Quick Fate Chain

Jump 1: Fate/Legends - Oasis of Fantasy

Starting Time: Sumer - 2800 BCE
Alternate Timeline: Galgamesh
Origin: Holy Person
Age: 27
Gender: Female

Perks
>An Age of Gods -Free
>Gods' Eyes -200 **
>Unified Language -300 **
>AUO -100 **
>Crusader -Free
>Divine Harlot -Free
>Mind of the World -100 **
>Voice of the World -200 **
>Fleshly God -400 **
>>Artifice
>>Humanity
>>Song
>Magician of the Early Ages -100 **
>A Thousand And One Lies -200 **
>Principles of Mana -400 **

Items
>Weapon For A Holy War -Free

Companions
>Little Shadow -Free
>Sphinx Awlad -Free

Drawbacks
>Eternal Fate +0 **
>Sumerian Pride +100 **
>Heavenly Judgement +200 **
>Trials of Scheherazade +200 **
>Holy Mountain of Corpses +200 **
>The Book of Jumper +300 **

Scenarios
>Mother of Monsters
---------------------
She was one of the first beings born on that primordial world, the first motes of light separated from the consciousness of Gaia. Her will was one of Creation-though not the primordial conjuring from nothingness that was the spark of life. No, her will was one which took what existed and refined it, created purpose out of the purposeless, created levers and advantages where none existed before. She was the one who created tools as a concept, and it was with her guidance that the Sub-Bells of the Beginning were able to forge that Sword of Promised Victory to slay the White Titan. Though the world was sundered in the wake of the White Titan, she remained unscarred...and in studying the White Titan, even remade herself through her own will of Artifice.

She was not a Mother Goddess. She was not a Divine Spirit. She could hardly be called a Goddess at all...and yet, she was the most enduring of Gods that there was. As the ages turned and humanity began to rise, her power did not begin to fade...in fact, it grew. Humanity itself became part of her will, her Authority. Through this Will, she made herself natural and fundamental to the Common Sense of Man, which had only recently been born. She would be unchanged by humanity's will, yet never would she be suppressed by it either. 

Her nature was a blasphemy to both God and Man. Enfleshed God and Human Sorceress alike, she fit neither world and yet could not be cast out of either. Her eyes saw past all lies, and all trickery failed before her. It mattered not how many assassins were sent to slay her by humanity, they were defeated with but a single word-for she spoke the First Language and wielded Humanity itself against her human enemies. Against the beasts and demons the gods sent to her, the tools and creations of magecraft that she played with were enough-her cast-offs of the creative process surpassed the most powerful of monsters the gods could conjure. As the ages continued to pass, she remained unchallenged as the greatest of all deities-perhaps not the most powerful, or most beautiful, or most worshipped, but certainly the deity who rules over all she surveys. What she lacked in power, she made up for in cleverness. What she lacked in beauty, she made up for in skill and song. What she lacked in worship, she made up for in knowledge.

When Tiamat raged and took over the Earth, herding humanity into cities and seeking to imprison humanity the Goddess of Artifice and Humanity became enraged. Though they were Tiamat's children, Humanity was also a part of the Goddess's will! Crafting grand weapons, the Goddess weaved the will of the World and grand mystical principles into weapons of destruction and went to war with the mother goddess. As she waged war and freed cities of humanity, she discovered a strange principle of energy-a principle that drew power from destruction, and stored that power in loops, spirals, and circles. Destruction was not a part of her will, not something she embraces, yet this principle of storage...it held promise. For it was capable of generating power from nothing-creating loops and cycles that continuously grew greater at an incredibly slow rate.

When she finally encountered Tiamat, she fought for weeks and weeks...yet could never defeat the Mother Goddess. Tiamat lacked a concept of death entirely, and could not be slain so long as she existed in this world alongside humanity and other such "children" of hers. For weeks, the two warred against each other pointlessly-Tiamat endlessly restored by her Sea of Life, while the Goddess of Artifice harnessed the Principles of Looping Mana to create a restorative cycle of energy within herself to achieve a similar effect. And then...the Goddess was struck by inspiration.

She forged loop after loop around Tiamat, each one spinning opposite of each other sequentially. Clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, so on and so forth. And as she did so, she sang to the world. Harnessing the power of the world, the power of the looping mana, and her own knowledge of the world itself, the Goddess of Artifice created a grinding force around Tiamat which grew exponentially more powerful around her. At first it was nothing that Tiamat couldn't resist effortlessly, yet it grew and grew...and then, all at once, it pierced through the very fabric of the world itself and exposed the Truth of existence. 

In an instant, Tiamat was rent asunder-ripped apart on a fundamental level and annihilated by the Truth of the World. And through the bands of mana surrounding her and the Goddess of Artifice's song, she was forcibly isolated from the rest of the world-cut off from her children and even her Sea of Life. It didn't matter that she lacked a concept of Death...she was ripped apart regardless, and all that was left were chunks of flesh and demons born from her death. Collapsing the rings of light into a weapon that she could wield again later, the Goddess of Artifice feasted on Tiamat's flesh and took her Authorities-becoming a Mother Goddess herself and claiming the Sea of Life as her own.

Screaming triumph to the world and celebrating her own superiority, the Goddess of Artifice fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the Authority of an Earth Mother Goddess...and decide that she would become a mother to both celebrate and fulfill her new Authority. Harnessing the Sea of Life, the Principles of Mana, her Authorities of Artifice and Humanity, and her knowledge of the mystic arts that she had been slowly and steadily refining over the course of centuries, the Goddess forged a being who would be her ultimate "child". 

Strictly speaking, what she created was a Human...on some level, at least. Its flesh had more in common with the flesh of deities than it did anything terrestrial, and deep within it was a whirling arrangement of loops and cycles that acted to continuously generate and refine power on an incredible level; a literal engine of mana, no lesser than a Dragon's Mana Core and holding potential to continuously grow greater over time. Its voice and soul innately spoke to the World, just as the Goddess herself could. Through complex workings of artifice she had ensured that it was capable of healing and self-repair such that it would never degrade with time-only ever continually growing stronger. But, on some level, it was still fundamentally human. Maybe even less human than that female emperor the Sumerian gods crafted...Gilgamesh? But humanity beat within the core of this being's heart.

For a time, things were good. Raising her child, the Goddess found a contentment that she had never known before. She even found a pet for her child: a sphinx kitten, soft and lovable. Wandering with her child and pet in tow, the goddess traveled the breadth of Sumeria and refined her craft as she did so. She practiced singing, magic, and even dancing. And of course, she fought the mortal sect of assassins who sought to execute her for her trespass upon humanity and divinity. 

In the climax of these battles, the Goddess faced a human who was also Death incarnated. A human she could not command with a word, for he was less human and more Death made manifest. Intrigued, she studied the human even as she battled him-even if the Unified Language could not stop him or strike him down, she could still Speak to the world and harness her Authority to lock him down for a time. A man so steeped in Death that he all but became it, wielding a weapon that was less blade and mor shard of Death made manifest...a being like this could even bring low those who lacked a concept of Death entirely. He would simply impose Death onto his targets with blade and will, and his target would die regardless of the fact that they should be incapable of such. Had she such a power, defeating Tiamat would have been simplicity itself!

The Goddess coveted this power, but knew that there was no way she could convince the King Assassin to help her in her desire to acquire it-especially since he was still actively attempting to kill her. Harnessing the World and the concept of Humanity itself, she struck down the King Hassan and then turned to the mountain of death that was once the sect of assassins. Despite analyzing countless assassins, she found only the barest clues and hints to the power of Death that the King wielded...as well as a child, barely trained in the arts of assassination yet determined to live up to the legacy of Hassan in striking down their ultimate enemy: the Goddess of Humanity, what they called the Demon of Tyranny.

The Goddess would have struck this child assassin down out of hand, but was stopped by her own Child-who wished for an end to the bloodshed brought by these zealous assassins. Instead, the Child suggested, this little one could be used to study the power of Death that she had observed in their King. After deliberation, the Goddess agreed. She took the Little Shadow in as her own daughter, and began to groom her into an assassin the likes of which the world had never seen before. The Goddess was no assassin and knew very little of the arts...but had preserved the corpses of all who had sought to kill her for inspiration on later creations, and thus began to craft weapons and magics to imbue into her new daughter.

She crafted armors, weapons, poisons, and more-all to give her Little Shadow all the means necessary to become the greatest killer possible. And yet, she still fundamentally misunderstood things, and the Little Shadow would never take a single life. 

Growing more and more discontent with the fact that despite being the Goddess of Humanity, the Goddess simply did not understand humanity nor how to actually live a life, the Child rebelled against their mother and set out on their own. The Child created a kingdom in their own image, an advanced kingdom of magic and grand artifice that the Goddess had taught her child over the years. This kingdom swiftly grew to rival even the grand Kingdom of Uruk, yet it brought no happiness to the Child...for the Goddess had hardly noticed at all. No, she was still lost in her own workings and will, seeking the heights of Artifice and seeking to recreate the King Hassan's blade which commanded death.

Lost in rage, the Child decided that if his mother was so obsessed with death, then he would grant it to her. 

The Goddess hadn't even noticed at first, when the Child summoned demons and went to war against her. It was only when she had an arm ripped from her body by her own Child that she realized that said Child actually meant her harm. Caught in a trap and beaten by her Child, the Goddess may very well have been slain despite her existence as an Earth Mother...were it not for the actions of the Little Shadow, much grown up and wielding the Arsenal of Death that the Goddess had crafted for her. Despite having never taken a single life, the Little Shadow had grown up healthy and strong under the ministrations of the Goddess, and learned to wield the countless tools that the Goddess crafted.

And it was with these tools that the Little Shadow freed the Goddess from the Child's trap, allowing the Goddess to swiftly recover through summoning the Sea of Life. Enraged and vengeful, the Goddess took up her war-tools once again and struck back against the Child, razing their empire and personally slaying the Child that they had gone to such great pains to create. 

Before the final blow was struck, the Child brought about one last gambit-a sealing, trapping the Goddess in a ring of crystal with the sacrifice of the Child's life. And, for hundreds of years, the Goddess remained trapped in that crystal ring. The ages forgot the city that rivaled Uruk, and the Little Shadow grew up and founded her own order-an order of those who wielded death to preserve life. The Little Shadow did not grow old-with the blessings of the Goddess she never would.

One day, a mortal merchant came across the crystal ring. Finding it extremely aesthetically pleasing, the merchant sold it for a great sum. The crystal ring traded hands many times over, until it fell into the hands of a childish and belligrent king. Caught in wonder over the strange designs and fanciful stories that the crystal ring had acquired after being sold so many times, the king treasured this ring greatly...and became deeply enraged to see it shattered in half one day and a strange woman lying unconscious underneath it. 

The king tried to have the strange woman executed, but before one of his men could lop her head off she awoke-and seemed to explode in radiant fire. Hate and rage boiled in her eyes as the world around her twisted and shimmered like a mirage, memories of her defeat still fresh in her mind. With a scream she disappeared in a flash of light, leaving the glittering yet shattered crystal ring behind. The king could do naught but sigh in relief, having narrowly avoided the "wrathful djinn"'s rage. In the face of his life, complaining about a shattered treasure seemed silly...though still, he mourned that he would miss the nights of interesting stories and fantasies the crystal ring brought.

The ring twinkled, and disintegrated into dust as it heard the king's wishes-and that ash flew out of a nearby window. Later that night, a strange yet incredibly beautiful woman appeared at the gates of the king's palace, familiar yet different...and around her neck, a thin choker of crystal was wound. She declared herself as "a woman out of time", and offered to tell the king stories that would enthrall and delight him for a thousand and one nights. Overjoyed, the king allowed her in and listened to the strange woman's stories.

A thousand and one nights passed. Every morning, the woman would disappear-as if naught but a mirage. Every evening she would appear once again, new stories on her lips. The tales she told were strange-some historical, some fantastical, and some simply bringing a gentle joy to heart. At first, she was stone-faced as she spoke, though her voice and stories were deeply enthralling and emotional. Yet as time passed and she spoke more, she seemed to soften slightly-learning something, even as she spoke her tales.

