Chapter 35: The Oldest Foe

Rias trailed behind her mother submissively, stealing a glance at the older Devil’s side profile every now and then before dropping her gaze back down to castle floors nervously.

The Duchess slightly turned her head to the side midstride, her lips drawn in amusement.

“Your Knight is quite devoted to you.”

Rias looked up, a slight smile brightening her eyes. “Yuuto is a good boy.”

Her mother gave an assenting hum, as she set her head straight. They turned the corridor and continued walking down the winding halls.

“Yuuto," she said almost experimentally. As if tasting the name on her tongue. "The native tongue of that little human island you are so fond of, is it not?”

Rias nodded.

“Could you not have given the boy a proper name from our own language? Must you submit to your little mortal obsessions so?”

A faint red dusted Rias’ cheeks as she pouted. She was not obsessed, thank you very much! She just had a healthy appreciation for Japanese culture! So what if the walls of her bedroom were lined with volumes of manga and her closet was filled with kimonos instead of dresses and her vaults had tapes of vintage anime instead of treasures and artifacts?! That wasn’t weird at all!

She was a Japanophile! She wasn’t an otaku! She wasn’t!

“It’s a good, strong name,” Rias said through her pout.

“If you say so, dear. Nevertheless, I meant what I said. I am appreciative that my daughter has such a devoted servant by her side. I dare say, I even find it admirable.”

“It didn’t stop you from punishing him,” she said childishly.

“Of course not,” her mother said matter-of-factly. “What proper Lord tolerates disobedience from their servants? In their own castle, no less?”

“Still, don’t you think one week is too much?”

“Order and hierarchy must be maintained, my dear daughter.”

“But Yuuto has never been so harshly dealth with in his life! Don’t you think your punishment was too cruel, mother?”

Her mother shook her head. “Actions have consequences, Rias.”

“I understand that, mother. But Yuuto has never disappointed me before. And he was only going against yours and father’s commands in consideration of me,” Rias said earnestly.

The Duchess paused mid-step. “You make a fair point. And he is such a well-mannered boy.”

Rias nodded eagerly. She had raised her Yuuto to be the perfect gentleman!

“Oh, I suppose you’re right, Rias,” her mother said as she touched a hand to her cheek. “Forbidding him from having snacks for a whole week is perhaps too much. Three days should suffice. I would loathe if his health were to deteriorate, he is such a darling thing to look at.”

Rias beamed. “Thank you, mother!”

Her mother continued their walk, and Rias obediently followed behind. “By the by, his obvious devotion paired with his striking features, do you intend to take him to bed?”

“Mother!”

“It is a valid question, dear. You are no longer a child. Nor are you beholden to old agreements anymore.”

Rias felt heat rush to her face. “I-It’s not like that! Yuuto’s devotion to me is pure!”

“Unlike the current Red Dragon Emperor,” her mother noted with a teasing edge to her voice.

Rias wanted to go back and bury herself under her bedsheets. She would never live down Issei proudly declaring he would claim her virginity in front of her parents. Her father had laughed for days.

“Given what I’ve seen of the boy,” her mother continued, “your Knight, that is, he would readily bed you if you ordered him.”

Rias gave her mother a scandalized look. “I would never force Yuuto to do such a thing!”

The Duchess turned; a fine, delicate brow raised in question. “Force?”

Rias bit her lip hesitantly, and her mother let out a sigh. “You have spent too long amidst humans. Your Peerage is not a collection of friends, Rias. They are your servants. You own them. Their very souls are in your hands.”

When Rias said nothing, her mother turned around with a resigned look in her eyes.

“No matter, you will remember who you are now that you’re here in the Underworld again.”

Silence fell between the pair of mother and daughter, and they continued their walk down the opulent walls of the Gremory Castle. Several minutes passed, and finally they came before two exquisitely large, black wooden doors.

The Duchess gave a single, deft knock. And a second later, both doors smoothly opened inward. Rias cast a glance at the spacious office lined with bookshelves. On the far right of the room was a large table glowing with a magical 3D projection of the Gremory territory. On the far left was a set of comfortable looking couches and chairs. And directly ahead, was a great wooden desk of the same color and make of the doors Rias had just walked through.

