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The head came first. The skull-like helm, white like bone. It peered through the hole in reality the hands had just torn and laughed. It was a monstrous sound, deep and resonant, rich with bloodstained mirth. The body slipped through. Black and cloaked. Emerged in all its gruesome glory. Man-sized coffins arced over its back in a twisted parody of wings. Surrounded its shoulders like a ring of shields. The wrongness that emanated from its frame was a physical thing, and warriors who had been at each other's throats moments ago suddenly clutched their heads in mutual pain.
There was no words that came with its summoning. No glorified phrases or statements laden with purpose. It did not need them. It proclaimed its intent from its mere presence, leaked it out in short, shuddering breaths, bared it all to see in the form of the curved blade clasped in white gloved fist.
Thanatos reared back and from the lightless dark that resided within its skull-faced helm, the second howl ripped free.
Every window not already broken abruptly shattered. Pulverized by the sonic boom. Atomized into fine powder. Ground to dust by sheer, unrelenting force. Cracks appeared in the earth. Split the ground. They ran like wildfire over the battlefield and up onto the cement walls of Kuoh Academy. Chunks of masonry peeled off and fell. Those Fallen Angels who were nearest shuddered at the noise. They shuddered then burst, their bodies coming apart in ragged explosions of gore. Steaming offal landed all around them, splattered on the ground like pieces of rotten fruit. Swirling blemishes of color twisted their way into existence, and the sky that had been so bloody and red was suddenly consumed by a hideous shade of green.
Kokabiel was no longer smiling.
Something dark and heavy fell to the ground. It thudded into the pavement and threw up a cloud of dust around him. He turned from the spot he had seen her die. One of Thanatos's coffins. Erect and still, it jutted from the earth like some blasphemous monument. The lid creaked open. The cover slid free, just like he had known it would, and there, what was inside was revealed for all to see.
A figure, white and translucent, unmistakably female. Her form shimmered in the light, a haze of blurred imagery. There was no emotion to her face. It was blank, featureless, wiped clean by the neutrality that was death. Like the rest of the body, it was a transparent thing, and in the moments where the haze solidified, it shone like quicksilver.
Without the confines of the coffin to hold her, she began to tip forward.
Thanatos caught her before she could fall.
The Aspect of Death landed beside the casket and wrapped her in its black-clothed arms. It heaved a shuddering breath and growled low in its throat. He knew why it would do this. Why it would kneel and clutch her to its chest. Thanatos hated life. Hated it to the point where it would gladly surge into existence to end it wherever it may be found. But it respected the dead and that respect showed. It continued holding her in one arm, cradling the body to its own, allowing her head to rest against its shoulder. The other arm planted the sword deep into the earth. Gloved fingers enclosed over the grip, squeezing vengefully. The head glared up, defiant, as if daring those who floated above to attack.
He took a step forward. The skull-faced helm tore its gaze from the cloud of enemies to stare at him. Dog-like pants escaped from the jaws, rasping, guttural growls that were nevertheless laden with meaning. He understood.
A soul was nothing without the shell of flesh and blood to hold it in place.
He reached into the depths of his conscience. Dipped his presence into the Sea of Souls. He asked for their aid, and one by one they emerged from its tranquil waves.
Power coalesced. Not wrathful like it had been before. Calmer. At peace. It surged into his fingertips like water from a broken dam.
The body began to form.
He remembered her face, the sneer she had worn when they first met, the look of pained acceptance when she died, the features that made her her, and the power in his hands sought to turn memory into reality.
He could hear them gasping. Hear them exclaiming. There were words, but in his state, he could make no sense of them. They were white noises in the background, sounds he knew by instinct but could no longer recognize. The mortal brain could only hold so much, could only endure just enough, and as it was, he had already reached that limit. Everything else became secondary to the task at hand.
A body existed, but a body needed organs to function. The shell required something within it to become more than just a shell. A new presence took its place inside his mind, lent him its power, and deep within newly created flesh, a heart began to beat, joined by two inflating lungs.
The sudden gasp of escaped air told him all he needed to know.
He knew that he was breaking rules. Defying laws. Conservation of matter. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another. The body was there, had come into existence from nothing, and spat into the face of that rule. The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Energy too, had to be conserved. Heat was energy. Yet the body that had been cold and lifeless before was now flaring with heat as yet another presence broke into his conscience.
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