A thousand and one nights passed, and the strange woman told her final story: the story of a great yet foolish goddess who both was and was not divine, was and was not human, a part of both yet understood and was understood by neither. A goddess who was lost in the ecstacy of creation such that she had never held anything for very long, who was destined to rule humanity yet had failed to rule over even a single child, let alone an empire. A goddess who did not understand what it meant to be human, struck down by her own child and sealed away for centuries for the crime of her ignorance.

After the thousand and first night, the goddess disappeared from her ancient home; there was nothing left for her there, she believed. The ancient city of Uruk had fallen, the gods of old gone or faded, and all that tied her to this land lost. She exiled herself, wandering to a different land in hopes of finding something to live for-some meaning, some pleasure, some understanding of humanity. 

The year was 1300 BCE.
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Jump 2: Fate/Legends - Nirvana Yuga

Starting Time: Ramayana - 1200-1100 BCE
Origin: Divine (Enlightened One)
Age: 35
Gender: Female

Perks
>Hindu Boys -Free
>Mother Deity -Free
>A Life of Peace -100 **
>Heart of a Divine Maiden -100 **
>Sage Arts -200 **
>Simple Purity -200 **
>Saver -300 **
>Pitfalls to Pleasure -100 **
>Nega Desire -200 **
>Myriad Colours of Flesh -600 **

Items
>Divine Splendor -Free
>Soma -50 **
>Vasavi Shakti -100 **
>Earthly Temptations -50 **

Companions
>Beast XXL -Free
>Holy Woman -Free

Drawbacks
>Continuity +0 **
>Enlightened Heart +100 **
>Hidden Blackness +100 **
>Demon Hunt +200 **
>Path to Enlightenment +300 **
>Journey of Jumper +300 **

Scenario
>Lusty Saver
---------------------
Dejected yet understanding her own failures back in her ancient Sumerian home, the Goddess of Artifice wandered aimlessly for a hundred years. She drew deeply of the essence of Humanity through her Authority and remade her own body to fulfill her desires for a truly and fundamentally "human" form through her Artifice. What she did...had deeply unintended results. Through her actions she drew of the very essence of the land she was in, remaking herself in its image and archetypes-taking in its powers through her connection with humanity. Her body was remade into a vision of purest lust and beauty, incomprehensibly attractive to the point of enslaving all but those who lacked desire entirely. Lust suffused her form as human desires and will filled her...but within, was a spark of potential. A spark of enlightenment, buried deep, deep underneath the lust. One that could awaken into something truly...Grand, if allowed to.

The world itself could not allow such a thing, and attempted to fight back against the Goddess's ascension to such a state. That spark of enlightenment was drowned in lust, guilt, pleasure, and despair; the demons of the land felt a deep rage and hatred towards a strange foreign existence intruding on this land...and from the distant future, two existences emerged which by all rights should not exist yet. Deep within them was etched a mission: drown the Spark of Enlightenment in depravity, and they shall be free to spread their love eternal.

Unknowing of the world's rage at her stealing a power not meant for her, the Goddess continued to wander the land aimlessly. She studied various sutras and chants to wield her powers over the world with greater focus and power, and in time took to practicing the martial arts for simple lack of anything better to do. It was hard training and helped her to focus her strength to greater effect, but fulfilled nothing within her, and she soon found herself losing motivation to continue with it. It wasn't as if she needed it to keep her Divine body in top-form after all; she had long since rebuilt her own body to excise such weaknesses from it.

Eventually she came across a castle at the top of a mountain, within which was a strange woman from the distant future...doing nothing but playing video games and lazing around. On a whim, the Goddess joined the strange girl named Jinako, and found herself a very good companion. Together the two gamed and lazed around for a while, but though it was pleasant and the company even served to lessen her pain, the Goddess eventually decided to move on-what she desired could not be found here, despite her best efforts. After a great deal of cajoling, Jinako even joined the Goddess on her quest to find purpose.

Practically from the very moment the two set out from Jinako's castle, they were beset by demonic forces seeking to kill and/or consume them, not necessarily in that order. Jinako cowered in fear, but the Goddess hardly even noticed it; with just a few words Spoken to the world and a few absent-minded gestures, the demons were rent apart in sharp winds and fires conjured from nothing. Only the most powerful of demons merited more than that, and for those it was enough for the Goddess to exercise a modicum of her truly ridiculous physical might-refined time and again through training, self-artificing, and focused through her self-taught skills in martial arts. Perhaps she was not the most skilled warrior...but then again, she never needed to be. Soon enough Jinako grew to place her unwavering trust in the Go0ddess to keep them both safe as they wandered, and even began to find some enjoyment and excitement whenever a new demon or set of demons would appear.

Some time later, the Goddess and Jinako stumbled upon a strange nun who sat underneath a tree by the side of the road. She introduced herself as a mere Holy Woman, here to soothe the pains and ills of those she could. Noting that these roads were very dangerous for a pair of women such as themselves, the Holy Woman asked the Goddess why exactly she was travelling.

"I suppose...my purpose is to seek understanding." The Goddess answered. "I have been trapped in my own head, lost in my own ambitions, for so long...that I had never even realized what I was passing up. I seek to understand; myself, others, the world...I need to understand."

The Holy Woman hummed to herself, tapping her lips with a finger. "I believe I may be of assistance." She declared. "Have you ever bore a child, perchance?"

The Goddess began to nod, but stopped. "Not...conventionally." She eventually said. "I have cared for two children, though neither were born directly of my body...and I cannot say I was the best mother."

The Holy Woman nodded, and walked up to the Goddess with a seductive sway. "I believe...you do not understand yourself." She said. She trailed a finger along the Goddess's shoulder and across her collarbone in a most natural way, even as she continued to speak. "You have been lost in your own workings, yes, but you have negleted yourself as well. You have trained your body for battle, I can see that...but though you wield it well, you don't UNDERSTAND its depths. Perhaps...you can begin your understanding there? They say that to understand the self is to understand the world, after all."

The Goddess considered the Holy Woman's words, and the strange tingling that ran through her body at the Holy Woman's touch. It was unfamiliar to her, a sensation she had never felt before. She was not like Ishtar or other such Deities; she had never slept with a mortal before-never slept with anyone, for that matter. She was a primordial Goddess, one of the first, and had never understood the point of such things when she could instead engage in the art of Artifice and seek to craft ever greater tools and wonders. Yet...she knew now that she had limited herself, had fundamentally blinded herself to the world. Perhaps...she should engage in such things? Learn the pleasures of the body, the "human vices" as it were? 

As she led the curious Goddess with a gentle hand, Kiara could hardly believe her luck. This Goddess, this vision of lust and beauty that perhaps equalled even her unsealed self, hadn't ever known pleasure! Her downfall would be swift and effortless~! Before she could continue to tempt the Goddess, said deity sighed and spoke a Word. "[Stop]." The Goddess spoke in the Unified Language. Though Kiara had long since ascended-or perhaps descended-into something more-or less-than human, she was still forced to stop-for part of her, a fundamental essence, still deeply resonated with humanity.

"I am...curious about these pleasures." The Goddess admitted, hefting one of her own mammaries and giving it a curious glance for a moment. "But...right now, I don't think I'm ready for such things. Perhaps in time?"

Kiara nodded in understanding. "In time, then. Mayhaps I could accompany you and guide you to better understanding yourself?" Kiara asked. To this, the Goddess unhesitatingly agreed...and thus happily invited a serpant into her company.

Kiara would engineer the Goddess's fall slowly, gently. With Jinako's help she tempted the Goddess into gluttony and sloth, though such things held her attention for very little time-by nature, the Goddess simply was not a very slothful woman. Gluttonous, perhaps, but she hungered for creation and advancement more than mere consumption-and so she could only bring herself to stay still for so long. The easiest and most "innocent" vices failing, Kiara turned to her tried and true weapon: lust.

Things began slowly, gently, just carefully enough to allow the Goddess to become comfortable, before moving a little bit more sensually. Then a little bit more. And then a little bit more. Kiara discovered that within the Goddess of Artifice was a slumbering Goddess of Love-or perhaps merely lust. It was no exaggeration to say that-though inexperienced-the Goddess was every bit as talented in the arts of lovemaking and pleasuring as Kiara herself was-moreso even, thanks to her divine constitution. The arts of lovemaking, of seduction, all but sung within the Goddess, and Kiara was certain that this would be what would bring the Goddess's downfall...

And yet, it didn't. Though she experienced the highest of pleasures, the Goddess found herself falling back to pits of despair each and every time afterwards. No amount of pleasure, food, lazing, or the like ever eased the guilt and shame in her heart, and soon enough she found herself growing tired and bored of lovemaking. This depression simply continued to drag her back into itself, and though her eyes were clouded with despair and could not see through the illusions and temptations of demons, that same melancholy acted as a sort of armor against lust and temptation that always dragged her back to her center.

Kiara grew more and more frustrated with this; was there no temptation in the world that could permanently stain the Goddess's soul black?! It was easy enough to drag her down into the dust of the world over and over again...and over and over again, without thought or intention, the Goddess simply MOPED her way back to purity!

As Kiara grew frustrated with her failures, Kama decided to step in and accomplish what the other Beast of Lust failed to achieve. Rather than the slow and steady corruption that Kiara had attempted, Kama simply abandoned all subtlety and went straight for the kill; from the very fabric of space itself, a multitude of Kama-bodies appeared around the Goddess and her companions. Each one was a vision of grand beauty, unique shapes and ideals embodied within them, and with a flex of will Kama began to twist the fabric of the world around the Goddess to make a prison of lust and pleasure.

Unexpectedly, the Goddess smiled. "This, I know how to deal with." She declared, and began to Sing. As if slapping the hand of a child, Kama felt her command over reality smacked away in the general vicinity of the Goddess; she was Singing with her Authority, and with the Voice of the World. Though Kama was a powerful goddess and Beast, when focused in this fashion the Goddess was able to all but command absolute dominion over local reality. Next, the Goddess pulled out a weapon she had forged in the image of a god-killing spear the gods of this land wielded. "I've been meaning to try this thing out, you know." She mentioned, beginning to pour her nigh-limitless mana into the spear.

It was around then that Kama realized: she f***ed up.

Thinking quickly, Kiara decided to step in for the sake of her fellow Beast. Letting go of all restraint, she allowed her full impossible beauty to flourish and distract the Goddess, forcing her to miss with the firing of the god-killing spear. Kiara pulled the Goddess into a searing kiss, allowing the fullness of her existence to wash over the now confused and infatuated Goddess. "I had hoped to tempt you into submission...but I suppose cruder methods have their place." Kiara demurred. 

Something sparked within the Goddess's eyes, and she stumbled back, clutching her head-fighting back against Kiara's influence in some meager way. A moment later a half-dozen Kama bodies surrounded and began to cuddle and press themselves against the Goddess, each one shaped to the Goddess's own preferences and desires. "I can feel the love and desire within you." Kama whispered to the Goddess in several voices-each more pleasing to the ear than the last. "Allow us-allow me-to fulfill it. There is no shame, no loss in falling to love."

Torn between lust, love, madness, despair, and confusion, the Goddess felt that she was drowning in herself...

And in the deepest part of herself, she found a gentle light. A spark of understanding, nothing more.

It was enough.

Golden light like fire poured out of the Goddess's eyes and her body was suddenly refined and empowered with a revelation that rocked the very universe itself. With a thought, the countless Kama-bodies were banished and her cosmic form sundered, until all that was left was a sealed and weakened mortal vessel. The light shining from the Goddess purged the lust and madness from her form and lashed out at Kiara, forming chaining sutras around the demon Bodhisattva that locked away her bewitching powers for a thousand and one days. The very land around the Goddess was shifted and changed in an aurora of divine and transcendent light, a revelation of truth and wonder seeming to peak through...

Until, just as suddenly as it came, it faded away. The Goddess could not hold on to the revelation that she had attained in that moment, and was only left with an understanding of the path that she had to walk, the journey that she must undertake, to truly understand and bring forth that divine light within herself. Unfortunately, with the fading of the enlightened light, she also lost a good deal of memory...specifically, memory of Kiara's true nature, and why exactly she had been fighting in the first place. When she awoke, it was to find three concerned faces standing over her, rather than the usual two. Jinako and Kiara were expected, but the strange new woman who introduced herself as "Kara" was a surprise.

It took a great deal of fast talking to convince the Goddess to accept "Kara" into joining their little band, but with even Jinako joining in it was accomplished. And why would Jinako join in? A great deal of "persuasion" from both Kiara and Kama while the Goddess was unconscious, was the answer. 

