Chapter 190: Leaving Behind Earth; In the Face of a Familiar Planet
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"For fucks sake, ugh…!" Brigid threw her head back, submerging into the softness of the couch, as she grumbled toward the ceiling. "The plan's going nowhere."
The plan of seducing Aqua was at a standstill. Like hell it is, he doesn't even bother to attend school. How were they supposed to attack his heart if he wasn't even there to receive it? The last few months were a waste of goddamn time.
"Brigid, be patient." her friend, a fellow former Valkyrie Squad Leader, walked over to hand her a bowl of popcorn before taking a seat beside her. The TV played a movie and Rossweisse watched it calmly. "He's not the only one who's skipping classes. It's his entire group. That means it's not permanent; they're probably preparing for something, and when they finish it, they'll return to school."
"...." Brigid found logic in that, she supposed.
Odin and Freya also believed the same and had encouraged them to be careful after the Vedas incident. Those two heads were now more cautious of Aqua's powers, although Brigid only found it an exaggerated rumor.
"The situation around the world is tense. Aztecs and Vedas, at least Indra's side, are going through a cold war that can break into an all-out war anytime. The devil faction isn't safe either, they also pissed off Indra by having a Satan attend that big fight." Rose said in a serious tone, even as a romantic movie played on TV.
"You think Kuoh is in danger?" Brigid asked, unsure. Among the two, it was Rose who kept tabs on the politics around the world.
"I don't think so. To be fair, if a war did start, it wouldn't be initiated by Indra's side. He has his hands filled with Lord Shiva. So unless Aztecs wanted to cause trouble, and we can never be sure since Quetzalcoatl leads them, a war shouldn't break out. No need to worry about the devils starting it, they're enjoying peace." She said, pondering over her own words for a bit.
"I guess that makes sense," Brigid said. "So you're saying we stay put until that guy returns to school? Ugh, that sounds so annoying to do though. Can't we just visit his house and kill him?"
"Do you have a death wish?"
"Fuck," she threw her head back again and rested like that.
When she did that, with her head backward on the couch, her eyes fell on the window in the back. Her pupils expanded as a figure covered in a red aura flew.
Her senses did not catch a thing, as if she was seeing things, and when she blinked, there was no such figure in the sky.
"Huh?" Brigid tilted her head, curious if she had eaten something weird today.
****
In the high skies of central Mexico, in Aztec's 9th heaven the man named Yaxkin, the Avatar and Assistant of Quetzalcoatl, was waiting outside his madam's room. How long did he wait for? At some point, the door creaked and walked out his lady adorning her royal outfit.
"Congratulations," Yaxkin said, lowering his head, "in successfully passing another cycle."
She shed her skin two months ago and entered her alter ego. Kukulan was quite hard to control, so she ordered Yaxkin to lock herself up before she had transformed. Only now did she return to her Quetzalcoatl ego. However since she forced things instead of letting them pass as usual, that meant her alter-ego might be popping out every now and then in the future based on her emotions.
"Yes, Yaxkin, my favorite prince," she ruffled his head, grinning. "As always, I don't know what I'd do without you. Thank you for taking care of the Pantheon for the last two months. Unfortunately, you'll need to take care of it a bit more."
"...I still think you should reconsider, my lord," Yaxkin said, his expression serious. "You might… never return if things go wrong. I really don't have a good feeling about this."
"Such is the twist of fate and destiny, my boy," she let out a hearty laugh. "This is true adventure, you see? When else will such an opportunity arise? How lucky am I to be Earth's first goddess to visit another world?"
Yaxkin let out a sigh. There was no convincing his Goddess. Even though this would mean that the Aztecs would be without a leader for a while, putting it in extreme danger because of the recent turmoil with Vedas, she didn't care.
She had just said, 'Tezcatlipoca will take care of it if things grow dangerous for the pantheon.' That was the type of man he was, after all, even if he was a King with a broken throne now, he wouldn't sit still if a foreign pantheon came rampaging here.
"Still, please try to return quickly," Yaxkin hoped she would be wise and cautious in that foreign realm. "When will you be leaving?"
"My, why," she rested her Divine Club-Ax on her shoulder. "I'm leaving right now."
****
Until now, three factions had been established in the Sect.
The Venerable Faction was led by my master who didn't exist, and me, Ai, Ruby, and Yuzuru. All of us were strong, and the weakest was Yuzuru at Underlord.
