Prenelle stayed still.
For that was all she could do.
She'd known that from the second she'd arrived here that she'd returned to her hell.
She didn't know how Grindelwald had brought her into the Abyss.
Even if it was just a recreation of it, the very fact that she could feel the searching gaze of Mother Tree of Desire, constantly scanning the Abyss for intruders using the remnant will of the corpse of the Primordial Demon interspersed into her roots that spread far and wide in this desolate land, it terrified her.
She'd survived the last time only because of the strangely named Trunsoest Brass Book that happened to be the Uniqueness of the Arbiter pathway and could withstand 'Her' corruption momentarily to give her enough time to escape or get rid of the corruption if it hadn't intertwined deeply with her.
But Grindelwald had brought her back here.
And she didn't have anything to protect herself.
As such she could only do the one thing that could keep her safe during this time while she waited quietly for someone else to save her.
Think about everything that had happened to lead to this moment.
Maybe then she'd find a way to save herself through her infinite wisdom.
'Speculum Mundi'
She remembered the words Grindelwald had spoken before he'd gracefully flicked his wand to draw a straight line in the air with thin white mist.
It clearly wasn't a rune, but an action to let the mist seep into the world.
And the spell itself roughly translated as Mirror of the World in modern English.
So was this the Mirror world?
Prenelle didn't even think for a second before she ruled such an audacious thought out.
Would a True God really allow an Outergod's presence to be felt in their domain?
How laughable.
The Abyss was a perfect example of what would happen if one attempted to ever do such a thing.
So was this Grindelwald's own domain?
But he wasn't even a True God and when they'd seen him he was clearly a naive Sequence 3.
At least he didn't have a divinity as strong as Nicholas and her so he was definitely weaker than them.
So how did he do such a thing?
Prenelle had only one conclusion. This was the realm of an outer god, or more accurately, Grindelwald had only pretended to perform a spell while in actuality he'd used a Beyonder ability obtained from a ritual contract with an outer god whose domain this was.
Was that Outergod truly Mother Tree of Desire herself? Prenelle knew not.
But her infinite wisdom did have a guess now about how she was to break out of this spell.
Grindelwald seemed to have been confident about using this spell on them to make them have a 'taste of death'.
Those were tall words to be directed at Angels who had multitude of ways to escape and prevent death, much less her and Nicholas who were favoured and could even perform rituals to corresponding gods and gain favours through very little sacrifices.
So did this place have the ability to counter all those methods of survival to give them a taste of death?
Prenelle didn't think so, such a claim was impossible to make unless you were at least a True God yourself.
Instead she had a different idea.
The only truly way to kill a strong enough Beyonder was through the tried and tested method of inducing madness in them.
And while Prenelle could assume that Grindelwald might've meant that he'd turn them mad using the corruption from an Outer deity, Prenelle couldn't bring herself to agree fully since neither Nicholas nor the other kids had any experiences with any Outer Deities and apart from Nicholas none probably even knew about them.
So there had to be another way to induce madness that Grindelwald was banking on.
And the only other way was self induced.
What if a Beyonder violated the principles they'd used as guidance to act and digest their potion until now?
What if a Beyonder acted on the side of justice and being good to others while on their path? What if they were suddenly asked to kill everyone in sight and turn them into tortured pincushions?
The Beyonder would most definitely go mad without a doubt.
And she felt this applied to the current situation.
Prenelle had followed the guidance of wisdom. Always choosing to be careful regardless of how reckless her actions might've been perceived by others.
Even during her first trip to the Abyss, she'd only accepted the invitation after she'd first tracked down the Uniqueness of the Justicar pathway and only then stepped in because she didn't know about Mother Tree of Desire yet.
And such cautious wisdom had saved her when she'd run into a pinch!
And now, in this world she'd been so recklessly thrust into, Prenelle knew the solution she needed to save herself.
'I need to jump out and challenge 'Her'?'