The trio upgraded to a quartet, the Goddess proceeded to lead the others on a strange and grand journey that crossed the entirety of sub-continent several times over. Filled with a sense of purpose from that "strange dream", she became a woman possessed as she travelled the land. From grand battle to strange situation, from demon infestation to political intrigue, the Goddess threw herself and her company into strange situation after strange situation. It was all Kiara and Kama could do to try and steer things towards hedonism in some small ways, especially with the Sage Arts that the Goddess had unconsciously shackled them in back in her moment of enlightenment still strangling their greater abilities. Jinako, on the other hand, was just annoyed at all the running around...but couldn't complain at the feasts and rewards of the Goddess's efforts. And the regular "bribes" that Kiara and Kama gave her to ensure her silence. Really, things were all coming up Jinako!

While Jinako was rapidly descending to hilarious levels of depravity, gluttony, and hedonism, the Goddess was still zooming across the continent righting wrongs and chasing after that sense of purpose that guided her. Despite their best efforts, even Kiara and Kama helped out a great deal in these things-their efforts to corrupt and undo the Goddess's works actively helping out in many situations. It was practically an instinct on the Goddess's part, guiding Kiara and Kama's efforts to bring about the best possible result for everyone involved.

For several years, the quartet journeyed the lands-righting wrongs and slaying demons in droves. As the years passed Kiara and Kama's powers slowly began to return, the Sage Arts sealing them fading-but, much more careful of the Goddess's hidden power, the two took pains to hide their growing corrupted might. Things would eventually come to a hed with Jinako's utter corruption...via having seventy-one Kama bodies possess Jinako simultaneously, and a final avatar of Kiara's will acting to lead them all. Her great...decadence, allowed for such a thing, and overtaking the Goddess's companion in such a way ensured that the Goddess could not simply strike down the enemy before her.

Faced with an enemy she could not simply kill, possessed by inhuman powers and thus immune to her Unified Language, and tempting her to the depths of depravity, the Goddess was faced with a deep crisis once more. She had slain gods in her journeys, saved kingdoms, destroyed armies...but could not bring herself to strike down a friend. There was no artifice that she knew that could save Jinako, her Humanity was so clouded that not even the Goddess's Authority could save her, there was no Song that she knew that could possibly twist the world to bring her victory...

Once more, the Goddess felt herself drowning in despair...and once again, in the depths, she found a spark of understanding. Of truth. Of wholeness. And this time, she did not thoughtlessly ignite it. 

"I understand now." She said, a small golden light burning within her pupils. It did not expand or shine more brightly-it was dim, small, just barely there...but it was there regardless. "My highs, my lows, the truth of...myself. And I've seen the world now. I've journeyed, I've enjoyed, I've suffered, and I've seen others journey, enjoy, suffer as well. The truth of things...I think...I see it now."

And then, the Goddess began to Sing. And her Song formed a spiral, a truth at the heart of that spiral that mimicked a truth in her heart and a truth in the world that the Goddess had seen. Jinako was caught in that spiral, and with a flex of will the Goddess guided her into its center. The Goddess walked up to the demon-possessed and maddened woman, and spoke. "I think...all I really need to do is...this."

And she gave Jinako a chaste kiss-and within that kiss was a simple purity, a truth that the Goddess had finally come to comprehend after many decades of journeying and countless experiences. A truth that preyed upon desire, a will of a Divine maiden. Not the whole of enlightenment...but enough. With a scream of rage and pain, the will of Kiara and Kama was exorcised from Jinako, healing and purifying her body until it was restored back to its prime...though perhaps a bit more beautified and decadent for the experience. The Goddess separated from Jinako, and smiled at her friend...no, her lover. The dim golden light in her eye remained lit, and she had comprehended much of the world now. Not its whole, not just yet...but much.

After that event, Kiara and Kama were forced to flee from the Goddess and Jinako-for the Goddess had finally regained the power to see through all illusions, and could effortlessly see their true natures. A subtle seduction from within was now impossible once again. But though Kiara and Kama wished to avoid the Goddess now...the reverse certainly was not true. In fact, the Goddess wished to confront the two-though not, as they expected, for violent reasons. 

Together, the Goddess and Jinako chased after Kiara and Kama across the lands for many years-trailing after the destruction and corruption the two left in their wake, and coming to understand each other as they did so. With her newfound love and greater understanding of life, the Goddess found the pain in her heart easing for the first time in centuries...and though she still had many vices and addictions, her love and enjoyment of Jinako helped curb much of it while her newfound understanding of the world helped with the rest. 

In time, the Goddess finally caught up to Kiara and Kama. With a Song and a number of mudra, the Goddess managed to capture the two Beasts in a weaving of the world that held the corrupted beings still...but did them no harm. Held so, the Goddess simply sat down and asked them to share their stories. Their lives, their hopes, their loves and hates. She simply wanted to know them.

Compelled to truthfulness both by the Goddess's bindings and her capacity to see through falsehood, the two Beasts took turns sharing their own stories. Hours passed, and the Goddess even shared a meal with her captives-holding them as honored guests rather than the prisoners they were in truth. The next day this endless conversation continued, but when the two began to peter out, the Goddess took it upon herself to begin sharing her own life story with her captors. In this way, a whole week of simple conversation and relaxation passed, as if the entire party was close friends. And as the women talked, Kama and Kiara began to consider things they never had before, or had long forgotten.

It wasn't as if they were willing to abandon their desire to spread their "love" endlessly so easily...but at the end of the week, when the Goddess invited the two back into her company as genuine companions rather than prisoners, the first thing that flashed through their mind as they accepted was not their mission of corruption. It was the immediate second, of course, but it was progress nevertheless.

Journeying onward once again in a quest that seemed to never end, the Goddess actively invited Kiara and Kama to exercise their love-but without "reducing" the world. She was a Goddess of Artifice, the Goddess reasoned, and so she could help them integrate their unique forms of "love" into the world in a way that builds things up, rather than tears them down. It was not an easy project by any means. Kiara's "love" was a selfish, consumptive thing that sought to drag the world into herself and strip it apart purely to provide herself pleasure. Kama's love was much more selfless, and at the same time just as selfish-a desire to embody /all/ desire, and thus become the focus of all desire. Both of them, fundamentally...just wanted love. 

With the Goddess's help, Kiara helped spread teachings of self-love, of pleasure, and acceptance. Kama spread teachings of embracing desires rather than deying them, using them to motivate and elevate rather than be consumed and destroyed by them. It was not an easy process, and there were countless missteps on the path-for every two steps forward, a step and three quarters back. And as the Goddess helped spread these teachings, she showed Kiara and Kama in turn the love that they both craved-how their actions fulfilled desires, brought about love, and allowed growth without diminishment. 

Kiara still hungered for endless pleasure, but slowly came to learn that it was better to build people up so that they could bring greater pleasures, rather than consume and use them up then discard them. Kama still hungered for endless love, but slowly learned that it was better to help others fulfill their desires rather than fulfill those desires for them, so that the world would grow greater with advancement and ambition-and thus a greater amount of desire and love would be born. It was a change that took years to make, and then decades to stick, but it was a change for the better-a change that curbed their evil ambitions and will. 

And then, somewhere along the lines, Kiara and Kama realized...that their actions weren't being suppressed by the world anymore. This new method of spreading their love...it wasn't rejected by the world. It wasn't an acceptance by the world, nor was it letting go of their ambitions...but it was better than it was before. Their actions would no longer destroy the world if they continued this path, and thus they were no longer "Beasts". The potential still laid within them of course, but it was slumbering-tamed, by a better nature learned over decades.

The night after that revelation, Kiara and Kama sat down with the Goddess and Jinako, and simply...talked, once again. And as they talked, they shared their new understanding of things-and the fact that they were no longer actively Beasts. Jinako was happy to celebrate Kiara and Kama's newfound Beast-free status with a feast, while the Goddess simple smiled, relaxed, and fell asleep underneath a peach tree as the night went on.

When she awoke the next morning, the Goddess's pupils were solid gold. A shining and absolute understanding of reality had locked into place within her-not a fire, but a simple, unfading light. The Goddess took a breath in, and the universe breathed with her. She breathed out, and smiled.

Decades and centuries would continue to pass as the quartet journeyed, teaching, helping, and fighting demons all the while. They pleasured each other, revelled in decadence, and yet did not descend into depravity. And in time, the Goddess decided that she wished to see a new land-seek new power and understanding. Her lovers understood and decided that they would largely remain in this blessed land, to guide and help it in the Goddess's absense. Kama would remember to send an avatar-body every now and again to keep in touch. And at last, the Goddess left-seeking a new land and new experiences.

The year was 800 BCE.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Jump 3: Fate/Legends - Empires of Antiquity

Starting Time: The Roman Emperors - 753BCE - 48CE
Origin: Creator
Age: 24
Gender: Female

Perks
>Roman Holiday -Free
>Her Majesty's Majesty -100 **
>Rome Is Beautiful -200 **
>Divinely Charming -200 **
>Witch In Training -Free
>Once Every Century (Singing) -Free
>Medical Mage -Free
>Little Echidna -100 **
>Formulation -200 **
>Tool Creation -300 **
>Top Five -300 **
>Omnipotence, So They Say -300 **
>Grecian Idol (Female) -200 **

Items
>House of the Witch -Free

Companions
>Canon Companion: Nero -50 **
>Canon Companion: Medea -50 **

Drawbacks
>Born Artist +100 **
>Largesse of an Emperor +100 **
>Lose Your Way +100 **
>Young Herackles +200 **
>Hero Hunted +200 **
>Greek Tragedy +300 **

Scenarios
>Twelve Labours
---------------------
For some decades, the Goddess journeyed-first heading back to visit the lands she first called her home. There she met the Little Shadow and her pet Sphinx, who still lived on that mountain, guiding and building a sect of assassins who helped work towards peace. She spent some years with her adopted daughter, but eventually moved on once again; wanderlust had taken root in her soul, and she wished to see more of the world. She traveled northwest, seeking something new...and she found it, in the lands of Greece, fading.

The goddess tasted the still-powerful yet fading auras of the Greek Gods in the air, the mana of the world, and saw the tales and wills of the land. This, she decided, was where she would spend her time for the next few centuries. Drawing upon both her Enlightenment and her Authority of Humanity, she drank deep of the Legends of this land, the Human spirit and will that suffused this place, and allowed her body to be remade and reborn once more. It was more than she was expecting, more than she had taken last time...in an aurora of light that stained the sky from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, the Goddess's previous form was obliterated in a wave of light and joyful life-leaving naught but a glowing pearl that was her immortal, unbreakable Divine Core buried deep underground.

Years, then decades would pass as the Goddess's Divine Core slumbered, changes and powers twisting and developing within. Perhaps if left alone, the Goddess would have been reborn swiftly and with greater power than ever. Yet, the native Deities of the Mediterranean were slighted by a foreign Deity intruding on their land and doing...SOMETHING that nobody could quite figure out. They excavated her Divine Core and attempted to shatter it...but no matter what they did, it could not be so much as scratched. Growing frustrated, the Gods began to layer curse upon curse onto the Divine Core in hopes that SOMETHING would stick. From the greatest curses of tragedy and grand trials that could be mustered to minor curses of poor artistic skills and a corpulent frame, they threw everything at the wall in hopes of getting something to stick.

When they could only get a few such curses to stick, the gods finally decided that if they could not destroy it or curse it into oblivion, then they would seal it away. A grand labyrinth was constructed in the land where the Goddess's Divine Core was first found, warded to Hades and back to prevent escape save for through the entrance itself-and only that so that it was possible for the gods to leave and enter mid-construct to continue their work. A grand guardian beast, no lesser to the Minotaur, was created specifically to guard the labyrinth and ensure that the Goddess would never leave it. Finally the Divine Core was placed in the deepest point of the labyrinth, as far from the entrance as possible. All this assured the gods that the foreign deity would remain trapped and helpless forever.

After the gods' many efforts, it would be deeply distressing for them to realize that the Foreign Goddess had recorporated a mere year after they completed their labyrinth. In the year 753 BCE, the Goddess awoke in a strange labyrinth, deep underground. Calling up a bit of light with a flex of magic, the Goddess paused and considered her nearly unconscious action. She investigated the glowing orb of light, and could mentally break down the exact mathematical formula that allowed for such a phenomenon at the highest posible efficiency...and the Goddess smiled. Though it came with a few...complications, her ad-hoc ritual worked. 

