Loki near damn instinctively, expanded the rune holding back his divinity as he enforced it ruthlessly to gain his control over the Sefirah Castle back at once.
It wasn't much of a fight since the other force pulled away as soon as it felt Loki enforcing his divinity, which left Loki with a bad taste since he couldn't even scratch 'Them', but for now he didn't pursue since-
-Loki was flabbergasted.
'WHAT!?'
'HOW DID SOMEONE ELSE CONTROL MY CONNECTION TO THE SEFIRAH CASTLE!?'
Loki's eyes behind the mirage that concealed his face had widened.
His head churned at high speed as thoughts spun around in his mind before he landed on a possible answer.
'That door?'
Loki, however, had no more time to himself.
Although he could still feel the gaze of the Goddess of Fortune upon him, it was infinitely weaker, almost as if it were only an imprint that was left behind on his Body of Heart and Mind as a mere memory of a traumatic incident.
Loki could easily separate it from himself with a theft, but he didn't, based on what he'd figured out, the Goddess of Fortune was likely on his side. Yet still as a precaution Loki quickly flicked his hand and caused the grey fog to churn around the Sefirah Castle to 'cleanse' it off any other being that might've been inside it other than him.
Except to everyone else, those who'd just been unfairly tossed into the strange place that was mostly monochrome grey, it looked like they'd just angered an Evil God.
The Grey Fog thundered like a hurricane for a while until it calmed down slowly as Loki calmed down.
He had been very spooked but he made sure to keep his calm as he tried thinking of what he would do now.
Loki immediately activated his spirit vision and did his best to look into the Body of Heart and Minds of everyone around him.
'They're scared because of that little dance the grey fog did?'
'Mione you too!?'
'Who're you and what have you done to Mione!! Where did that innocent girl who'd ask Mr. Error every random question she could think fearlessly go!?'
Seeing the emotions of all the kids in the Sefirah Castle currently, Loki wondered for a moment if the Goddess of Fortune was enjoying his turmoil similarly, but quickly calmed himself.
'I'm the one that should give people terrors…it shouldn't be the other way round.'
Loki took a deep breath and finally let the grey fog settle fully, revealing the Tarot club chair and table for everyone to see as he finally thought about what he would do next.
'Well my plan was not much different…since I wanted to create the illusion of the Error God waking up because they intruded on a relic he'd left behind at Hogwarts for other people to find out…and then pretend like I was going to give them the gift of studying in the 'true school' I had hidden at Hogwarts several millenia ago.'
'I'd have given them access to the dream school that I so painstakingly made…it would finally see some use instead of collecting dust by sitting here inside the Sefirah Castle!'
'But now that I've shown them that I'm 'angry'...I can't just 'give' things away.'
Loki frowned.
'Mione's way to quiet.'
But before Loki could sigh in frustration due to the tense stalemate building up in the Sefirah Castle, he had a simple idea.
'If they don't want to ask me any questions, why don't I just make them!?'
And so, Loki targeted the person with the weakest Occlumency protections right now, Astoria, who was still trembling in fear as she felt the full force of the divinity of the god in front of them.
And suddenly the tense silence snapped-
"I'msosorryeveryone!Thisisallmyfault!sob sob sniffle sniffle If I hadn't…sob sob sob been careless, maybe the Goddess wouldn't have been so angry with me!!!!!" Astoria practically rambled as Loki poured in a stream of thoughts that were concerned with her life and that of those around her.
But before Astoria could break down any further, Hermione stepped up and placed her hand on her shoulder while simultaneously giving her a light squeeze.
"It's not your fault Astoria. None of us could've known." Hermione said, her tone barely a whisper but clear in the pending silence of the 'God' in front of them.
Harry walked closer to them and stepped in front of Hermione as Cedric stepped in front of Luna, who seemed rather annoyed that someone blocked her direct access to the God in front of her.
But it wasn't like Luna could see much since she wasn't even a demigod yet and the Grey Fog surrounding Loki obscured everything about him from view, even his soul.
With his divinity on full blast, everyone in the Sefirah Castle felt afraid, but they only felt a light pressure on their bodies since Loki wasn't even a Saint yet.
But in their minds each of them had come to more or less the same conclusion that-
'He probably doesn't want to kill us, yet…'
They assumed that since they were only vaguely feeling it, the divinity wasn't concentrated at them. And felt that they'd have died long ago had the God felt like it.
Being the most experienced with cases in the Unspeakables, Cedric was about to speak but Hermione beat him to it.
"I'm sorry, but my Lord, could we explain ourselves?" Hermione said with her head bowed low as if she had just committed a grave mistake.
Loki's smile returned when he saw Hermione talking to him.
'Good…good…Tarot Club's Miss Magician isn't afraid of anyone!'
Mr. Error only nodded without words.
"Astoria here had initiated a ritual aimed towards the Goddess of Fortune but due to a mistake, likely on our part, we were sent here instead. We never wanted to bother or disturb your peaceful residence. Is it possible that we can put this incident behind us and leave unharmed?"
Loki almost deadpanned.
'Why's Mione talking to me like I'm some murderous god?'
'Didn't I help her out so many times? I even gave her the Door pathway as a gift!! A secret pathway that no one knows about!!'
'....sigh...well let's get on with my plan…this is getting awkward.'
Loki was about to speak but this time it was Luna who interrupted-
"We won't leave unless you let 'all' of us go unharmed."
Everyone only thought Luna was trying to be brave, but only Loki realised that she was wondering if 'Loki' was still alive since he was no longer with them and had vanished from her sight.
So Loki sighed again.
'At least I know she's a real one…Gods I hope I can settle out her Nargles issues after all this is done…whoever does that to her…I'll make sure they pay the right price.'
Loki shook his head for a second before subtly nodding his head, asking Luna to look behind her where he'd 'reconstructed' Loki only for her to see.
How did he add a soul to his illusions?
Well Loki simply used a worm of time to temporarily make it seem like the illusion was alive.
And while everyone else couldn't see anything, Luna calmed down when she realised that Loki was alright and would be going back along with them.
Only after that did he start speaking again.
"....I work on the principle of equivalent exchange.", Loki said calmly and patiently, which caused ripples to spread out in the Sefirah Castle whose horizon was blocked by large walls of curtains of tumultuous and towering waves of grey fog.
While the words were simple, they had other implications in everyone else's minds-
'He's asking us for payment to let us go!?'
'The price of our lives!?'
'The price we are willing to give to save ourselves!?'
And while the words brought fear into everyone's minds as they readied to fight for their lives if they had to, bringing back much of the tension from before, it was-
'Exactly where I wanted them to be.'
'Like dolls in the palm of my hands.'
'Hehe~'
'Naive little babies.'
---
A/N : Forgot to post chapter when I posted on patreon yesterday. Sorry for the delay.