate whoever you wish to, so long as you have that limit." She told me.

What bullshit... I can tell a lie on somebody's face by instinct, and she's full of shit. I couldn't help but smile at her empty threat.

"You won't have control of your strands here, and you won't move your body here, but I can assure you, you'll find yourself exhausted by the end of the night. Knowing that the looming threat that I will be getting closer and closer to your friends is quite scary. A barricade is the only thing separating us right now, and I'm sure that those idiots couldn't figure it out no matter how much effort they put into it." Illya said.

"Don't... underestimate... them..." I managed to say.

"Oh? Looks like you're fighting that paralysis quite well. I'm surprised, considering your A.I. left you in order to sustain her own life." Illya said.

My... A.I.?