Then she frowned, feeling the mass of curses that were also infesting her form. Her corpulence was honestly the least of them; she had learned well from Jinako how to make decadence look good, and it was even rather enjoyable in its own way every now and again. Combined with her own natural beauty and abilities, it was hardly a footnote. The curse of misfortune and trials, though...those were far greater. And then...there was also her reincarnated state. Though she had recorporated, she had done so in an immature state; it would take her decades to grow back to her full power. If she was lucky, that was. Deeply annoying, that.

Sighing to herself, the Goddess decided that the only thing there really was to do was to get out of this underground dungeon she'd found herself in and work on redeveloping herself. Merely getting out of the first room was a chore-it was locked up with divine sealing magics, with just a singular weakpoint in its "exit" that had obviously been all but boarded up to the gods best abilities. If the Goddess had her full power she could've torn through these defenses in an instant, she felt...but alas, she was barely running on fractions. It took her hours to work up a proper force-multiplying spell matrix with her newfound formulation knowledge and magical skill in order to muster the force necessary to burst open the door...opening the way to the rest of the labyrinth, and awakening the labyrinth's guardian.

For weeks, the Goddess wandered the labyrinth with nothing but her own voice and magicks for company. She had no need for food or drink-it was effortless for her to conjure these things if she desired, but simply didn't require them in the first place. Company would have been nice, but she was a Deity; unlike a genuine human, she could stand as an island and live entirely antisocially for all time if she desired. Left to her own devices, the Goddess simply continued to explore her new capabilities-such as she could when they were reduced to such levels with her form's immaturity. An innate talent for biomorphic powers...an in-born talent for learning and development...a whole new language that she had only mastered a few words of so far, which promised to massively enhance the speed of her magicks...hints of manifold systems of magic, lurking within her subconscious yet not fully integrated yet.

Her attempts to explore and enhance her newfound abilities were interrupted by a strange and monstrous beast appearing in her path, which immediately sought to strike her down. Had she her full powers, she would have hardly given a second thought to the beast...but she didn't; she barely had fractions of her true strength to work with. Barely managing to deflect the beast's strikes and feeling the force passing through the dispersal defense that her enlightenment provided her, she grimaced. The truth of things was that, amongst legendary figures, she was honestly one of the least skilled fighters out there. Her forte was in crafting weapons, weaving magics, and overwhelming might...not actually /fighting/.

With a growl she poured magical energy into her body, swelling her muscles grotesquely, and struck back at the beast in a single grand attack...knocking it back and stunning it for several seconds. Time that the Goddess used to realize what exactly she just did, and figure out how to take advantage of this new skill. Reverting the change, she swiftly began to weave energy into her body into new patterns. A moment later the beast got back up, and battle recommenced...except this time, the Goddess's body was shifting and changing almost chaotically as each second passed. Her ample frame provided plenty of mass to work with, and her great knowledge of biology and magic allowed her to weave great changes in practically no time at all; her form became less of a human and more of a shifting mass as she tried to refine and evolve a "combat form" that could defeat this beast.

From sleek, serpentine forms, jabbing insectile forms, armored crablike forms, and more-the Goddess threw everything she could at the wall in an attempt to get /some/ sort of advantage against the inhuman monster she was battling. Some forms even synergized with her enlightenment, increasing its power of dispersion...yet oftentimes those forms were too cumbersome to actually make use of, leaving her open to many more attacks than she would have liked. Some changes were beneficial; many changes were detrimental. It wasn't a slow and steady mystical evolution, but a frantic and chaotic one that took what advantages it could and damned the rest...and of course, it did nothing for her mystical capabilities. But against this brute beast, it was enough.

Hours of frantic combat, pushing her strength, speed, and durability up through evolutionary twists and turns, and finally the Goddess managed to defeat the labyrinth beast. Standing over its corpse and venting steam out of several holes in her body, the Goddess slowly consolidated her state and began to compress her evolutions back into a human form...only to pause when she saw the beast fade away in motes of blue light. This wouldn't be the last she saw of it, she realized. The labyrinth would bring it back again and again, and so long as she remained trapped within she'd have to fight it again and again. Annoying.

For months, the Goddess travelled through the labyrinth. As she travelled she diligently worked to evolve her body and practice her magic; these two things were her greatest tools while in this immature state, and she would make as much use of them as she could. As her knowledge and skill with manipulating magic grew, the speed and skill with which she could manipulate her body grew as well...but it wasn't enough to easily match the labyrinth beast. It would take several encounters before she managed to defeat it in a way that wasn't simply death by a thousand cuts and barely managing to survive in the meanwhile, and several more before she could actively fight on equal grounds with it. 

Finally, after nearly two years of wandering and battling the eternally-reviving labyrinth beast, the Goddess managed to escape to the world above. Feeling the sun on her face for the first time since she was recorporated was a truly fantastic feeling. Of course the moment was ruined as divine lightning struck down before her.

"I see you have escaped your imprisonment, Foreign Deity." A booming voice resounded. From the divine lightning emerged Zeus, the Chief God of the Greek Pantheon.

Frowning, the Goddess glared at the albino deity before her. "So you're one of the ones who trapped me underground and cursed me." She stated, though Zeus nodded regardless.

"You tresspass upon these lands, Foreign Deity. This is the least of punishments we could have dispensed upon you." Zeus thundered. 

"Big words for a guy who put all this time and effort into f***ing over the life of a random traveller while they're indisposed." The Goddess answered back. "So, I'm going to say this once: remove your curses, and we can go our separate ways happily. I won't even retaliate against the bullshit you set on me, and didn't have any intention of messing with your pantheon anyways."

"You dare to command ME!" Zeus roared, divine lightning crackling around him. "I had intended to spare you and make you my concubine, but now you must be punished!" With a roar, Zeus sent his divine lightning crashing towards the Goddess. The world burnt white for several seconds...and then the light faded, revealing the Goddess still standing there and wielding a strange shield of black and white.

"Strike one." The Goddess stated. She reached through a mystic spatial fold and pulled out a massive golden spear, longer than a man. "I may be weakened, but don't you dare consider me a helpless toy."

Eyeing the massive spear, which even Zeus could sense held unfathomable power within it, the Chief God forcibly calmed himself and returned to a more neutral glaring state. "Your curses shall not be removed." Zeus stated. "Now that you have awoken and your Divine Core is no longer exposded, the power to remove these curses is beyond all but yourself-and even then, you would require power which surpasses the sum of the whole of my pantheon. No, your curses shall last eternal."

"Figures." The Goddess muttered, putting away her shield...but not her spear. That, she kept out. Just in case. "Why have you come then, deity?"

"I stated it before; I have come to take you as my concubine." Zeus stated, expression unchanging. "Your appearance is pleasing; you shall come with me to Olympus and pleasure me for a thousand years as penance for trespassing upon these lands."

"Strike two." The Goddess stated. "Not only do I prefer women, but I have done no wrong in travelling-in fact, it is you and your pantheon who have wronged I. Demanding compensation for sins that exist only in your mind...step carefully, deity. I will not brook a third insult."

Zeus snorted, and unleashed his Authority as a Chief God. Without hesitation the Goddess released her own Authority as a Goddess of Humanity and called upon her Enlightenment to supercede Zeus's Authority...yet Zeus's power still resonated with the curses resting inside of the Goddess's Divine Core. She did not change her expression, but merely increased the pressure of her own power to battle against Zeus's. "You will submit, Foreigner." Zeus stated, not angrily, but merely as a fact. 

"Never, and certainly not to you." The Goddess answered back. In the sky far above Greece, far above the atmosphere, far above the planet, a fist of solidified spacetime began to form. "Do not blame me for what I'm about to do; you are the one who struck first."

Just before the fist formed from the Goddess's enlightenment began to descend upon the planet, a voice interrupted the two gods. "Wait, wait!" A female voice interrupted. In a burst of prismatic light a female goddess appeared between the two deities, pushing their Authorities back with a working of magic rather than her own Authority. "There's no need to fight here! Please, don't act so rashly!" Hecate pleaded.

Zeus stopped, and breathed harshly out of his nose before turning away. "I grow bored of this." He stated simply, before disappearing in a flash of light. Hecate sighed a little bit at that, relieved.

"So...who are you?" The Goddess asked, letting go of her Enlightenment-formed fist and at last putting her god-killing spear away. 

"I'm...I'm the Divine Spirit Hecate." Hecate introduced herself. "I'm sorry to say, but I'm one of the ones who cursed you-along with the other Olympians, our pantheon. I didn't want to, but..."

The Goddess sighed, but nodded in understanding. "With such a Chief God, I suppose this sort of thing can be forgiven." In truth, she didn't really believe Hecate's excuses; it's probably just her trying to save her own ass...but truthfully the Goddess was a deeply forgiving person and would happily take this chance to begin befriending Hecate. It didn't hurt that the divine spirit was quite attractive. "So tell me-you know what that last curse was? It felt like some form of enslavement, mixed in with the Mystery of the land itself."

Hecate nodded her head, and began to explain. "That is the Labours of Herakles; twelve feats so astounding in both their scope and accomplishment that they've been etched into the foundation of the Human Order. By calling upon those legends, we weaved a Curse of Trials upon you; the curse draws upon the power of the Human Order to enforce your servitude to the Olympians, as Herakles was commanded by the Olympians to fulfill his Labours. It also manifests the Labours themselves once again as binding pillars; so long as those pillars exist, the Curse of Trials will remain. That's both its strength and weakness; the Labours are basically impossible to accomplish, but if you accomplish all of them then not only will the curse of servitude break, but it will actively transform into a protective force that works to preserve your life to an incredible degree!"

The Goddess nodded, following along and considering the curse. It was incredibly powerful, especially against divine beings considering the waning of the Age of Gods. Further, it drew upon the power of Humanity itself...considering that she was the Goddess of Humanity, it practically dug directly into her own Authority and turned its power against her. No wonder it was so hard to resist. "So, what are the Trials anyways?" She asked.

Hecate began to explain, and the Goddess sighed to herself. Well, it PROBABLY wouldn't be as time-consuming as wandering across India for half a millennia.

Eager to escape the grasp of the Olympians, the Goddess journeyed to Nemea to begin the first Labour. As she traveled, Hecate travelled alongside her, seemingly genuinely remorseful...if it wasn't for the fact that the Goddess could see through all illusions, she would even believe it. It helped that Hecate truly did feel guilt for her actions...that, and she was willing to give magic lessons while they travelled.

Once the two arrived at Nemea, the real issue of the Labours revealed itself: the Olympians were not content with "merely" nigh-impossible tasks ensuring the Goddess's subjugation. No, they had to add even more challenge to it. Zeus had blessed the reborn Nemean Lion with a unique aura of lightning; all living things that came into contact with the Lion would be sapped of all strength, anything artificial would be continuously blasted by the lightning until it fell apart, and of course any mystical manipulations on it directly would be blasted apart similarly. Combined with the Lion's already invulnerable skin, and the trial seemed flat-out impossible.

For two weeks the Goddess deliberated on how exactly to accomplish the task of slaying and then skinning the Lion...and it was as she was observing a spider that she attained inspiration. It took her a week of careful biomanipulation to her own body to generate the spinneretes and glands needed to enact her plan, but before a month had passed the Goddess was ready. Weaved between her fingers was a golden thread, produced from her own body by natural processes yet possessing no life once created. Not only was the thread that the Goddess created a truly absurd material, but the spinnerets in her arms weaved it in such a way that it massively enhanced the material's already ridiculous strength. 

Wielding these golden webs, the Goddess hunted down the Nemean Lion and proceeded to trap it in golden webs. The lightning was conducted safely through the webs, doing them no harm as they were perfectly natural and non-magical despite their fantastic origins-and the webs retained their ridiculous strength thanks to the fact that they were non-living. With ropes of golden thread weaved directly from her body, the Goddess strangled the Nemean Lion then cocooned it up, completing the First Labour as she brought it back to the Temple of Zeus in Nemea. Or at least, that's what she thought...but the Labour itself wasn't completed until the Lion had been sacrificed to the appropriate deity-in this case, Zeus. Out of pride and defiance, the Goddess simply outright refused to sacrifice anything to the Olympians, and so was seemingly stuck...