Prenelle paused for a second.
Her mind shut down and quickly rebooted as she redid her mental gymnastics and arrived at the same solution.
That was the most reckless thing she could do in this scenario.
Something that went against her entire repository of 'ancient' wisdom and heart.
But she didn't act recklessly, instead she chose to act as her wisdom said and quietly stand back in the corner she was standing but her wisdom kicked in again.
'...if this place is somewhere connected to Grindelwald…will attracting the attention of an Outer God inside it cause him to become corrupted too?'
A dangerous smile formed on Prenelle's lips as she quickly stepped out of the shadows.
She then walked up to a tree root, gathered a bit of pure holy light in her fists and punched through it with a sharp crack.
The effect was instant.
'Her' gaze paused its scanning, before it shifted.
However, Prenelle frowned.
Since the world around her cracked and then drowned in darkness before it returned her into the shadows even before the 'gaze' of the outer deity could land near her.
'I guess it wouldn't be so easy…he'd have known the risks and taken measures to prevent something drastic from happening…'
Prenelle folded up her sleeves and tied her hair into a tight bun.
'Time to get to work…'
'I shall show this dastardly kid who is going to give whom a taste of death.'
She noticed the slight instability in her emotions she felt when she broke her own acting principles, but held it down since she wasn't being reckless, she was only using her wisdom in more modern and clever ways.
After all, modern problems require modern solutions.
…
Hermione looked at Daphne with a sigh as the latter exploded into a shower of flesh and blood for the millionth time and sighed.
The scene didn't affect her in the same way anymore.
It wasn't like it didn't make her feel sad or terrible.
Now it also made her feel exceptionally angry at Grindelwald each time she remembered him.
She wished she could grab his head and stuff it into a mortar and pestle to crush it before stuffing it into a blender to make a smoothie out of it and then serve it in front of Mr. Error to make him use the highest ability of his pathway to curse the man so that he'd never be able to die and have to live as a bald, ugly, wretched creature doomed to roam the world with no relief from constant torture and increasing pain.
She wanted to make his life as terrible as she could.
"Arghh…!!! It's not like I'm the one that's killing Daphne! Why am I even feeling so terrible about all this in the first place!?" Hermione cursed out loud, her hands gripping her wand with full force as she conjured an illusory Ron and then punched him in the face for no apparent reason.
The world dissolved again as she found herself back at the start with maddened Beyonders around her once again.
She'd done everything at this point that she could think of.
She'd killed every single one of these corrupted Beyonders as fast as she could.
She'd tried to ask the other people around her, Loki and Harry who were battling the death eaters and Voldemort nearby for help.
She'd also let herself be subject to corruption, and allowed herself to be reduced to a maddened state right before the world dissolved in hopes of seeing if it would break the loop.
But none of it seemed to have worked.
She was still stuck, like she was doomed to repeat the same cycle over and over again.
'...have I tried everything?' Hermione asked herself, trying to squeeze every ounce of creative solution in her mind that she could to try and figure out if there was anything else she could do.
She walked around, dodging the attacks around her with a sense of omniscience since she'd lived here long enough to know exactly what happened anywhere at every moment in this strange world.
With each step she took, Hermione walked farther and farther away from Daphne, her grip around her wand tightened.
She didn't know what to do anymore.
Her mind was turning up a blank and her patience was running thin.
She'd been here for far too long.
Even if the real world was running much slower compared to this place, which she'd guessed since Mr. Error hadn't summoned her for another Tarot Club meeting, she felt like she'd been here for months if not years already.
It was weird.
This place was like an exact snapshot of the world as she remembered it through her mind's eye.
But at the same time it exposed details she had never seen before.
Like when she tried talking to Professor McGonagall to see if her version in this place would have a solution for her and found out that Professor McGonagall hoped for her to be her true successor in the Mystery Pryer pathway.