Her father looked up from the documents he was holding in hand.

“There they are, my two lovelies,” the Duke said with a smile. “Certainly took your time.”

Her mother crossed the space in long strides and gave her father a kiss on the cheek. “Just some mother-daughter talk.”

“I’m sure,” her father said with an amused look before turning towards her. “Hello, my dear.”

Rias curtsied and returned her father’s smile. “Hello, father.”

“Yes, well, let us dispense with the pleasantries,” he said as he retook his seat behind his desk and carefully folded his hands beneath his chin. “There are matters of import that must be discussed.”

Rias nodded, having expected this to come for the last several days. Her mother moved to stand by her side, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Your brother sent word. The Satans have finished convening, and all prominent Lords of the Underworld have been summoned to attend a gathering in two days’ time. It is there your punishment will be decided.”

Rias felt something hard lodge in her throat.

“I must warn you, my dear. When I say all, I mean all. This includes your grandmother.”

Rias winced as memories of her last encounter with the horror that was her ancestor came flooding into her mind. Her mother’s grip on her shoulder became stronger, and Rias took a deep breath, trying to gather strength from her touch.

Her father looked at her sympathetically. “Luckily, she will not be traveling with us, but once this is all said and done…knowing mother, she will be rather displeased.”

She shivered as a pair of venomous green eyes flashed through her mind.

Her father frowned heavily. “As it is, the Satans are in disagreement, and have thus forgone passing judgement on you and young Sona. The matter of your punishment has instead been passed on to the Pillar Lords. A session of the Pillars will deem fit your punishment for your transgressions. But, fret not, Duke Sitri and I have reached out to the other Lords; we will be seeking an accord with each one to lessen your sentence.”

Rias bit her lower lip painfully. Her father was essentially left to beg and curry favors with the other Houses to save her from the mess she had landed herself in. The self-loathing and shame came in waves.

Eyes flitting back and forth as she kept her gaze on the floor, Rias managed to finally choke out, “Where will the gathering be? New Lilith?”

Her father shook his head. “No, in Yfel.”

Rias tilted her head in confusion, struggling to recall such a place in her studies as Pillar Heir. “Where is that?”

“Not anywhere in the Underworld,” her father said as he leaned back in his chair. “It is a separate reality, a pocket universe fashioned and maintained by Lord Ajuka. One of many, in fact.”

Confused, she asked, “Why are the Lords meeting outside of the Underworld?”

“Not the Lords,” her father corrected pointedly. “The Satans. You must understand, it is not merely a title to be borne. It is a metaphysical station, a carved niche of existence. The Crown Princes have a mythic weight about them that presses and twists reality itself. Particularly your brother, Lord Ajuka and Lord Ichigo. If all five stood in close proximity, the sheer demonic resonance amongst them would scour the Underworld clean of all life.

“Lord Ajuka crafted Yfel to be a place where they could meet without destroying their own Empire, and to allow others to survive in their shared presence. Otherwise, we'd all be lost under their combined, terrible might.”

Eyes wide, Rias could only muster a single word. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh.” Her father gave her a frank look. “To reiterate: we will be departing in two days. I will allow you to bring your Queen, the remainder of your Peerage will, however, remain here. When we do arrive, I expect you to be on your best behavior, Rias.”

Rias nodded sincerely. “Of course, father.”

The Duke met her eyes, and Rias stared into his blue-green gaze identical to her own. Her father finally gave a sigh. “Do not fret, dear daughter. The Pillar Lords may bite and snap at each other’s heels, but I doubt any true harm will befall you or yours. If anything, I foresee this little fiasco will somehow prove quite beneficial to you in the end.”

Her mother let out a soft groan from beside her. “Please do not encourage her trouble-making tendencies any further.”

Her father huffed. “Tendencies she inherited from whom, might I ask?”

“I’m not a troublemaker,” Rias protested weakly.

Both her parents gave her a disbelieving look. And then her father put both palms to his desk and pushed himself up. “Well, that’s enough talk of doom and ancient evil for one afternoon. Shall we lunch?”

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One Year Ago

Ichigo's eyes swept across the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf. As the waves crashed against the rocks of the shore with increasing fervor, he cast a sideways glance at Tiamat, whose expression remained cool and impassive. Nevertheless, he could sense the roiling emotions within the confines of her mind. Though he respected her privacy and did nothing more than send a reassuring touch through their mental bond.