Once more, inspiration struck. This curse ultimately drew upon the Human Order to manifest, and she was the Goddess of humanity. Harnessing her Authority-which had grown somewhat more mature from this adventure-she worked a great weaving of magic around herself and the temple of Zeus, and then proceeded to slowly and steadily consume the Nemean Lion. The Curse was fooled into believing that she was sacrificing the Lion to "a divinity", and thanks to her location believed that divinity to be "Zeus", when in truth she was taking the Lion's strength into herself to feed the curse and undo the first binding pillar. Thunder raged in the skies as Zeus realized the deception and the Goddess's escape from sacrificing to him, but the deed was already done: the Goddess had begun to escape from her Curse of Servitude, and had found a way out of sacrificing anything at all to the Olympians. 

Later on, Hecate asked the Goddess, "Why not just sacrifice to Zeus?"

The Goddess's answer came swiftly. "Call me vain or arrogant, but the simple fact is that I refuse to bow to Zeus in any shape or form. And from him, the rest of the Olympians by proxy. In truth I'm not a particularly vengeful goddess, but even I have my limits; being forced to give thanks to deities who actively hindered and cursed me is far beyond those limits."

Hecate nodded, pursing her lips but holding her tongue, and the two goddesses continued to journey across the land.

As the two travelled next to Lerna, several different heroes and adventurers encountered them along the path. "The Lightning King's Consort!" They would exclaim as they spotted the Goddess-which, of course, ticked said Goddess off quite a bit. What sort of rumors had Zeus spread about her anyways?! Each of these ""heroes"" hunted her for different reasons; one man hunted her for the golden webs she spun, another hunted her as part of a quest to prove her valor, yet another hunted her...purely to bed her, as she was regaled as the most beautiful being in all of the Mediterranean.

By and large the Goddess dealt with these heroes non-lethally; for some, she simply spun the into webs that would dissolve harmlessly later and left them be. Others she actively sat down (after capturing them) and worked her way through whatever it was that they needed to slay her for, and helped them find a different path. For those "heroes" who wished to bed her, she gave her own unique tasks and forged a mystical promise to agree to spend a night with them should they complete said tasks-nothing more. She would not marry them or become their consorts, but a single night with a transcendent beauty like the Goddess was enough to drive men mad regardless. And hey-after spending centuries with Kiara and Kama, she had a very free view of love and pleasure.

Of course, she wouldn't simply give potentially lethal tasks to these "heroes" and then just send them on their way-she wasn't an Olympian, after all. To each such hero who undertook her trials in an attempt to bed her, the Goddess gave them a Favor-a unique trinket forged by her own hands, bound to the soul of the trial-taker. Into each Favor she granted unique traits and powers that suited the trial she would assign each "hero", as well as special defenses; a defense against mental manipulations came standard, a defense against mystical twisting of the body, and a barrier formed such that it would disperse attacks that were guaranteed to take the trial-taker's life and turn them into mystical force that would push the trial-taker far away instead. Each such trinket was a new exercise of the Goddess's creative abilities so she was happy to craft them, and each such trinket also held within it the mystical contract that guided and guaranteed the trial-taker's night with the Goddess if they completed their trial so they were happy to carry them.

With such boons, the trial-takers felt as if they would be guaranteed to pass the Goddess's trials...at least up until the Goddess assigned the trials themselves. Just as the Goddess granted great boons at the drop of a hat, she also assigned horrendously grand trials-each tailored to the weaknesses of the trial-goers, and designed to help them grow and develop as people. Over the course of the next several years, exactly two people would complete the Goddess's trials, and both of them by pure accident.

Returning to the present, the two deities arrived in Lerna where the Hydra Reborn was awaiting them. Just as with the Nemian Lion however, the Hydra had been blessed by the Olympians specifically to counter the Goddess's abilities; from its body dripped an acid that would consume any non-living solid, and the blessings of Apollo ensured that no amount of heat would so much as irritate the Hydra's skin. Its wounds could not be burned closed, and any form of tool-natural or not-was utterly useless against the beast. Unfortunately for the Olympians, the Goddess realized that they left a massive weakness in the Hydra-out of ignorance or arrogance, she couldn't be sure...but she would absolutely take advantage of it.

Shedding her clothing, the Goddess roared to the heavens and launched herself at the Hydra. With clawed hands she tore rents into its body...and Hecate gasped, watching as the Hydra failed to regenerate. With a mighty heave the Goddess ripped one of the Hydra's heads off, and nothing grew in its place-a seeming impossibility. Fighting like a mad beast, the Goddess tore the Hydra apart in a fierce battle until all the was left was a singular living decapitated head which lacked a concept of death-the Immortal Hydra Head. Pulling a series of rings off of her arms, the Goddess expanded the rings into golden loops of light that surrounded the head...and then proceeded to shred it in a twisting of mystical power that tore a hole right through the Texture and revealed Truth/Nonexistence to the head, ending that which lacked the capacity to end. The hole closed immediately afterwards and the Goddess replaced the rings back onto her arms, where they merged and became nothing but unique tattoos once again.

"How...what...what was all of that?!" Hecate shouted, finally voicing her questions.

The Goddess grinned. "I'm originally from Sumeria, you know?" She began. "And back there, we had a sect of assassins who studied Death so deeply that their leader was less of a human being and more of a humanoid incarnation of the very concept of Death. Had, because they decided my existence was blasphemy and decided to try and kill me. They failed of course, and I had to kill them all. I learned a lot from fighting them though!" Everything she said was true...but also a lie. 

She did not use assassination arts of the Hashshashin to slay the Hydra. She merely exploited the opening left by the Olympians in the Hydra's defense: it had no specific defenses against mystical attacks. By injecting her own mana into every attack, she was able to force slapdash alterations to the Hydra's biology as she fought it-forcibly keeping wounds from regenerating or heads from growing, for instance. She didn't say this to Hecate however, because she still didn't fully trust the Divine Spirit-and so instead, she shared some of her battles against the Hashshashin and their myriad strange and potent abilities. Unfortunately, the Goddess was right to distrust Hecate.

It was no coincidence that the Hind of Ceryneia was blessed by Artemis to be immune to all manner of poisons, sympathetic manipulation magics, and even effects of music. The Goddess had never even displayed her Authority of Song in this land, only mentioning one of the strange abilities of the ancient Hashshashin-one of which was a unique song magic which could disorient or even kill with just a hum. Of course, these new defenses also included adaptations of older ones; special winds surrounded the deer that made anyything without both vital and magical energy imbued into it slip right off. Upon seeing these new defenses, the Goddess could only sigh. She had fully expected this, but she had still hoped...

Under normal circumstances, capturing the Hind of Ceryneia without harming it would be a trial for the ages. Even without its current divine blessings the hind had supernatural stamina, able to run at blinding speeds for nearly a whole year without a single drop of water or mouthful of food. Only by continuously chasing it down for a full year could Herakles originally have managed to exhaust the beast enough to corner it, and even then was forced to shoot it at the last moment so that he could actually capture it. After several months of adventuring and her previous Labours, the Goddess had managed to refine her body enough that she felt that she could easily match that feat...but, she would not reduce herself to chasing a deer across the Mediterranean for a full year. No, she would end this in just a single night.

She was still less than a tenth of her full power, perhaps less than a fifteenth...but she was still a Goddess from the earliest ages of the world. And the body that she had refined with mystical power, her own skills in magic, and all that she had experienced, allowed her to achieve this much with ease. The Goddess centered herself, calling upon her enlightenment, her knowledge of the world, the language that the world itself spoke, and her Authority of Song...and began to Sing. Mystical power flowed out of her like water from a river as she Sang, and the entirety of the entirety of Ceryneia seemed to twist and writhe under the Goddess's will. It wasn't the Song that was providing power-no, the Song was merely the communication and amplification of the power. This was the power of Authority, of commanding the World and forcing it to comply with one's will. This was the power of a truly primordial Deity, reduced though it was.

Ripped through space and time, the Ceryneian Hind was forcibly manifested in front of the Goddess, shackled with chains formed from the night sky itself. No matter how the Hind struggled it could not escape; these chains were formed from the very essence of the World, and were filled with both the World's vitality and the Goddess's mana. With a final note a celestial leash was formed, connecting to the shackles on the Ceryneian Hind and held in the Goddess's hand. The Goddess wiped a few drops of sweat from her brow and allowed her power to fade as she held the captured Hind. Not only had she caught it in a single night, she caught it with just a single song. Not bad for a deity operating with less than seven percent of her power!

Of course, such an expression of power couldn't go unanswered. Within moments Artemis had descended from the heavens, divine bow in her hand and a frown on her face. "So you're the source of that disturbance..." She murmured, before her eyes lit with understanding. "Ah, you're Zeus's latest consort!"

Without even a millisecond's hesitation The Goddess launched a blast of divine power at Artemis, powerful enough to level a small village. Artemis panicked and deflected the blast with her bow, only managing to knock it into the sky where it exploded with enough force to briefly turn night into day. As if she hadn't attempted to kill a deity, The Goddess proceeded to speak. "I am not Zeus's consort, and would much prefer if you avoid referring to me as such." She said, voice calm and face serene.

Shaking her head very quickly, Artemis answered, "Alright, alright, miss scary foreign goddess! So...hey, why DID you release all that power earlier, anyways?" The goddess of the hunt looked around a bit-and finally noticed the semi-divine deer caught in celestial chains. "Oh hey-that's my pet deer! I thought she died centuries ago-oh, OH! I get it!"

The Goddess nodded. "I'm currently completing the Labours to remove my curses." She confirmed. 

"And you decided to do my Labour first since it would be the easiest with divine powers, right?" Artemis asked.

The Goddess shook her head, and a creeping suspicion began to prickle at her thoughts. Artemis hadn't even been aware that the Goddess had been completing the Labours-and considering she hadn't been aware that the previous Labours had been completed AT ALL, wouldn't have the knowledge to tailor her blessings to protect the Hind. It was apparently semi-common knowledge that Zeus sought to enslave her, but not that she was attempting to escape her chains...a new wave of disappointment washed over the Goddess. It was almost certain that Hecate was following her around exclusively to increase the difficulty of these Labours. Whether it was on Zeus's orders or the like was unclear, but it was disappointing nevertheless.

The Goddess did not voice these thoughts and instead simply said "No; the Labours need to be done in order for the curse to unravel properly. With this I have completed a fourth of the Labours."

Artemis nodded in understanding, but then frowned. "If this is the third Labour you completed, why did I only sense you now?" She asked.

"This is the only Labour that I harnessed my Authority and divine power to pass so far; for the others, my physical abilities and mortal magics were enough. In truth, I probably didn't need to use my Authority for a task like this either, but..." The Goddess trailed off; it was mostly impatience that inspired such blatant actions, she had to admit.

Artemis, however, took it an entirely different way. "The urge to flex your powers while you still can IS pretty tempting, I know. But the Age of Gods is winding down; we need to preserve our power as long as we can. If Atlantis had never been destroyed, things might be way different, but..." Artemis sighed, slumping. 

That...was another difference between The Goddess and other Divine Spirits. She had been born as a kind of Liminal Goddess, as one of her main Authorities was the very concept of Humanity itself. Through this Authority, and through her Authority of Artifice to rebuild her own Divine Core and body in her early years in an attempt to increase her own power, the Goddess was immune to the waning of the Age of Gods. In fact, she had only grown stronger-her Enlightenment and learning of the Sage Arts, her mastery of magic and growing crafting skills...each wasn't much on its own, but they were compounding such that her power was continuously growing as the ages passed. The "her" of this age, if she was at her full power, would effortlessly defeat the "her" of when she was born. And that simply went against the very nature of Deities.

Deities had a set amount of power, set Authorities and capabilities. They could be swollen somewhat with human worship, but as the Age of Gods waned it was simply the natural order of things that the power of the Gods waned with it-in fact, it was the very nature of the world itself in many ways. As the ages passed, Mystery began to drain away and die out, and the world grew weaker. An average man from the city of Uruk would easily equal the physical prowess of the "heroes" of the modern era, and as time passed that weakness would only continue to grow. There existed just one exception to this rule: The Goddess of Humanity. Her power didn't rely on Mystery-instead, it drew from the Human Order. Her power at birth had been preserved and crystallized as a fundamental part of Humanity itself, and each time she "attuned" herself she gained even greater power-as she allowed more power from the Human Order to flow into her Divine Core and crystallize within.