Or how her own parents seem to think a little less of her now that she was focusing on the world of magic more than the muggle world when they had hoped that she'd grow closer to them after spending so much time apart each year based on how she'd written her letters.
Eventually, Hermione stopped and pulled open a door, walking out to be right in front of Daphne again as she looked at her in frustration.
"Why am I here?" Hermione asked no one in particular.
She saw Daphne look at her blankly like always, but suddenly Hermione took a step back in surprise as Daphne's expression suddenly distorted!
Not in pain or resolution of sacrifice like each time it had when she was about to explode but in a terrible sense of hatred and disgust.
Hermione suddenly felt a vaguely terrible premonition linger over her as she wished she could immediately run away!
But before she could open another door and slip away, Daphne suddenly spoke in a distorted tone.
"YOU!!!"
"IT WAS YOU!! BECAUSE OF YOU THAT I DIED!!!"
That was all Hermione heard before the world dissolved and restarted once again.
Except this time she felt something within her soundlessly shatter into pieces.
…
Belmont stood in front of his grandfather filled with surprise and shock.
"It's true." the old man said, gently taking Belmont's delicate hands into his own.
But Belmont didn't pull back, or rather he was too shocked to do so.
"The deja vus I've been having…they're all…time loops?"
The old man nodded.
"While I do not know the nature of this place I'm telling you the truth, Bel."
"Ho…how do you know!?" Belmont immediately asked, causing the old man to chuckle.
"...would you believe me if I said it wasn't me knowing at all?"
"Huh?" Belmont asked, confused, his glazed eyes regaining focus as he looked at his grandfather with an intense expression, pressing him to reveal everything he knew.
"...it was the Goddess. The man you saved back then, the one whose name is on that letter." the old man said pointing at the letter Belmont was holding with his chin before continuing, "Professor Snape. He received a divine message from 'Her' grace. And he asked me to warn you about what was happening and how to get out of here."
Belmont immediately grew serious.
He couldn't remember everything about his real life.
But things were vaguely slipping around in the backdrop of his memories. He could vaguely remember a few things about him being out on an important mission somewhere with someone called Tonks and her juniors from Hogwarts.
"You must listen to me carefully." the old man said, tightening his grip on Belmont's hands as he looked directly into the young man's eyes with a much greater intensity than Belmont could ever muster.
It caused Belmont to gulp audibly before nodding his head slowly with surety.
"You must kill me just like how he killed your mot-" the old man started causing Belmont to interrupt almost immediately!
"-NEVER! I'm not like him and I will never do such a filthy thing!!!" Belmont's eyes had already reddened as he did his best to hold back his tears!
He immediately pulled away his hands from his grandfather's grasp as he screamed back-
"How could you say such a thing! You can't be real! You're only tricking me into doing something unthinkable!!"
The old man gently shook his head.
"Now's not the time for such discussions about plans of deceit. The lives of people the Goddess cares about very much is at stake right now along with much of the rest of humanity."
Belmont frowned, his lips quivering in heart aching pain while his cold hands started to turn even cooler due to fright and surprise.
"This is important." The old man reiterated. "It is important that you kill me just like the piece of filth that killed your mother. That's the only way to free yourself from this place and deliver the Goddess's message to the person she wishes to speak to."
"..." Belmont sniffled lightly, he then rubbed his eyes and slowly firmed his eyes.
"Who is it? Who does the message need to be delivered to?"
The old man sighed softly before speaking again, "Apparently it's someone you know who is near you."
"Who?" Belmont asked again.
"Hermione Granger." The old man replied quietly.
…
Dumbledore looked at the papers in his office, spread out everywhere like there wasn't a single thing in the world that could make him rearrange everythi-
THUD
The wind blew in a little top quickly and slammed the windows shut, sending his 'carefully' arranged papers into the air, ruining hours of hard work where he had been trying to arrange the papers according to their writings into the drawing of a cockroach cluster.