Next was the Emperor Faction, which included the Emperor himself, Asia, Irina, and Xenovia. After the experiments I did on them, the two exorcist girls easily stood at Ultimate-Class strength, same with Asia although she was a bit weaker.
The final one was the White Tiger Faction, which included Trigathar, Tsubasa, and the five cubs. Tsubasa reached Archlord, and each of the five cubs was finally strong enough to go against an Underlord.
Those were the three factions, each a powerhouse. However, three new factions have emerged in the last few months to make things fit. Firstly the Sorcerer Faction, which naturally included the Eternal Sorcerer, Memmy, and Shoko. Both girls have reached 7th Circle, they were incredibly powerful.
Then there was the Hero Faction. I stole the name, but still, it included the Hero, my Goddess, Kawalarna, and as a guest, we had Quetzalcoatl too. Two were God class, and one was a powerful angel of her own right now.
Lastly, the Devil Faction. For now, it only had Rias and her peerage in it, and Ranefer as a guest. Ranefer herself was a Demon God class entity.
There was Uncle Ichigo and Aunty Miyako who were two backup elders of the sect, who belonged to an unofficial 7th faction, the Backup Faction.
All of these Six Factions were going to participate in the Pangeal Expedition.
However, not all members of the six factions will be joining me. For starters, the five cubs wouldn't. I need them here to protect my uncle and aunt. And Rias and her peerage wouldn't participate either, because their King was acting up recently.
Other than that, everyone else would. In the end, we have twelve members, excluding me and my Goddess, participating in this.
That was four members more than planned, but it was worth it. The last four months were worth it. All of my people have grown as strong as I intended to develop them; a few even surprised me.
Other than the original team, which included me, my Goddess, Ai, Ruby, Tsubasa, Ranefer, Memmy, Xenovia, Irina, and Quetzalcoatl. I decided that it would be worthwhile to take Asia, Shoko, Yuzuru, and Kalawarna with us too. This was the final team, and all of them were ready.
****
The training goal was complete. It was time to leave. Everyone was strong enough, it was high time we saved a dying world.
"Make sure you don't leave anything behind."
"Ruby, where is your amulet? Did you take it?"
"Ugh, I did, I didn't leave anything behind, shut up-!"
After taking a day off from training, the house was once again busy and tense. All of us were doing some last-minute check-ups and preparations, making sure to not leave a single important thing behind.
"Guys, Quku is here!" I heard Memmy call, and right after that Shoko called too.
"Uh, Ranefer is here…. I think they're fighting." Shoko sounded worried, and I had to stop what I was doing to go outside.
"You sluts," I looked at the two blonde bitches about to throw hands, glaring at them. "I will fuck you up if you waste time here. Get inside."
""Rude brat,"" they both said at the same time. Why were they fighting when they were so similar? I walked behind them, pinching their waist, and led them inside. Both of them winced, shouting me curses but I ignored them.
A few minutes later, we all gathered in the living room. Everyone stood and faced me, and I allowed a short silence to pass to let us calm down.
I could feel the beating of every single heart in the room, and none of them had a slow rhythm. Seeing that, I prepared one last announcement.
"Since me and my Goddess know Pangeal the best, we'll lead three groups each. I suppose in the end two separate leaders don't really matter since you all should listen to me anyway, but we'll do it anyway since we're kind of a lot," I said, "I shall lead the Venerable Faction, the White Tiger Faction, and the Sorcerer Faction. My Goddess will lead the Hero Faction, the Emperor Faction, and the Devil Faction. Mine is Team-1, and my Goddess is Team-2."
"Understood."
"I've notified you lots enough about that world, so you know its dangers. And now it's even more dangerous because of the Outer Gods. So no matter what, even if you're a Chief God or an Ancient Devil, don't go against the hierarchical order." I looked at the two in question and said, and both of them shrugged.
"Hey, aren't I basically an Outer God too in that world?" Quetzalcoatl raised a hand and said like a little girl, and I put her down with a glare. "Come on, it's a joke~"
"Ranefer," I looked at my phoenix pet slave. "Is the preparation on your side done?"
"Of course it is. Unlike that jester snake, I always do my part right." the Phoenix lady said, scoffing proudly. "As far as papers are concerned, we're going on a vacation trip to some other dimension. Earth has thousands of dimensions, nobody can be sure which one we are at if some curious bugger tries to find us. Nobody would know we're not just in another dimension, but in another world entirely."