For this reason, the Goddess of Humanity was an abberation. She had always known she didn't belong amongst the Divine, and due to her existence as a Goddess she didn't belong amongst Humanity. It was a ditchotomy that plagued the Goddess for many centuries, but which she had come to terms with in India...

Only to be suddenly reminded of the fact that this sort of angst was honestly the best possible result for her, compared to other Deities. She didn't have to worry about her powers waning as time passed and her possible dissolution back into Gaia, after all. In fact, once the Age of Gods ended, she would basically be the strongest being in existence and be able to enjoy herself without a care. That...was actually something she had never considered. 

At the very least, she wouldn't have to worry about her loved ones. Her Little Shadow was granted unique trinkets and blessings forged to the best of her abilities; they would stave off death and old age for all eternity and were connected to the very concept of death to do so, so as long as Death existed they would continue to operate just fine. To Kiara she had crafted an infinite jug of Soma, which would leave her youthful forever as well-and her power was innately human rather than divine, so it wouldn't wane with the ages. Kama actually seemed to operate on similar principles to the Goddess of Humanity herself; she manifested as "Humanity's Desires", and drew power that way. As long as humanity continue to desire things, she'd be just fine. So she wouldn't exactly be ALONE in her power as the ages passed, the Goddess considered.

Pushing such thoughts aside, the Goddess was able to peacefully send Artemis away after giving her the Hind of Ceryneia-and thus completing the Labour. Though The Goddess was sympathetic to Artemis-and other Deity's-plights...well, the Olympians in particular had f***ed The Goddess over pretty f***ing hard. She wasn't about to do something like extend an offering to try and arrest the decline of their powers to them out of sympathy alone. Honestly the Goddess wasn't even sure that was entirely possible, and certainly not in her reduced state...but with her crafting skills and Authorities, well, she might manage SOMETHING. Maybe. Well, no point in thinking about it right now-she wasn't going to do it anyways.

Despite that, the question of how she would go about preventing a normal Deity from weakening with the Age of Gods ticked away in the back of the Goddess's mind as she continued to work her way through her Labours. Each Labour was more complex and unfair than the last, and without fail any new tactic that Hecate witnessed was defended against by the next Labour. Of course, doing so only pushed the Goddess to develop even greater innovations and push her own capabilities even further, expediting her recovery and re-maturation in the process. 

Perhaps the most notable of the Labours was acquiring the Belt of Hippolyta and the final Labour. After her death at Herakles hands centuries ago, Hippolyta was called back from the underworld as a sort of empowered spirit-a Servant, she called herself-and charged with defending the belt against acquisition at all costs. But the question of allowing a deity to survive the end of the Age of Gods continued to tick in the back of the Goddess's mind, and she made a deal with Hippolyta. The Goddess would not seek to take the belt-instead, she would display her craftsmanship and create a new belt that was far superior to the one the Olympians had crafted her. Specifically in that it would allow her to exist in her Servant form without strain or loss for all time-essentially reviving her in truth.

Initially Hippolyta actually accepted the challenge, and The Goddess began to work. Over the course of her Labours the Goddess had so far only shown bare hints of her true crafting capabilities, and both Hippolyta and Hecate thought it was mere boasting that the Goddess believe she could surpass a creation such as Hippolyta's sash. But for the second time in the Labours, the Goddess proceeded to call upon the true depths of her power-far, far grown in fact. If before she could access less than seven percent...now, she could call upon closer to thirty. And it truly made an incredible difference.

Wielding the brilliance of a Goddess of Artifice who had learned magic from the Voice of the World and had the power to weave it into weapons of incredible might, the Goddess worked for nine days and nights as she slowly sung and weaved her creation into existence. The creation that the Goddess was weaving, without a doubt, held vastly greater power than anything invested into Hippolyta's sash by the Olympians.

So naturally the Olympians couldn't allow the Goddess to so easily complete her creation. Hippolyta was commanded to slay the Goddess with a unique command spell, enforcing the orders directly onto the very core of her soul. The entirety of the revived Amazon Army was forced to join in, seeking to destroy the Goddess despite whatever wishes they might have had otherwise. It was almost certain to be a repeat of centuries ago; the Goddess would slaughter the Amazons and take belt, leaving behind broken dreams and corpses in her wake as Herakles did...

But the Goddess defied that fate, that Tragedy. She had defied Tragedy after Tragedy since she had come to this land, spiting the Olympians and seeking a golden ending for all people-and this time, it was no different. As the Amazons and Hippolyta sought to attack the Goddess, they tripped across defenses that the Goddess had set around herself and were captured, one by one. Some in threads of gold and silver, some by strange snakelike beasts that lacked mouths, some by the very winds solidified into chains of pure white...the methods differed depending on the defenses the Amazons had, as the Olympians had simply grown utterly unfair in tossing whatever blessings they could about in order to counter the Goddess's capabilities. Hippolyta herself had nearly managed to make it through the whole gauntlet of trapped defenses, only to be trapped in a sphere of pure mana which worked to counteract any movement she made and absorb the energy of her efforts. A giant hamster ball, where her own strength was turned against her.

Not a single Amazon died in any of these traps-in fact, the Goddess had ensured that they were all as comfortable as possible. Eventually the Goddess completed her work, and from her workshop emerged with two implements. The first was a strange hook-like dagger with a glass-like blade, and the second was what looked like two golden disks connected with a long string of silver. The Goddess traveled through her maze of defenses and pricked each and every Amazon with the hook-like blade; from each of them a strange weaving of light would appear, and with the hook of hte blade the Goddess would pull out specific strings, twist the blade, and cut them. When she did the same to Hippolyta, the Amazon Queen finally realized what exactly was happening: somehow, the hook-like dagger was able to cut right through mystical bindings, without removing anything else.

Freed of her order to slay the Goddess, Hippolyta apologized for her and her army's actions and offered the belt freely...but the Goddess insisted that she maintain her original agreement, and gave the second item she had crafted to Hippolyta. As Hippolyta touched the strange disks they dissoved into motes of light, which gathered around her shoulders and reformed into beautiful-though not cumbersome-pauldrons. Along her back the string of silver manifested between the two pauldrons, and from that string unfurled a grand cape which twinkled and whirled with a living vision of the night sky.

"What...is this?" Hippolyta asked of the Goddess. She could feel a warm power flowing from the cape into herself, and somehow instinctively KNEW that she no longer required the power of the Olympians to remain in this world. 

"I call it the Mantle of Ages; it is my answer as to how to support an empowered spirit-such as yourself-so they may continue to exist indefinitely. I couldn't figure out a way to ensure your spirit was simply self-sufficient...so the Mantle of Ages works to provide the mana you require to exist, and then some." Answered the Goddess. She had weaved tens of thousands of compressed Mana Loops into the Mantle and programmed it to generate more such spirals as necessary, allowing it to generate truly absurd amounts of mana ex-nihilo and on-demand. Most of that mana would be consumed simply counteracting the drain of a Servant's existence, but there would still be a great deal left over-both for things such as Noble Phantasms, and a wide variety of other features. "Draw upon the power of the Mantle; it will provide a boost in capability far superior to your Belt."

Hippolyta focused her mystical senses on the cape, and after a few moments managed to do so. The night sky of the cape wrapped around the Amazon Queen's limbs, coating them in stars and leaving her with a strange sort of celestial armor. Spiral tattoos and designs flowed across the celestial armor, and by pure instinct Hippolyta formed a drill-like sword in her off-hand from the material of the Mantle. The Goddess smiled, seeing her creation work as intended. "This is the Celestial Armor; it not only increases both your various capabilities and mana generation, but also allows for flash-forging tools and weaponry directly out of the Mantle of Ages. You should also be able to release shaped blasts of power from the Mantle, though..."

As the Goddess spoke, a gentle glow began to form around Hippolyta while sparkles formed within the glow-making her seem to be a sort of cosmic being sitting in the middle of a galaxy. The Goddess sighed. "Though I was only able to include so much energy storage in the Mantle. When you are passed a hundred percent storage, the Mantle will start venting energy in...THIS silly display. Utterly useless and gaudy, but it workes to vent energy safely."

Hippolyta dismissed the Celestial Armor, remanifesting the Mantle of Ages...though the gentle glow and nebula around her didn't fade away. With a hand, she tugged at the cape. "While a truly incredible gift, Goddess...this cape, could it-"

The Goddess was already nodding. "Only you are capable of actually physically interacting with the cape." The Goddess assured Hippolyta. "Further, even if some being did manage to grab it, it tears away with just a minor amount of force. You can't be caught, choked, or tripped with it, and any damage done to the cape is essentially entirely cosmetic. As long as the Mantle has energy, the cape will fully repair in an instant. And of course, the Mantle is directly bound to your spirit-the physical parts on you right now are mostly for show, and can be pulled directly into your soul whenever you wish."

Hippolyta bowed to the Goddess, and without a moment's hesitation gave the deity her sash. "You have truly earned this, my Goddess." She said. "Not only did you spare us when we attacked you, but you have also crafted a replacement for it that is its superior in every regard. In every way, you have surpassed this Labour."

The Goddess left, and Hippolyta was left alone-revived, on an island of undead Amazons and now given an immortal lease on life. She would go on to recreate the Isle of Amazons and rule it as its immortal queen, never forgetting the kindness of the Goddess who gave her this chance. Through trade and her own adventures she would learn more about the strange Goddess who had crafted her a mantle of the stars, and take the lessons she learned to heart as she applied them to the Amazons. With the help of the Mantle she was able to support many of her original army who were revived for the Labour-though quite a few chose to return to death-and they served to form the core of the Eternal Amazon Island.

The last and greatest trial was infiltrating Hades and capturing the Cerberus. At this point the Goddess had recovered almost half her original power, and had grown into her new capabilities to an incredible degree. Despite the Olympians best efforts she felt that this final Labour would be effortless...

That was, until she encountered Zeus standing in front of the cave to the Underworld that she had located, arms crossed and stern frown on his face.

"This farce has gone on long enough." Zeus spoke. "You will come with me back to Olympus and serve me for a thousand years."

"You're right, this farce has gone on long enough." The Goddess said, pulling out her golden spear once again. "Step aside. I will be free of you Olympians, whether you like it or not."

Without a word, Zeus unleashed his Authority once again-trying to draw on the Curse of Trials embedded in the Goddess's Divine Core...only, things were much different now. For one, the Goddess had more than a single percentage of her power to call upon. For another, she had already completed eleven of the twelve Labours-massively weakening the Curse's hold on her. 

When the Goddess unleashed her own Authority, she did not release her Authority of Humanity-instead she drew upon her Authority as an Earth-Mother. This time she was able to effortlessly repel the draw of the Curse, shutting Zeus down hard. "Last chance." She warned.

Zeus breathed harshly. "It has truly been too long since I've shown my power, that foreign upstarts believe they could match me." He stated. He drew forth his Thunder Bolt, and lightning crackled around his body. 

"Now." Spoke Zeus, and in an instant countless threads of magic suddenly appeared throughout the body and spear of the Goddess-a grand prismatic cocoon, all of which led right back...into Hecate's hands. With a wrench of Hecate's hands the Goddess's flesh was torn open across her chest, exposing a prismatic orb similarly suspended in mystical threads within. "Your Authorities will be put to good use. They will serve as fuel to maintain our functionality for several hundred more years." Zeus assured the Goddess-who, curiously, didn't seem to be panicking at all. With a mighty heave, Zeus threw his condensed lightning at the Goddess...where suddenly, it stopped just in front of her. 

"I had truly hoped otherwise...and gave every chance for you to turn back on this, Hecate." The Goddess said, a strange golden light emanating from her. With the suddenness of a pane of glass shattering, the countless threads that had entrapped and weaved through the Goddess's form shattered and her chest closed up, hiding her Divine Core within her once again. Likewise, Zeus's thunder bolt dissipated-shattering against the weight of the Goddess's enlightenment and vital energies. The Goddess turned her attention away from Hecate and to Zeus. "Had this been before the White Titan, you could have easily slain me. But you aren't what you were before, and I'm not as I was either. The Age of Gods is fading...but I'm only getting stronger."

