Watching as Takumi created something that, on its own, forced the three sides of the Great War to pause their war just to fight back against it brought up a strange feeling inside Sirzechs.
It was like he told her, the most insane thing he had ever heard, and yet, he did not have it in him to be against it.
The fact that seemingly nobody was aware of what Diodora was doing behind closed doors made him ashamed. Sure, they were devils, and they more often than not followed their more base desires, but a thing like this was simply deplorable. That was like something straight out of the horror stories Runeas Gremory told about what the most staunch followers of the original Lucifer were like in his heyday.
One thing he was sure of, though, was that if Ajuka had even an inkling of what his cousin was doing, he would have killed the man himself, but alas, it was an outside force that had to step in, more on a whim than anything else, and clean up their mess.
"Grab my hand, Mirana, and do not worry, there won't be any pain." Takumi said gently, and her hand, partially covered by golden scales, began to glow with more incomprehensible runes.
Without a shred of doubt, the nun grabbed it firmly and gazed into her eyes, as if searching for any sign of deception. When it looked like she found none, her body loosened up a bit.
"Good, now, the runes will slowly spread around your body, and I need you to focus on what you want your power to be like. That is something I cannot choose for you." Takumi, still with her surprisingly gentle tone, said, as the runes slowly but surely began to travel down her arm and into Mirana's.
"I–I do not want to be powerless ever again…" She muttered as if it were a prayer, and whatever it was that Takumi was doing heard her plea.
They shot out and raced across her body like lost lightning bolts, and once they found their place, they, with a faint glow, got absorbed into her.
One rune after another submerged itself, and each time they did so, Mirana's power turned more and more draconic. At first, the change was barely noticeable, but as time went on, and scales began to grow on her skin, the fact that she was truly becoming a dragon became undeniable.
Translucent scales covering her body slowly turned into a shade of deep, deep purple, so deep it looked almost black. Her nails grew longer and curved slightly, taking on a shade of black. She grew taller, almost reaching Takumi's height, and her body got bulkier as a whole.
All in all, her partial dragon form looked like what he imagined Takumi's would as well.
Then a strange thing happened: Mirana's power vanished. It was not suppressed, no, because that was something he could feel. And even now, when he looked at Takumi, he faintly felt the gargantuan dam she had built around her incomprehensibly large power. And while he did not know what exactly the dam was holding back, he knew that something was there.
With Mirana, though? It was like the river leading to the dam simply dried up, and the dam was empty.
"You did great, Mirana, and with you becoming one of us, let me welcome you into the ranks of the true rulers of the world." Takumi said as she rubbed comforting circles with her thumb on her hand.
She must have seen Sirzech's expression out of the corner of her eye, because she turned to him with a slight grin.
"You know what the world is truly called? Draconic Deus, Zechs." She told him, and he filed that information away for when he was not overwhelmed with literally everything at once.
"Riiight~ Please tell me we are done…" He groaned, and Takumi silently went down a list of things she set out to do.
"Well… you are done. Not me, though, because a little bird told me that they are serving lovely Buffalo Wild Wings in Vatican, and I just have to get me some of them."
—
I just left Sirzechs back in the Underworld, you know, to deal with the eventual fallout of what I just did. Not that I or he, for that matter, cared, but you know how people are. They are going to moan and moan until I show up again and cause an even bigger incident.
But that is beside the point. Right now, the two of us are in Italy. Somewhere on the outskirts of Rome, to be precise, and somehow, I forgot that time zones are a thing, because it's only eight am here, and the city is just waking up.
"So, Mirana, before we do this, there is one thing that you should know." I said carefully, but honestly, my tone did not matter when I was about to tell her that God was dead for a long time, and that was the reason she suffered.
"What, Takumi?"
"Mmmm… I'm just gonna say it. God is dead." I blurted out at the speed of sound, and braced myself for what I assumed would be another mental breakdown.
It did not come, however. Instead of that, she just had a look of mild surprise and understanding on her face. As if that little kernel of information illuminated everything.
"Good." Just a simple one-word answer without any emotion behind it, but it told me everything I needed to know.
"Just— do you know how long it has been?" She added.
"About five hundred years, I think. I wasn't there, and the two others don't give a fuck about a little war." I shrugged.
"Who did it? The Devil?"
"Nah, that idiot tried to create a Dragon God, and it failed, obviously. Instead, he made the Beast of Apocalypse, and they killed each other. Oh, and Lucifer is also dead." Envy was God's downfall. Wasn't that pretty ironic?
"Oh… I don't actually know how to react to that."
"Don't sweat it. I know it's a lot of information at once, but you have an eternity to come to terms with it, if that is something you wish to do. If not, just say fuck it."
"That's your advice?"
"It works for me." I shrugged.
"Now come on, let's go make angels grovel underneath our feet."I added.
Mirana nodded in agreement, and slowly, we made our way into the Vatican. It took us close to an hour since we walked at normal speed… You know, walking speed.
You have to hand it to the Italians, Rome was a gorgeous city, no doubt about that. Especially early in the morning when the sun hits the metal roofs just right. Plus, there were almost no people around, as they are likely still recovering from yesterday's hangover. As we walked and talked… well, I did most of the talking since Mirana was not in the mood for idle chit-chat, we eventually reached the end of a long promenade, where the Vatican was.
"Ready to unleash a little mayhem?" I asked her with a small grin, which she returned with her own, more sinister one.
"How are we doing this?" She leaned a bit closer and whispered.
"We can always go with the classic: unhinged yelling." I threw out an idea.
"Oh no, I am doing that one hundred percent, I mean, do we just start blasting the stuff around us?"
"Hmm~ Do you want to kill innocents?"
"Are there any? In the heart of it all?"
"There are children here, I can feel them, so yeah, unfortunately. Exorcists and the clergy are fair game, though."
"*sigh* Whatever, I want the angels anyway… so better than nothing, I guess." Mirana sighed dramatically.
Only a few ornamental human guards were manning the "Border crossing" separating us from being in the Vatican proper, and those poor souls stood no chance at all against a simple dragon intimidation. Hell, one of them passed out right away, and the other was not far behind in joining his friend in the land of nightmares.
But those guards were just for the tourists, because the real defence kicked in the moment our feet carried us over the invisible line.
I say defences, but it was only a simple protection ward, the kind I would put around my garden shed if I had one, so it was pretty easy to hijack and turn it off for a while.
As we ascended the steps leading to St. Peter's Basilica, the real defences kicked in, namely the exorcists, and the thing that tipped them off that something was not quite right with us was Mirana. With each step, the woman's power leaked more and more, slowly but surely enveloping the whole Vatican City.
And while I really wanted to see what would happen should she activate it and divide all that her power touched by zero, it might just straight up destroy and kill everything in a huge radius around us, so I placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it, letting her know to keep it down for now.
"Save it for when we go to Heaven."
"Easy for you to say, Takumi, because all I see are sinners worthy of punishment." She growled. Like for real, growled like an animal would.
"Yeah, sure. Those kids in the park behind the Basilica totally committed atrocities against humankind… "
"*sigh* Let's just start with the yelling, okay?" Her power pulled back a little bit, just enough to cover only about thirty meters in a circle around her.
"You don't have to tell me twice, girl." I snorted.
"MICHAEL! COME DOWN YOU FUCKING MONGREL!!!"