'It was hard work! Believe me!' Dumbledore pleaded to no one in particular as he continued munching on a few cockroach clusters he pulled out of his infini-desk drawer.
He then looked far away into the distance muttering something only he understood before sighing and closing his eyes.
The world before Dumbledore suddenly changed.
It shifted from the Hogwarts Headmaster's office as he travelled into a vastly empty space filled only with a blinding white light that was reminiscent of a fluorescent light tube light set up in a white room for experiments.
He stood silently for a while before quietly kneeling on the floor.
It was almost as if he was about to pray, but he didn't.
He wasn't the sort of man built for such a thing.
Instead, after kneeling on the floor slowly, he put his ear on it, as if he were listening to a secretive conversation on the other side.
And then out of nowhere-
-Dumbledore spoke softly, as if whispering sweet nothings while reminiscing with an old friend.
"It's done. The opportunity will be here soon."
The space was silent for a while before it changed slowly, breathing lightly as the light pulsed. It seemed to indicate that the light was happy but one could not truly be sure in these matters left open for interpretation. But at least Dumbledore thought that the being on the other end was happy and that's what mattered.
The space fell silent again as Dumbledore paused too for a few seconds before he spoke again.
"...what about the boy?"
The light fluctuated slightly as if in irritation before slipping into a rhythmic pulse again making Dumbledore have to interpret such vague actions as words again.
"Leave him to you?" He asked with surprise.
The light remained unchanged causing Dumbledore to sigh softly.
"Alright? I hope you know what you're doing then. I have finished my part, now I only wish for you to fulfil your end of the bargain."
The light remained steadily bright for a short while before pulsing softly as if in agreement.
Dumbledore however interpreted that as something else since he frowned.
"No? Have I missed something?..." Dumbledore paused for a few seconds as he suddenly remembered, "Ah, the location of the Chaos Sea? Unfortunately I couldn't get that in time. But worry not, the one who knows its location seems to show up wherever the boy goes…sometimes I wonder if Grindelwald is truly right in his madness about the boy, but I guess he's not since I checked myself…you seem to know a lot more than he does though which is a little concerning since you want to sacrifice…but…ah, well I got sidetracked again….sorry for that. Anyway, you should be able to use the boy to find out where the Chaos Sea is if you are truly who you say you are."
The light remained steady and pulsed again, a little faster this time, as if impatient.
"Hmm…? You need to leave? Alright. I shall not hold you any longer then. But please make sure you follow through on your promise. Or I'll be forced to turn to the one you fea- oh, pardon me, the blasphemer...according to you."
The light pulsed rapidly and forcefully again as if in anger, but Dumbledore had vanished long ago.
…
Ron looked at the tarantula beside him and sighed.
He had lost count of how long he'd been trapped in this world with his little spider friend to accompany him.
At one point in between he'd had some pity for his new friend.
But at this point, after so many loops that went nowhere, he was starting to seriously hate it, regardless of if the spider was not even responsible for all of it in the first place.
All he knew was that killing it reset the world in every way.
He poked and prodded it as a sharp gleam appeared in his eyes.
Out of all the possibilities he'd already tried there was one he'd always ignored or rather hoped not to try out since it disgusted him.
Disgusted him more than having to eat the spider alive.
But this was the only one left in his magnificent brute-force tactic.
After enacting his grandest strategy of brute-forcing through the puzzle this was truly the only way forward remaining that he hadn't tried.
And so he began.
"Let's go buddy." Ron said softly, pulling up the tarantula, grabbing it by its abdomen and placing it on his shoulder as they smoothly walked down the stairs, mocking Fred and George who had been waiting outside to hear him scream on their way down, to arrive at the Weasley garage.
"I wonder where that..muggle moving picture thing went…Dad said it was in the garage last time…but I never found it…"
Ron looked through the collection of items in the garage, ranging from simple light bulbs to miniature Christmas trees made out of muggle plugs.