With a shout the Goddess shot her spear at Zeus, pouring truly divine levels of magical energy into it. With a burst of light that rent the skies and scoured life for miles around, Zeus's body and Divine Core were incinerated-completely and utterly, in an instant. In the same wave of energy-rather, the backwash of that energy-Hecate was similarly incinerated. Surprise and guilt were still on her face, but there was a trace of acceptance in her eyes as she faded into nothing. A few moments later it was over. The Goddess breathed heavily, put away Vasavi Shakti, and made her way into the Underworld at a walking pace. 

As she entered Hades, she found the Divine Beast Cerberus. It was missing the manifold blessings that Hecate had been casting on the previous Labours to make them more difficult, but was still a trily powerful beast...unfortunately, at this point, The Goddess simply utterly outclassed it. And today, she had reached the ends of her patience. A golden thread shot from her wrist, glinting beautifully...and with an almost graceful sway, lopped the legs of Cerberus right off. More golden threads weaved around the now quadriplegic hound to bind its wounds, and the Goddess carried the helpless hound behind her as she travelled further in.

At last she entered Hades's throne room, where the God of the Dead sat waiting for her. "My trial is complete." She said simply. "Accept it."

His face carved from stone, Hades simply nodded. With a neglegent toss the Goddess left Cerberus whimpering in Hades's throne room, and walked calmly out of the Underworld once more. As she walked through the Underworld she felt the remnants of the Curse of Trials finally being expunged from her Divine Core, then flowing back in-not as a curse, but as an empowerment. The God Hand of Herakles, which served as both incredible defense and extra lives. She thoughtlessly rejected the aesthetic changes, taking in only the power of the remade blessing. 

Finally, she emerged from the underworld. For several miles she wandered aimlessly, eventually getting out of the crater that Vasavi Shakti had left behind in its activation. Then, she found a tree stump. She sat down, sighed, and cradled her head in one hand. "This has been so f***ing pointless..." She murmured. For several hours she sat there, still as a statue-not even breathing, for such a thing was trivial for a deity. "I think..." She finally said, the sun beginning to set. "I think I'm going to take up painting."

And so the Goddess decided to take up painting...

And several thousand years in the future, historians would prize these ancient paintings as the very first examples of post-post-post-modernist abstract surrealist art. Very few of such paintings would survive the Grand Goddess Burning of around 600 BCE, where all of Rome collectively united to hunt down the works and burn them from existence, but the few that did survive would trade for truly astronomical sums around the year of 2000 CE, give or take a few decades. One particular painting, said to be an original, even traded for half a billion dollars.

Returning to the present, the Goddess decided to spend the next several centuries simply wandering, painting, learning magic, and exploring the Mediterranean. She never met another Olympian after her execution of Zeus and Hecate, but did find a great deal of satisfaction in simply painting and learning to her heart's content. She even made sure to give all of her trial-goers a free painting whenever they arrived-though they seemed to take this as an attack and many started wearing blindfolds when they sought her out. It would take her a few decades, but she would at last reach the peak of her power once again-and then some, as her powers were refined and increased through her new understandings of magic and artifice. And of course, there were many strange misadventures in her career of studying magic and new methods of artifice.

In one attempt to see if she could perhaps stretch spirals across the Time Axis in order to generate infinite energy on-command, the Goddess ended up tearing open a small portal in spacetime. Just large enough for a single mortal soul to slip through...but as it passed thorugh, it twisted the energies crackling around it and remade its own body-empowered as if it was a Servant, like Hippolyta. "Where am I?!" The strange blond woman shouted. "Who are you?! Where is the nearest opera house?!"

And that was how the Goddess met, befriended, and ""married"" Emperor Nero, a Roman Emperor from the future. It seems that her ideals of love and acceptance would spread greatly in time, and Nero was wholeheartedly into the idea of having a harem that spanned the world...that, or maybe it was just Nero. 

Her final companion in this land was found...in a grave, in the lands of Colchis. "Here lies Medea;" the weathered plaque on the gravestone read. "Daughter, Princess, Witch, Slave. My one true act: I dig my own grave."

The Goddess closed her eyes and bowed her head, passing a moment in silence...and with her divine eyes, looked backwards in time. Many, many centuries ago now, there was once a princess. Enslaved by the gods through love magics, she was forced to leave her home and serve a truly horrible person with all her heart. She was thanked little for the task, and had all that thanks taken away by the "hero's" own greed. Betrayed, she betrayed in turn and became a witch. After a long and lonely life, she returned to her homeland-wrinkled, tired, and alone. She lived in a cabin for some years, until she felt the cold of death slowly coming to her. Then, with bony fingers, crooked back, and the will of a candle that refused to die, she took shovel to earth and quite literally dug her own grave. A few whispered words formed a stone plaque that would last centuries, and a few more allowed her to lay in the grave and die by her own will. Thus ended the story of Medea of Colchis.

"But does have to end there?" A voice rang in Medea's mind. Medea sighed, ignoring the voice, the ache in her bones, the cold in her veins, and dug out what little dirt she could with a push. There was no strength in her arms, but she lifted all the same and proceeded to do it again. "Your story...it's too tragic for me. Do you have to end like this?"

"What other end is there?" Medea asked what she was utterly sure was a curious deity. She'd dealt with the gods enough times to know the flavor of their meddling. "I refuse to be a slave to the divine ever again, so whatever you're offering-shove off. I have a grave to dig."

"I offer only friendship." The voice stated. "The Olympians are no friends of mine, and I will not bind you to my will-all I ask is that you teach me some magic, and indulge me in conversation now and again."

Medea sighed, the breath rattling her chest and making her cough for several moments. She gathered herself and spoke. "Defy the Olympians to their face, and I'll be your friend. Kill a god-any god, even Hecate-and I'll be your lover. Kill Zeus, and I'll be your wife for eternity-or however much longer this body of mine holds out." She didn't speak with any mana, or with Divine Words, but there was conviction in her voice regardless.

The voice of the strange god was silent for several moments, and Medea began to turn back to her digging...until a bright prismatic light began to erupt around her. The power of an Authority that could twist the planet itself, concentrated through a strange mechanism to dig backwards through time and drag something into the future. Golden liquid flowed in the prismatic light, flowing through Medea's pores and filling her...and as it did, her age began to turn backwards. Her skin grew supple, her hair vital, her lifeforce reignited, even her very soul healed. Emerging from the swirling light and landing on grass in front of her, Medea took in a deep breath that she hadn't been able to in decades. She looked up...

And before her was a vision of truly divine beauty, beauty to put Aphrodite to shame. In fact, comparing this goddess-for surely she must be a goddess-to Aphrodite was like comparing the radiance of a flint spark to the sun itself. Her heart wanted to both stop and keep going-surely, there was nothing greater in the world than to experience the sight before her, and so now life was meaningless. And yet surely, should she keep on living, she would be able to continue to gaze upon this vision of beauty, serving it for eternity. She stood before the meaning of life itself, and never had she been so sure-

Medea blacked out for a moment, and found the last few moments of memory missing from her. She blinked, and found she was standing in front of an exceptionally beautiful, though oddly fat, woman. The woman smiled at her. "Hello Medea, good to meet you in the present." She said. Her voice was exactly the same as the mysterious voice that spoke to Medea as she was digging her grave.

"Who are you?" Medea asked.

"I'm the one who Olympus attempted to enslave, and escaped the enslavement." The Goddess said. "I killed both Hecate and Zeus in a single strike, and can show you." The Goddess offered her hand to Medea, and with gentle fingers the rejuvenated witch took it...and together, the two looked into the past and witnessed the trials that the Goddess had undergone-from her imprisonment in the Labyrinth all the way to Zeus's death and the completion of the Labours.

Returning to the present, Medea stared at the Goddess. "Your words ring true..." She began, "But why me? Out of every dead woman in history, why a witch of betrayal such as I?"

"Because Hecate loved you and felt guilty for your fate." The Goddess said. "And though she betrayed me in the end, I still owe her this much. We could call it an evening of the scales; a life for a life...but..." She sighed, closing her eyes. "I didn't want to kill her, but I can't control the release of Vasavi Shakti. The truth is you're a proof of concept, and someone to ease my guilt. I can reach through time, your revival proved that. But it's not precise enough yet. I can't reach past Vasavi Shakti's backburn to save Hecate yet...so I'll need to keep training and advancing myself. So, until then, you will be a reminder. When I'm strong enough, I'll turn back the clock and save Hecate from her own betrayal."

Medea considered that for several moments, then finally nodded. "Thank you for answering...husband." She said.

It wouldn't be an easy marriage-taking time to get Medea used to the idea of multiple partners, Nero's singing, Kama and Kiara occasionally dropping in, and wandering about aimlessly for centuries at a time. And also the fact that the Goddess was essentially a saint in comparison to the Olympians; she never forced herself on Medea, frequently gifted her with grand boons and even powers on pure whim, and actively stayed with Medea when the witch desired her company, even if that was for years or decades at a time. Though after around 600 BCE, that became a bit rarer.

The Goddess would never learn that it was Medea who initiated the Grand Goddess Burning, and Medea would be taking that secret with her to the grave.

After many centuries, the Goddess and Medea moved on from the Mediterranean. Nero wanted to stay, but was forced by Kama to leave-despite her best efforts, Nero simply wasn't the best ruler on her own without a moderating influence. Or, well, a guiding influence. And with Kiara and Kama's help, it would only take a few decades for New Roma to be founded in India. In the meanwhile, Medea and the Goddess journeyed north, towards the land of Ireland. The Age of Gods was nearly over, but there were still so many wonders to the world to explore!

The year was 150 BCE.
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Jump 4: Fate/Legends - Land of Shadows

Starting Time: Ulster Cycle
Origin: Warrior
Age: 23
Gender: Female

Perks
>Green Life -Free
>Celtic Thighs -50 **
>Life of a Knight -Free
>Puppy Love -Free
>Striking A Deal -100 **
>Lord of the Spear -200 **
>Hound -300 **
>Runelord -300 **
>Lustful Thought -200 **
>Always Learning -200 **
>Fangs of the Beast -400 **

Items
>Irish Feast -50 **
>Houns of Culann -Free

Drawbacks
>Queen of 'Fairies' +100 **
>Scatty2Hatty +100 **
>Rage of a Divine Queen +300 **
>Lancer Life +300 **

Scenarios
>The Demon King
---------------------
"I'm truly unusure that this is safe, let alone a good idea..." Medea noted, a deeply uncertain expression on her face.

"It'll be fine! I've only blown up once doing this; what's the worst that could happen?" The Goddess spoke back, a grand flow of mana and spells surrounding her like a raiment of stars. The ritual she was initiating was a primal one, one first developed thousands of years past. It had only been moderately tweaked and improved over time-still carrying the Mystery that it was initiated into back in her first Redesign, when she first aligned her Divine Core and body with Humanity. It was a primal, powerful thing...and also extremely dangerous and unstable. For anyone who wasn't the Goddess, at least.

The ritual fully prepared, the Goddess began to Sing. Her Authorities of Artifice, Humanity, and Song all worked together alongside her mystical capabilities, drawing out the legends of the land and rebuilding her form, crystallizing their power with the powers of the past and future of the land and her own powers of Artifice. A grand rainbow of swirling light emerged from the earth and shot into the sky as the Goddess sang, her body twisting and reforming within its power. Soon the power reached its peak and the whole of the display collapsed in on the Goddess...then shot back out as a singular beam of purest white light, piercing the sky and seeming to touch the very stars.

The light faded, and in its center was the Goddess, her body reborn and remade once again. New powers, new skills, coursed through the Goddess's body and soul like the waters of divine river. She breathed in and out, feeling the energy that flowed through her body sing and the magical energies of the world halfway twisting into strange yet familiar shapes-runes, Primordial Runes to be exact. Greatest of all was the increase in learning capability and crafting capability-new inspiration sparking to life within her about how to render down mystical beings into weapons, armor, and tools. Combine that with her previous ability to manipulate and create life through magic...she could do some truly incredible things with this.

The Goddess turned to Medea, a gentle smile on her face. "See, everything worked out just fine!" She said...right before all the clothes on the Goddess's body all but exploded as it fell apart. And three different poisonous snakes suddenly jumped out of the grass to try and bite into the Goddess. And the ground itself spontaneously developed a small sinkhole-not much, but enough to make a normal person stumble and thus leave them vulnerable to the aformentioned snakebites. The Goddess didn't even notice the sinkhole as she simply started floating when the ground underneath her collapsed, and the snakes themselves couldn't even pierce the aura of light that continually surrounded the Goddess's body. Really the only thing that the Goddess actually paid any mind to was her clothes. "Hmm...well, I suppose I DO need a wardrobe change." She muttered.