She responded by turning towards him and away from the sea, both of her hands coming up to encircle and hug his arm.

"Not to pry," he said with a touch of lightness, "but why exactly are we in your least favorite part of the world?"

Tiamat gave a small hum. "Where the Idigna and the Buranun meet is where Marduk hid the entrance to his firmament."

Ichigo blinked twice as he frowned in confusion. "The what and the what?"

She rolled her eyes. "The Tigris and the Euphrates rivers."

Ichigo had to keep his mirth down as Tiamat twisted the names around in her mouth out of annoyance. Not that he could blame her. The names of places and things could change dozens of times in the span of centuries. Never mind the tens of millennia she had been alive. Suddenly Ichigo realized the tail end of what she had just said.

"Firmament? As in celestial heavens? We're going to the Mesopotamian Heaven? Why?"

"For the one thing Dragons and Devils both crave: power."

"Right, of course," Ichigo said wryly. "Satan and his girlfriend walk into heaven, sounds like the beginning of one of Sirzechs' jokes."

“I do not foresee much humor in our trip."

"And why is that?"

"Because," she said as she began to tug on his arm and lead him through the sky. "It is also the place of my grave."

"Oh," Ichigo said dumbly. "...should I have brought flowers?"

"Do not make me bite you, beloved."

"It was a joke, sheesh."

Ichigo looked down from thier perch high in the sky and took note of the two gigantic rivers as they snaked across the ground below. He was admittedly surprised as he had expected the two legendary rivers to run through wastelands of dust and sand, but there was a surprising amount of greenery and wetlands between the two.

Honestly, he never thought of finding marshes in the Middle East of all places.

Sensing his thoughts, Tiamat tilted her head towards him. “Not for naught is it called the Fertile Crescent, beloved. Though it is greatly diminished from what it once was. Mortals have wrought damage aplenty.”

True enough, human wars and agriculture had changed the face of the Earth many times. Still, it was no matter to him. Not like he hadn’t done similar things in the Underworld with the swing of a sword.

The air thickened as they ascended, the sky above the Persian Gulf dimming as colors bled together in a hazy rainbow. A frown crossed his lips as he felt a ripple through space and time. There was something here. Something not quite right.

Tiamat's grip tightened as she cut through the clouds with practiced ease, guiding them along invisible currents in the flow of Earth’s reality. And with every inch upwards, Ichigo’s senses warped as he felt a growing pressure on his demonic powers.

Ah, he understood.

The gateway to Marduk’s Heaven wasn’t just lost and forgotten, it was broken. In the absence of the pantheon, there was nothing left to connect that forgotten Celestial Realm with the reality of this Earth.

They would have to navigate the gaps between realms to enter.

And then he felt it, the entry point Tiamat was leading him to. A gap in the sky, a single tear in the fabric of Time and Space that led to Marduk’s Celestial Heavens. The same Heavens once fashioned from Tiamat’s primordial flesh eons ago.

As they broke the barrier, Ichigo and Tiamat stepped into the infinite black chasm of the Void. Not the darkness that held stars and galaxies and filled universes, but the complete lack of existence that was the thin veil between all realities yet paradoxically stretched on infinitely in all directions. The emptiness that stood nameless between each and every universe.

Well… not nameless.

Though Ichigo willed any thought of that particular name away from his mind, lest he accidentally bring that timeless horror’s attention to the two of them. Let Khaos Brigade revel in their worship of the emptiness of the Void. Ichigo could happily go lifetimes without him and his loved ones being involved with the primeval monster that was the Infinite Ouroboros.

Setting his mind straight, he turned his head towards Tiamat, only to find she was no longer there. Except she was. Ichigo simply couldn’t see her anymore as there was no light in the Void. Nothing to see, nor hear nor touch nor feel. A complete immersion in sensory deprivation. It was only through his supernatural powers that he knew that she was still next to him, that he was still holding her hands even though he could not feel her soft fingers.

An alien wrongness slid over him, like oily tendrils gripping and trying to pull him apart. The Void rejected all things, even shape and form and thought.