He didn't know what much of it was or even did, but he did remember his dad showing everyone a movie from the muggle world when they were younger on something called a projector.
"Hmm…how do you select what you want to watch on this thing?" Ron mumbled to himself while placing the patiently waiting tarantula on the side arm of the couch and giving it a few garden worms to snack on.
After fumbling with it for a bit, something did start playing on the dirty wall of the garage, but since it was dark in the garage and the film itself was very old, it didn't affect the viewing experience very much.
As such, one spider and one human child began to watch a cult classic, 'The Jungle Book.'
The story progressed smoothly with both Ron and the little peer intrigued by the world of equal friendship between man and animal projected in the images on the wall.
They shared a bucket of popcorn, courtesy Mrs. Weasley, who gave him one after seeing him sit quietly so early in the morning after he'd finished making his bed without being told to.
She did find the tarantula a bit concerning, but after Ron tattled that Fred had turned his teddy bear into this, Molly rushed off to teach the twins a lesson, leaving Ron behind to have fun with his new little pet.
They watched the movie in silence, even laughing at times when they found something rather peculiar or funny and when the main character, a man's cub and the other animals bonded with each other.
It even seemed to make the spider itself think of Ron as the main character from the movie. Someone reliable and someone that could be trusted since he was feeding it even though it was born for the sole purpose of scaring him.
Eventually, Ron got up for a moment, leaving the spider behind as he brought back a glass of water for himself and another smaller bowl for the spider after they finished eating the popcorn.
And when Ron handed over the bowl to the spider it even realistically nodded in appreciation towards him which caused him to feel a little guilty about what was going to happen next.
But guilt was something he was used to by now.
Except-
'Why does this feel so much like being a damn Snake?'
'I feel like this is something Malfoy would do…'
Ron had simply mixed a little bit of pest eradicating potion into the water.
The spider drank a few drops without even looking at its contents because it trusted Ron so much and sure enough, before its third sip its legs suddenly scrunched up as it turned backwards and collapsed.
Ron saw his own reflection in the spider's now hollow empty eyes and felt terrible as the movie continued to play with him alone.
He waited for the world to reset so that he could apologise to the spider irrespective of if it remembered such things or not.
But not this time.
The world remained the same.
And instead of turning black, it suddenly shattered, leaving Ron standing back in the same corridor he was in before.
'...' Ron looked around and even though the corridor was empty right now felt a tear slip out of his eyes but he quickly wiped it up.
Except the corridor wasn't empty for very long since Ron wasn't the only one who had broken the spell.
Almost as soon as he arrived the space around him shattered multiple times each shatter bringing someone else along with it back into the real world.
First was Nicholas who looked to be reeling something inside him that was quickly getting out of control.
Hermione was next.
She arrived looking distraught and soulless.
She checked her hands constantly as if there was blood on them. She appeared to be horrified enough that her hands shook and trembled constantly even though they were as clean, plain and soft as ever.
Belmont was last, he arrived with wide eyes. As if he'd seen something that had traumatised him.
But before anyone else could arrive or anything else could happen, Belmont sprinted towards Hermione and grabbed her shoulders.
"I have an importan-"
Before he could complete speaking however, Ron stepped in and grabbed Belmont's hands and stopped him from speaking.
And instead of turning to Belmont to explain his actions he turned to Hermione and spoke softly, "You too?"
Nicholas on the side picked up on the conversation and also on Belmont's thoughts, learning the gravity of the message as he spoke quickly while pausing Ron's heartfelt question.
"Now's not the time. We've all done something we're truly disappointed with and that makes us feel like we want to die or be dead, but our priority right now is to move ahead."
Ron wanted to say something but Hermione placed her hand on his shoulder and sighed. Her eyes turned firm as she spoke while looking into Nicholas's eyes resolutely.
"What should I do Mr. Flamel?"
…
---
A/N : What do you want me to finish first?
Naruto : A Fool's Errand.
Naruto My Grievance Template System.