The ruined temple courtyard became a stage for a battle between a god and an army.
Amatsu-Mikaboshi, wearing the skin of Alexander Aaron, moved with a power that warped the very air. The Kusanagi no Tsurugi, the god-slaying Grasscutter, hummed in her hand, its edge so sharp it seemed to slice reality itself with every swing.
SHING!
The first slash was a blur of black, chaotic energy. It wasn't aimed at any single clone; it was a wide, devastating arc meant to cleave the world in two. Half a dozen clones in its path didn't even have time to react. They simply vanished, their forms dissipating into smoke before they could even hit the ground. The power behind that single swing was absolute. A direct hit would not just dissipate a clone; it would annihilate the strand of soul it was made from.
But for every clone that fell, two more took its place. They sprang from the hair of their brothers, popping into existence with cheerful grins, multiplying at a rate that was less like an army and more like a tide of sand grains.
"Ooh, scary sword!" one clone chirped, backflipping off another's head to dodge a downward slash.
"I bet it's not even that sharp!" another added, using his staff to pole-vault over a wave of dark energy. "It's probably just for show, like a rich guy's sports car!"
Amatsu roared, a sound of pure, primordial rage that echoed from Alexander's throat. It swung the Kusanagi again, this time with more focus, more intent. But Alexander's body, for all the divine power coursing through it, was still just a human body. It was untrained, its movements clumsy, its footwork a mess. The god was a master swordsman, but the puppet was a novice.
And the clones exploited this weakness with a beautiful, chaotic precision.
They moved not as individuals, but as a single, swarming entity. One clone would charge in, staff held high, drawing Amatsu's attention. As the Kusanagi swung, two more clones would leap from the first one's back, using him as a springboard to attack from above. Another group would slide in low, their staffs aimed to trip, to harry, to disrupt the clumsy footwork of their opponent.
CLANG!
A team of five clones worked in perfect unison, their staffs forming a makeshift cage around the Kusanagi, trapping the blade for a split second. In that moment, another clone slid underneath, smacking Alexander squarely on the back of the knee with his staff.
She stumbled, her divine power flickering for a moment.
"Kekekeke! Got your ankles!" a clone cheered from a safe distance.
The fight was a maelstrom of gold and black. Clones were being sliced apart by the dozen, their forms dissolving into nothingness, but they just kept coming. They used their own bodies as shields, sacrificing themselves to create an opening for another to land a quick, annoying bonk on the head. They used their staffs to create intricate, interlocking barriers, forcing Amatsu to waste precious energy smashing through them. They even started using their Body Freezing Spell in coordinated waves, not to stop their opponent, but to momentarily slow the swing of the sword, giving them a precious millisecond to dodge.
It was a battle of overwhelming power versus overwhelming, unhinged skill. And the clones were having the time of their lives.
…
The void-smoke children flickered at the edge of the playground, their muffled taunts a constant, looping soundtrack to a nightmare. Alexander Aaron looked around at the lonely swing set, the rusty slide, and the swirling black-and-gold chaos that surrounded them. "So," she asked, her voice small, "where am I?"
Jack Hou, who had been inspecting the dead tree branch with a critical eye, turned to her with a grin. "We're inside you."
A deep, unexpected blush crept up Alexander's neck. "I—what?"
Jack flicked her sharply on the forehead. "Stop your dirty mind," he said, completely deadpan. "I mean, we're inside your soul. Your mental landscape. Your happy place. Though, this is a pretty depressing happy place, just saying."
"Oww," she muttered, rubbing her forehead. "If we're in my soul, why did I still feel that flick?"
"Who cares?" Jack shrugged, dismissing the laws of psychic metaphysics with a wave of his hand. "But my theory is correct, seeing this soulscape."
"What theory?"
"You haven't been made into his host," Jack stated simply.
Alexander's breath hitched. "Host? You mean… the deal."
"Yes, the deal," Jack confirmed, his tone suddenly sharp. "But first off, that was stupid on your part. Why would you trust a creepy-looking being made of tentacles and bad vibes and make a deal with it?"
"He said my destiny was rewritten!" she shot back, defensive. "He said I was made to believe in Yomi, but that I should have gone to Hades!"
Jack's expression softened into something resembling pity. "Ah. So you do know who your deadbeat father is, then."
She shook her head, looking down at her hands. "No. That's just what Amatsu said."
Jack hopped onto one of the swings, kicking his feet back and forth with a lazy, childish rhythm. "It's Ares, by the way," he said casually.
Alexander's head snapped up. "What?! How can you say that so casually?"
"How do you want me to say it?" Jack asked, genuinely curious. "With dramatic music? A slow-motion reveal? A flashback montage?"
"I don't know! A bit more suspenseful, I guess!"
"Look," Jack said, getting back on track. "What is the deal you made with Amatsu?"
Alexander's brief flash of indignation faded, replaced by a desperate, pleading look. "Before I answer… can you really swear that I would have been alive? Even without him?"
Jack stopped swinging. He pointed at her hand, the one she had sliced open. "Didn't you see your own blood? There's a mix of golden ichor in it. That signifies your divine status as a demi-god. You were never going to die from that truck crash. Injured? Sure. Messed up? Definitely. But not dead."
A wave of profound relief washed over Alexander, so powerful it almost brought her to her knees. It was true. All of it. "How… how do you know all this?" she whispered.
Jack's grin returned, smug, arrogant, and for the first time, utterly reassuring.
"Heh," he said, puffing out his chest. "You're talking to a full god, girl. In the name of my predecessor, Sun Wukong."