Steeling himself, Ichigo forced through the prevailing heaviness and pushed past the thick haze, melding his mind with Tiamat and filling her with his strength and love. He felt her cool touch, that chime of an ocean breeze washing over him.

Together, with a single step, they crossed the infinite distance of the Void and willed their existence into Mesopotamia’s Heaven.

As they broke through and manifested, Ichigo grimaced as his physical senses were quickly overwhelmed with the sudden reintroduction of sensation and phenomena. Colors, smells, sounds; reality slammed back into him as soon as he came into being. It was…unpleasant.

And then he began to process what he was observing, and his grimace only grew darker.

Heaven lay in ruins.

Above Ichigo and Tiamat stretched the shattered dome of the sky, a vault once radiant, now cracked and bleeding a sickly and poisonous green light. The celestial sky itself was etched with vast constellations: great and luminous mythic marking that, each its own divine spark in their own right. Now they hung dull and lifeless. Dead stars for a dead world.

Beneath the broken firmament, the land sprawled in titanic display of glorious decay. Towering ziggurats, each one miles high, pierced the shattered sky like jagged teeth. Their stone faces were split and severed, and from the breaks of their ancient grandeur spilled hefty, suffocating miasma: a thick vapor of greyish-green that poured heavy onto the broken cities below.

As his eyes trailed along the poisonous murk, he saw that once radiant cities that were written of ancient human Epics. Palaces that spanned hundreds of miles - vast complexes of chiseled stone, woven gold, and celestial light – now lay in rubble heaps, their great pillars and columns shattered. Streets wide enough to carry armies had split apart, leaving gaping chasms that crisscrossed the land like scars.

Several planets worth of splendor, all now in ancient ruin.

“Behold, beloved.” Tiamat’s voice was heavy. “Behold mine once primordial flesh, now gripped in glorious death.”

Ichigo squeezed her hand, though she didn’t squeeze back.

She shook her head, almost as if in disbelief. “This is what they betrayed me for. Mine own children whom I birthed. They wanted my power. Now they rot with it.”

“Here and now, Tiamat. Here and now,” Ichigo said gently as he lifted their entwined fingers and kissed the back of her hand.

He could feel familiar pangs of hurt and agony ring through her heart. Twenty-thousand years come and gone, Tiamat still couldn’t let go of the pain that was the undoing of her ancient family.

Her mouth twisted ruefully. “Sorrow is an old friend.”

“Yeah well, you’re stuck with me for the rest of forever, so tell sorrow to get lost. I don’t appreciate a third wheel.”

She snorted in irritation, though Ichigo could feel her grief begin to retreat to the back of her mind. “You are the last one who should speak on bringing a third between two.”

“You came to me, not the other way around, beautiful,” he said dryly.

A delicate white eyebrow rose. “I seem to recall it was you, beloved, who came uninvited into my territory.”

“Huh? Hello?” Ichigo scowled at her. “You’ve read my memories! I didn’t go anywhere! That idiot former boss of mine unceremoniously teleported my ass right into the middle of your hurricane! And then you proceeded to blow me up with lightning and fire and then you tried to seduce me butt-naked!”

Tiamat tilted her head in amusement as she took a step close and invaded his personal space. “You did not seem to mind my seductions.”

Ichigo looked at her incredulously. “Bullshit! I did mind! In fact, I was very vocal with my minding!”

“And yet,” Tiamat took a step closer, pressing herself to him, and Ichigo instinctively wrapped an arm around her waist, “I seemed to have seduced you all the same.”

Ichigo stared into her laughing eyes, before he gave a defeated sigh. “Yeah…yeah, you did.”

Dark arms encircled his neck and Tiamat leaned in and gave him a chaste kiss. Ichigo’s countenance fell calm, and in a lower voice he asked, “Feeling better?”

She gave him an affectionate smile. “Much. Thank you for the distraction, beloved.”

Ichigo gave her a light kiss of his own. “So, why exactly are we here? I can think of a thousand other places that would make for a better date spot.”

“Do you truly believe I would take you to this decayed pit for a romantic outing?”

“Do you not remember the time we went to Fae realm?”

“Little one.”

“Right, right. We promised to never talk about it again.”