So that'd cover any supernatural stalker. As for Memmy and Shoko's families, they too will think of the situation like this. Both families knew that their daughters were magical girls now, so it wasn't the end of the world for them if they went on a trip for a few months.
A few months.
That's at least how long it'd take to free Pangeal.
Many things will change by the time we return here, I'm sure. However, I still can't rush it. The enemies aren't small fries, at least to my current self.
I hope Rias fully recovers by the time we return. I'm curious just what happened to her for her to go through this much trouble, but nobody had the balls to tell me.
She finally woke up a while ago, and I was allowed a visit by the Satans. If I wasn't as busy as I was, I would have forced my way to meet her a long time ago. In the end, there was no need for that since she woke up and seemed healthy when I met her. She did seem a bit different, but not in a bad way.
She had grown stronger, which was good. We talked for quite a while, and she asked me to not worry about her and to go on my trip. Even to her, I hadn't revealed where I was going just to be safe.
"Looks like everyone's calm now," I finally said, looking at the faces of everyone who stood calm and cool. They were prepared for what awaited us. I turned to Ruby. "Ready when you are, Ruby."
She stepped forward and faced me. Closing her eyes, she let out her Ether, the mix of Mana and Qi, that filled the room. Purple mist spread with her mana, and our surroundings grew a bit cold. The living room became harder to see.
I tapped into the Time Icon.
Spacetime was connected, and with the help of Time Icon, I could call forth clear images of locations from my past. Using so, I called forth images of one of the six Moons of Pangeal; I've stepped on its soil once when fighting against the Demon Lord as he punched me from the planet and sent me to the moon.
Directly appearing in Pangeal's land will be dangerous, so we'll have to work with this. By seeing the location, Ruby's power had a clear direction to teleport us to.
But of course, just this much wasn't nearly enough. Otherwise, I'd have returned to my past worlds easily a long time ago.
The secret ingredient was the purple-black light that bloomed from under our feet; from the floor of the Hoshino Household. This entire place was a formation array built with months of work, and drawn with blood and the crystallized aura of my Goddess. I couldn't use a similar tactic with the Tiger Cubs to return to my 6th life, no, this was only possible because Pangeal was created from the blood and aura of my Goddess. Truly, this was such incredible luck.
Without her being here, this would have been impossible.
That makes me more curious as to how she found me, as to the 'Icon' that apparently called her here, but I had no answer to that yet. I'll have to look into it later, some other day.
The purple light of the formation easily intertwined with the purple mist; until a red dot lit up from my Goddess. "As expected, it's working," she said. The red light was from the spell that my Demon Wife had set up, it was reacting; it was showing us a path.
Many things overlapped over one another to make the next scene possible.
"K-kya! It's strong!"
…The next scene, where the purple mist swirled into itself, tugging us into the center, as our surroundings went fully purple. Everything vanished, and darkness enveloped us. For a long moment, I thought I sensed an extra presence in the area, someone other than us, but it went away as soon as it appeared.
No, suddenly, I couldn't see nor sense anyone at all.
For a moment, pure darkness existed around me. I was alone… I was in The Void between worlds. The Icon that's been teasing me for a while now, starting from that bike date with Ai, and even in Vedas, seemed much closer than before in this void. I felt like I could touch it.
Before I could grasp into it, however, purple mist returned around me, making my hair burst upwards, and the pure darkness vanished. My entire group and I found ourselves in a place still dark yet illuminated by a billion stars and twin suns in the black sky above us. Gray pillars rising from the moon were all around us.
"Ah…"
It was a place far from home, yet it felt like my home. In front of us, a grand blue sphere filled half the dark cosmos ahead. It looked like Earth, but anyone who's seen Earth's map once could tell that it wasn't.
"That must be…"
"How incredible."
The others murmured, too awed by the sight to celebrate the success of our interdimensional teleportation. My entire crew and I faced the blue planet, and my heart began beating in my ears like crazy.
It was true. My eyes weren't deceiving me.
[Pangeal] stood right in front of us.
And a massive, red pillar of blood and eldrich destruction rose from both the poles, poking out of the smooth blue ball like two sore thumbs.
My world… Which fool dared decorate it in that manner?
[Image Here]
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