…
The battle in the ruined temple courtyard had devolved from a fight into a grim, one-sided slaughter. Amatsu-Mikaboshi, wielding Alexander's body and the god-slaying Kusanagi, was a force of nature. Every swing of the blade was a whisper of oblivion, and the clones, for all their numbers, were being reaped like wheat. They were dying too fast. The tide was turning heavily against them.
Then, the sky tore open.
Two streaks of pure, unadulterated New York energy slammed into the battlefield from above. They didn't arrive with a portal or a quiet shimmer. They arrived with a BOOM. Two colossal, true-sized Ruyi Jingu Bangs, wielded by two new clones, crashed down on either side of Amatsu in a devastating double bash.
The ground shattered. The Chaos God was thrown off balance, the Kusanagi's swing going wide. The two new clones, one in a crimson hanfu and the other in a sharp red tang jacket, landed with manic grins.
"NEW YORK, BABY!!" they roared in unison, their voices a chaotic symphony of pure, unhinged glee.
The reinforcements had arrived.
"Alright, boys! Let's show this squid-faced edgelord how we party in the Golden Peach!" the clone in the red tang jacket shouted.
He clapped his hands together, and from him, a torrent of razor-sharp peach blossom petals erupted, swirling into a massive, violent storm. It was bigger, deadlier, and far more chaotic than anything the other clones could produce.
"Contain it!" another clone—one of the originals—yelled. He slammed his staff into the ground, and a shimmering golden barrier erupted around the battlefield, trapping the Peach Blossom Storm and Amatsu inside a deadly, beautiful snow globe of death.
The battle became a maelstrom. The clones, now numbering in the hundreds, no longer fought with caution. They fought with a joyful, suicidal abandon. They didn't care if they died; they knew another would take their place. This wasn't a battle for survival; this was a party, and Amatsu was the piñata.
They threw each other at him, using their own bodies as projectiles. They used their staffs as pogo sticks to bounce off his head. They formed a barbershop quartet in the middle of the fight, singing a terrible, off-key sea shanty before being sliced in half.
Amatsu was going mad. The Chaos King, the primordial force of oblivion, was being driven to the brink by an army of laughing, immortal jesters. 'Who is this god?' he raged internally, his divine mind struggling to comprehend the sheer, nonsensical nature of his opponent. 'Is he new? Born after I was imprisoned? No god fights like this! There is no honor! No strategy! Only… chaos!'
Several clones tried to sneak up on him, using their Bodily Concealment spell to vanish from sight. But Amatsu was still a primordial force. He could see through their cheap tricks, his divine senses piercing their invisibility. He swung the Kusanagi blindly, slicing through three invisible clones.
"Ooh, he found us!" one of them said, its voice fading as it dissolved into smoke. "Tell my wife I loved her… even though I don't have one! Kekeke!"
It was a chaotic, beautiful, and utterly infuriating fight. And strangely, for the first time in eons, the God of Chaos was the one on the receiving end of it.
…
The playground at the end of the world was silent save for the muffled, ghostly insults of the smoke-children.
"So," Jack began, breaking the quiet as he strolled toward the swing set, "let me get this straight. The big, scary tentacle god told you I was the gatekeeper to your freedom?" He stopped, turned, and his face broke into a wide, incredulous grin. "Kekekekeke! Are you a child? How can you believe him like that? I didn't even attack you first! You're the one who came at me with a god-killing sword. My feelings were hurt, you know."
Alexander's face went from pale to a deep, burning red. She looked away, embarrassed. "Okay, okay! I see it now," she muttered. "But can you honestly tell me you can think straight with a being like that constantly talking in your head?"
"I can," Jack said with a shrug. "A bunch of my clones use my soulscape to talk to each other all the time. It's like a group chat, but with more existential dread and arguments about who gets to use the good shampoo. You get used to it."
Alexander stared at him. "You're really crazy, huh?"
"So," Jack said, changing the subject as he hopped onto the swing next to hers. "Are you ready to banish this tentacle man back to whatever dark, emo corner of the universe he crawled out of?"
Her newfound resolve wavered. "How can you be so sure we can win? He's… a king of chaos."
"I've got my clones and a brother in Yomi that I can trust," Jack said, his voice surprisingly steady. "They're handling the main course. But you're the one who made the deal with him. You're the only one who can break it from this end." He looked at her, his golden eyes serious for a moment. "But with you banishing him… it will hurt."
She swallowed hard, the fear returning. "How… how hurt will it be?"
Jack leaned back on his swing, looking up at the swirling black-and-gold void. "Think of it like this," he began, his voice taking on a strangely profound, yet utterly unhinged tone. "Your soul is about to be put through a cosmic paper shredder, then hastily reassembled by a blindfolded toddler who's high on sugar and armed with a glue stick." He paused, then gave her a reassuring grin. "But don't worry. I'm a great babysitter. I'll make sure the toddler uses non-toxic glue. Mostly."
Alexander stared at him, her expression a perfect mixture of terror and disbelief. "You're terrible at calming someone down."
"What can I say?" Jack said with a shrug. "I'm an honest man."
A long silence passed. The ghostly children continued their muffled taunts. Finally, Alexander took a deep breath. "In here… in this place… can I use the name Phoebe?"
Jack looked at her, his smile softening just a fraction. "It's your soul. You can call yourself whatever you want."
"Then," she said, her voice gaining a new strength, a new resolve. "Can I banish this curse, too? The one on my name? I'm a demi-god, right?"
Jack's grin returned, full force. "Kekekeke, getting ahead of ourselves, are we?" he said. "You can. But you'll need to sort that shit out with Ares. Your dad."
Phoebe—for that is who she was now—looked at the swirling void, at the ghostly children, at the laughing madman on the swing next to her. She took one final, deep breath, and the fear was gone, replaced by a cold, hard certainty.
"Alright," she said. "I'm ready. Let's do this."