Tiamat rolled her eyes in fond exasperation. “I am hoping we may find the Tablets of Destiny. At the very least, a clue as to where they may be.”

Ichigo’s brows furrowed as he recalled his Mesopotamian mythology. “Wait…the tablets are real? I thought they were just something Marduk made up to scare away invaders.”

“Hardly,” Tiamat said wryly. “They are very real. As is their power to control and dictate the flow of Destiny.”

Ichigo blinked in confusion. “Hold on, if Marduk had something that powerful how the Hell was he killed by the Heavenly Father and the Archangels? Even if he had lost your primordial powers, there’s no way he could have lost with the power of Destiny literally in his hands.”

“You give him too much credit, beloved,” Tiamat said, her hands winding away from his neck and instead coming to cup his face. She gingerly brushed his cheeks with her thumbs. “Things of such incredible power often come with incredible minds.”

He gave her a sharp look. “The Tablets are sentient?”

“To an extent, yes.” She nodded. “They do not allow their powers to be used lightly.”

“Huh.” And then his look turned suspicious. “And you think they’ll let you wield them?”

Tiamat thumbs froze briefly, but she started her ministration again. Nevertheless, Ichigo noticed her pause. “Once they were mine. And then Marduk took them from me. I believe they will cooperate with me once more. If only for a while.”

Ichigo hummed in thought and carefully considered what Tiamat was offering him. The power to dictate Destiny; he had to admit, it was tempting. He could do a lot with that kind of power. He could fix a lot. Like undoing Izanami’s curse and fixing the Shinto Cycle of Souls. Like ending all threats to the Devil Empire and allowing peace to reign. Like resurrecting hi-

“Tiamat.”

“Yes, beloved?”

“You do realize we’re surrounded, yeah?”

And as Ichigo broke his gaze away from Tiamat’s sapphire eyes, he looked upon the thousands and thousands of grotesque and shadow figures that had encircled him and Tiamat. Ichigo sent his senses out and frowned.

Okay, make that tens of thousands.

They were monstrous things, barely having shape and form. They looked like waxen figures that were half melted, though their flesh were bulbous and pulsing. And there was something utterly alien about them. Ichigo could sense some sort of dying light from within their eldritch flesh.

For a brief second, he thought them something akin to Fallen Angels. But worse. Much, much worse.

“The Hell are they?” He asked, unable to keep the disgust out of his voice.

Tiamat let out a disdainful growl. “The Igigi. Lesser things mistakenly conflated with my children’s children. They were nothing ever more than servants. T’would seem they have mutated. A consequence of feasting on festering divinity. Most likely they tore into the flesh of dying stars and constellations, as they had no other sustenance in this dead realm.”

With a flick of Ichigo’s wrist, Zangetsu burned its way into existence. “Yeah, well, they ain’t eating us.”

And Ichigo stabbed Zangetsu into the ground, flooding the sword with demonic Hell-Fire and sending waves upon waves of it cascading through the ground. At his burst of power, the Igigi launched themselves at the two of them in a howling frenzy.

But it was too late.

For hundreds of miles the ground surrounding the two glowed an infernal red and orange, before instantly erupting in a cataclysmic explosion that rose dozens of miles high.

The Igigi, caught mid-leap, were consumed by the rising inferno, their twisted and shadowed forms shrieking as they were blasted into nothingness

The raging blaze was not merely one of fire and brimstone, but of unraveling reality itself. The shattered ruins of palaces and temples were instantly disintegrated, their ancient magics rupturing into wild storms of long broken prayers and dying light. Cities, thousands of years older than any human memory, atomized into motes of ash and carried off into the swirling rift between worlds.

The ground quaked and bled molten rivers where dead ley lines, ancient veins of power, ruptured and burnt to embers. In the far distance, mountains of fallen deities were swiftly blown apart, crushed into burnt ash. And the constellations above were blasted away, crumbling into nothingness.

Reality here had been brittle. Now, under Ichigo’s might, it was simply gone. Time and Space burned away, leaving a gaping maw that allowed the encroaching blackness of the Void to seep in.

Surrounded by the black nothingness once more, Ichigo willed himself and Tiamat back into the unstable realm made even more perilous by his careless display of demonic power.

All the while, Tiamat gave him a fierce glare. “Rather excessive, little one.”

Ichigo gave a cavalier shrug. “I like burning things that make you sad.”

She regarded him quietly for another moment, before turning away and shaking her head in frustration. But Ichigo could feel a soft trill of love from within her soul. Which meant the ancient Dragon took his words to heart.

That’s a win in my book.

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They had moved deeper and deeper into the broken Heavens, and the only thing they had found so far were more eldritch remnants that Ichigo happily destroyed. He couldn’t kill Marduk, so he’d settle for whatever the bastard had left behind.

But after the sixth wave of ancient mutants, even Ichigo had to admit that it was getting somewhat grating.

“Tiamat, beautiful, we’ve been searching for – actually, I have no idea how long we’ve been here since time’s decided to not work normally in this Lucifer-forsaken place.

“Perhaps,” and Tiamat’s voice came out even and controlled, “if you would stop puncturing holes in the weave of reality, the ebb of time could find some purchase?”

About to open his mouth with a humorous reply, Ichigo thought better of it and promptly shut his mouth. As they drifted through the shattered sky, Tiamat stared at him from the corners of her eyes. Her expression becoming a tad softer. “But you are correct. I cannot sense the Tablets. If they were here, I would have noted them by now.”

Ichigo raised a questioning brow. “So where are they?”

“Perhaps they have been destroyed,” she said softly. Ichigo sent her a doubtful look, and Tiamat seemed to share in his skepticism. “But I doubt it. Their destruction would have sent powerful tremors throughout the warp and weft of Fate. And that I cannot perceive them with my Sight, I can only surmise they have been hidden away.”

Ichigo crossed his arms. “So, I guess we just need to figure where they’re tucked away. And probably by who.”

Tiamat let out a hum as she closed her eyes and tilted her head. Ichigo frowned as he sensed his familiar dip into a deeper state of being, as her presence flooded through the ever-shifting branches of Time.

Several long minutes passed before Tiamat returned to him in mind and spirit, her eyes opening and revealing a soft glow.

“No.”

Ichigo looked at her questioningly. “No?”

She shook her head, long strands of white hair softly bouncing. “No. We will not find them. Not in this age.”

He frowned considerably. “What do you mean?”

Slowly, Tiamat drifted over to him and unfolded his arms, hugging his right to her chest. “The Tablets do not wish to be found. They will reveal themselves when they deem it necessary.”

Ichigo snorted. “What? They left you a voicemail?”

She gave him an amused look, and suddenly Ichigo’s mind was filled with sensations and perceptions he couldn’t fully comprehend. Notions that did not quite conform to his mind so entrenched in linear time and causality.

“When you grow older, you will understand,” she said with a soft kiss to his cheek.

He gave a shrug. “Well, at the very least, I got to vent my temper on some of the assholes who benefited from hurting you. Can we go home now?”

“Almost,” she said teasingly.

Ichigo let out a groan. “What now?”

“Come.”

Luckily they did not have to go off on another far away search as Tiamat simply opened a dimensional rift, and Ichigo followed her through. They had arrived at a lone mountain under a burnt red sky, with clouds of sulfuric yellow hanging heavy and low. All around were the tall remnants of brittle and dead trees.

“The Cedar Forest,” Tiamat said evenly. “The garden my children made as the hosting grounds of their revelry and numerous celebrations.”

A familiar chord struck Ichigo’s memory, but he was more concerned with the prevalent and copious death energies that permeated the very air of this place. His lips pressed thin. Something died here, something very powerful. And that death had left a painful and vengeful mark here.

The Sin of Wrath within him stirred. Whoever, or whatever, died here had done so with tremendous anger in its heart.

“So why exactly are we here?”

Tiamat motioned with her chin and Ichigo’s eyes followed, only for him to frown in confusion. “The mountain?”

“Not a mountain, but a corpse.”

Ichigo’s eyes narrowed as he followed the silhouette, trying to make out a body. But the eons passed had either misshapen it or layered it with dirt and debris.  “Who’s?”

Her lips curved dangerously, sapphire eyes falling into serpentine slits. “Ḫuwāwa.”

And like an incantation, the name on her lips triggered a harsh and hot wind, and the very ground seemed to groan in potent fury. Briefly distracted by the latent anger, it took a moment for his mind to translate the name, but when it did, Ichigo turned to Tiamat with his eyes wide. “Humbaba?!”

Tiamat’s smile became even more dangerous. “The First Foe in Humanity’s memory. The Oldest Enemy of the Oldest King. Even with faithful Enkidu, Mighty Gilgamesh could only slay fell Ḫuwāwa with heavenly aid. Such was his strength, of my sons, only Hadad was his greater.

“While mortals remember the aid Šamaš gave Gilgamesh in taking Ḫuwāwa’s head, none but I now remember that it was Marduk who orchestrated the foul murder. So fearful was that craven son, that he sought to cull the guard at his own gate.”

Dating Tiamat had meant Ichigo had done his best to brush up Mesopotamian mythology. Not just the human myths, but the tomes and grimoires the Devils had locked away in their secret libraries. And unlike the Human, Devils had the full, original narrative of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Humbaba wasn't just a monster, but a semi-divine being empowered by Enlil, one of the triumvirate of the Mespotamian Pantheon. Marduk may have ruled as king, but Anu, Enlil and Ea were the ones responsible for divine devistiture.

And Humbaba had been their champion, their chosen and created warrior to act as a check against the ever growing power of Marduk in Ur and later Hadad in the north .

Ichigo looked between Tiamat and the literal mountain of a corpse that was radiating anger so palpable the ground had begun to rise in a red haze. a certain understanding filled him.

“You want me to…” Ichigo trailed off hesitantly.

Tiamat smiled kindly. “I have told you before, I will give you my counsel. But your choices are yours to make, beloved.”

Ichigo frowned in consideration. He only had used one piece so far, a single Knight for the great wolf he had found in the northernmost reaches of the Earth. And he was in no rush to go through them all. Ajuka had cautioned him to carefully consider each and every Evil Piece before he used them. That he shouldn’t fall into the trap that younger Devils make and gather as many Pieces as possible in a desperate bid for power. Especially given that he was a Satan. There were substantial ramifications to consider. His Peerage would hold considerable weight in the Underworld for centuries, if not millennia to come.

And yet, the sheer rage coming off of Humbaba's corpse imprinted itself onto this dead world. Rage that had not lessened even one bit, not even after thousands upon thousands of years. The Sin of Wrath called out to this long dead monster; it resonated with it.

Slowly, Ichigo raised his hand and opened his fingers. A lone Rook piece lying perfectly still in his palm.

He gave Tiamat a doubt-filled look. “Something tells me one is not going to be enough.”

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Modern Day Underworld

Ichigo stared grimly as he stood atop a mountian, overlooking a sprawling valley dotted with vast arrays of colossal magical portals that each stretched hundreds of meters tall and wide. Demonic armies marched, moving through to key choke points between the territories of the suriviving Pillars. Sirzechs had tasked him with ensuring that the Lords would not try and take advantage of each other's absece from their respective territories.

As such, Ichigo was overseeing the movement of troops to preemptively cut off any overly ambitious Lord.

Beside him stood Saviġuk, towering and proud. Her white fur whipped in the strong peak winds, and her golden gaze locked on the amassed armies below. Within the sheen of her eyes was a savage light. Ichigo recognized her desire to spill blood, to test her mettle against powerful foes. Not for naught did they call the Amaroq the Lord of Strength. His Knight desired challenge to quench her need to prove her title.

And far behind rumbled his one other Piece.

The mountain groaned beneath the weight of its ancient presence. Snow tumbled from high ridges as distant footfalls echoed throug the valley of ice and broken rock. Trees bent, and not from wind, but and instinctive fear pressend into all living things. A shadow long and wide crossed the mountainous terrain, its edges jagged like crags and claws. With every step, the earth seemed to remember an older time, before empires, before language, when might alone marked truth. When his Rook finally came to a halt behind Ichigo, silence followed like a held breath. The snow refused to fall there. Even the cold hesitated. And the air grew heavy and still. Every sta seemed to dull and and every sound choked silent.

And as Ichigo returned his sight to the marching armies below, he crossed his arms with grim satisfaction. And for the briefest moment, he wished someone would be stupid enough to give him an excuse to vent his power.