Medea was already muttering Divine Words under her breath, harnessing her magic to analyze the Goddess's form. "Well, you absolutely are stronger..." The witch confirmed..."And also managed to infect yourself with the most powerful entropic curse I've ever seen. Oh, and a lust curse too. I was halfway expecting the entropic curse considering the demon whose currently ruling this land, but what sort of legends are present in this land that they'd imprint lust directly to your Divine Core?"

"I can answer that." A voice called out. Both Medea and the Goddess turned, beholding a strange purple-haired woman in a black bodysuit striding out from the nearby forest, a cursed red spear in hand. "You probably drew in some of the Mystery of Medb, our resident divine queen. She's infamous for her lusts and vices, enough that it takes seven trained warriors a night to satisfy her. Of course, she keeps her domain safe from Balor and the Fomorians so nobody particularly complains-but she's also a deeply vain person. Vain enough to take offense at the thought of power being stolen from her, even in this roundabout way."

The Goddess nodded in understanding and immediately began to form plans in her mind. Medea, on the other hand, did the much more relevant thing of asking the purple-haired woman, "Who exactly are you, and why are you here?"

"I'm Scathach." The woman-Scathach-answered. "I came because I felt a divine presence moving into this land, and wanted to investigate. And that little ritual of yours got my interest. A bad luck curse, lust curse, and a divine queen after your head? Sounds like a lot...but I think I could help you out. Give you some training, at least."

Thus would begin what the Goddess would reflect upon as the most painful two centuries of her life.

The entropic curse, the Goddess could handle. She was deeply skilled in dealing with such things after her time in the Mediterranean and Rome, where she had to deal with a similar curse from the Olympians for centuries before it finally burnt itself out. She's grown used to the world trying to turn against her, and could all but instinctively counter it with her own soul singing to the world and shaping it with her will. Harnessing magic from the most primal eras of the Age of Gods merely to counteract bad luck...but it worked, and worked well. The rest was simply working through common sense: avoiding mystical contracts or promises, keeping her eyes peeled for falsehood and illusion, listening through things and not jumping to conclusions...a god's passions should have made such things difficult, but she was no ordinary Goddess-she had enlightenment, and could draw upon that for strength.

It wasn't the divine queen Medb who troubled the Goddess so. No, in a clash of divinities, The Goddess proved herself vastly the superior there. And in time, she was able to soothe the wounded pride and vanity of the divine goddess and smoothe over their initial hostility...only to have accidentally opened up a whole new one, for Medb found it plainly obvious that the existence of this "Goddess of Humanity" outshone her-Medb, the queen of the world! And of course, legends of The Goddess's beauty sprung up wherever she went-which naturally detracted from the attention being lavished upon Medb! This new rivalry would last for nearly the entirety of the following two centuries, ending only when-pushed to her limits by stress and "stress"-The Goddess would tear her way through Medb's kingdom, pin down the divine queen herself, and...

After that day, Medb had a revelation about the nature of pleasure. She had seen the light, she said, and that light was the beauty of women! From then on, Medb became a scourge of lust to the women of Ireland and would eventually be chased away by a great hero, fleeing across the seas and eventually finding herself in the empire of New Rome. Supported by the mystical technologies of that empire, she would outlast the Age of Gods and remain on Earth even as nearly the entirety of the rest of the divinities of the world were sealed away in the Reverse Side of the World. That said, she would also end up nearly getting chased out of New Rome on account of far too many public decency violations. Luckily for her Kiara was willing to sponsor her, and took Medb under her wing as an apprentice...

Returning to Ireland, it wasn't even the Demon King Balor who troubled the Goddess. His rule was cruel and inhumane, and naturally the Goddess found herself opposing his armies and forces. Over the course of three years she would decimate his armies, then fight him in a climactic duel that shook the island. Due to lacking a concept of death she was immune the power of Balor's Eye, but the demon was no slouch without that power and fought ferociously. Still, in the end the Goddess triumphed over Balor. She would render down his flesh and consume his energies, and from them her eyes would be reborn as the Eyes of Balor-capable of seeing the Death of all things and manifesting it with a mere thought. Well, the death of all things which POSSESSED a Death. The Goddess celebrated greatly that day-not because of the power she had gained, but at moving closer to a goal she had held for millennia now: to replicate the powers of that King Hassan who was less human and more Death incarnate. This wasn't that, but it was a step closer. And with her power to see the very concept of death itself now, she felt she would make much more progress than ever before.

It wasn't even the Lust Curse that the Goddess had infected herself with. She was deeply familiar with her vices, and knew how to both indulge them and how to moderate them-even when they were demanding 90% of her attention at every waking moment, and 80% in her sleeping moments. When pushed to her absolute limits for decades at a time she might snap and give in to a MINOR lust-fueled rampage or two, but she was always careful to fix such things and show kindness to her victims afterwards-healing and helping those she affected. And with Kama, Kiara, Nero, and even Medea on occasion, it wasn't like she had any lack of help in dealing with her lusts. 

No, the entirety of her issues were born from a single source: Scathach.

"You may have the muscle memory of a warrior, but you don't have the instincts or skills of one." Scathach spoke calmly. Even as she spoke her spear lashed out a dozen times in an instant, the Goddess struggling to parry with her own spear. On the thirteenth clash the Goddess's spear shattered into motes of light. Without even an instant's hesitation she flash-forged a new one from a core of Primordial Runes and shaped magic as if she had done this a thousand times over. She very well may have, actually. Her entropic curse made basically every weapon she wielded degrade and shatter in absurdly short periods of time, so she became extremely skilled in just creating whatever she needed on the fly to counteract it.

Scathach never stopped attacking, and never stopped talking as she attacked. "Your spear, your magic, and your body are all being treated as separate things. Stop that; they are all one thing." Without seeming to change her attack pattern at all, runes suddenly began to form from the movements of Scathach's spear thrusts. She was manifesting rune spells with the exact same motions that she was using to try and skewer the Goddess, and the Goddess was forced to defend against both magic and spear combat at the exact same time.

Suddenly, Scathach stopped. The Goddess still held a fully ready position, body tense and energy ready to be unleashed in an instant. "Warmup complete." Scathach declared. With a twirl of her spear she manifested a ring of runes, which flared with immense light as she slammed her spear into the ground. In an instant the world around the Goddess and Scathach changed, revealing a grand army of demonic figures-Fomorians. A second wave of her spear sent light flowing out to the entire army, empowering it...and locking it into a curse, where they could only fight a single person.

That person being the Goddess, of course.

"You have until evening to kill this army." Scathach declared. "If they're still alive by then they'll detonate in a shaped blast strong enough to kill even you." The Goddess wasn't sure if Scathach was bluffing or not, but took the implicit threat seriously regardless-and fought like her life depended on it. She tore through Fomorian after Fomorian, sometimes with her bare hands and feet when her weapons shattered. Each attack of the Fomorians were empowered enough to easily pierce through God Hand, though not quite enough to make it through her Enlightenment at the same time. Which is, of course, where Scathach taking potshots at her with occasional magical blasts came in.

Despite her best efforts it would be nearly evening by the time she finished the army off, and the Goddess would be a bruised, burned, and bloodied mess. Naturally a diluted version of the curse of Gae Bulg had somehow been infused into every wound, retarding her natural regeneration. It was just something she'd come to expect from Scathach's training. 

And then the Fomorian corpses all suddenly exploded, blasting the Goddess hard enough that it tore through three of her God Hand lives. Really, what else did she expect at this point?

"I think that sums up your daily battle training." Scathach declared. "Now, we'll work on your smithing."

Scathach's training was brutal, inhumane, and horrifying enough that it was capable of killing even The Goddess multiple times over. If it wasn't for God Hand providing her an endless supply of extra lives, she might genuinely have died at several points. Though it was only thanks to Godhand that she was willing to endure this, since it wouldn't have any chance of killing her, so...

Yet the Goddess could not deny the results. Her body, mind, and even her very soul were all refined with the torture that Scathach called "training", sharpening her skills as a warrior to the point that even Scathach had to admit that she was "acceptable". She learned to weave Primordial Runes so swiftly it could outpace commanding the World directly, then refined her command of the World until it flexed and twisted with just the barest hint of intention and will. Even her skills as a craftswoman were refined and enhanced-HER! She who led the Sub-Bells in forging Excalibur and was renowned for creating countless weapons, artifacts, and divine treasures! 

The skills she learned and refined under Scathach made the Goddess honestly feel ashamed of her previous work-it was like comparing a child's babblings to a complex symphony. With pure skill and mystical ability she found herself capable of matching Scathach at the end of those two centuries, where before she would have needed to simply overwhelm her with raw power. She had developed her smithing to better extract the powers of flesh and render them into artifice. 

Her power before was very much akin to a divine Authority-it was simply something that existed, something she wielded because she had that right. Now, it was refined and improved-it was skill, it was training, it was more than mere Authority. It was a part of her.

On one particular day, nearly a century after the Goddess had met Scathach, the two were sitting down and having a picnic. It was a guaranteed, for real, rest day where the Goddess was actually free of all surprise training. Those were extremely rare, and she was cherishing it. Medea was off in New Rome, vacationing away from the constant chaos of Ireland.

Daintily eating a berry, Scathach observed her companion from the corner of her eye. The Goddess was a very beautiful woman, yes, but there was always a certain...mystical air about her. Quite literally. Even for her it had taken some time to notice, but The Goddess was always, ALWAYS, wearing a strange sort of glamour-half physica, half illusory. "I'm curious." Scathach began. "You've hidden your true appearance for as long as I've known you...what exactly are you hiding?"

The Goddess scratched her cheek, and answered. "Well, it's nothing against you, first. I haven't actually shown my true appearance to anyone since...a millennia, eleven-hundred years, I think? Somewhere around there. I hide my true appearance, because...well, the very sight of me is a curse."

"A curse? Are you truly so hideous?"

"No, the opposite. All who see even a glimpse of me are enslaved-their souls twisted into nothing but a puppet to me. A Bodhisattva of Desire, who could enslave all things that held even the most minor spark of desire in their hearts, conceded that I outshone them entirely-and I've only grown more beautiful since then. The sight of me is a curse that hollows out the minds and souls of all things until all that is left is devotion, my smell is much the same, my touch is a soul-searing ecstacy, I cannot even speak without my voice consuming the hearts of all who hear me." The Goddess shrugged. "So I've taken to wearing this guise to prevent those effects from causing chaos. It hides my true form-sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound, so that I can live amongst others without enslaving all who experience any part of my existence."

Scathach nodded, taking in that explanation. The two continued to eat a fruit picnic in peace for some time...until Scathach spoke. "Sounds like a truly potent weapon." She said lightly.

The Goddess sighed, seeing where this was going immediately. She held out a hand, lighting it with blue fire, and spoke. "A Geas, then. If you fall to my beauty, then all memory of what you experienced will be lost and you shall be left with only the knowledge that said beauty overwhelmed you."

Scathach swiftly took the Goddess's hand, entering the Geas willingly-such as it was. The Geas sealed, the Goddess took a deep breath and began to form Bounded Fields around herself and Scathach-cutting off the outside world entirely. "Prepare yourself." She warned the Queen of the Shadowlands.

Then, for the first time in centuries, the Goddess released the glamour that hid away her true form.

Scathach immediately grit her teeth and turned away from the Goddess, shutting her eyes tight. Magic swirled around her and formed into spells-spells to block out smell and sound, spells to induce pain-and Scathach began to tremble. Several seconds passed, until finally a blue fire lit around Scathach's form and the Goddess's glamour reformed itself.

The blue fire faded, and Scathach sighed. "So I couldn't withstand it..." She murmured.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of." The Goddess said. "I don't think there's a living being in all of existence who can. In fact, you did quite well-you lasted maybe fifteen or so seconds."

"Fifteen seconds..." Scathach closed her eyes, deep in thought. Then she nodded to herself. "I can work with that. Let's do it again."

Ever since that day, Scathach would subject herself to attempting to endure the Goddess's True Form at least thrice a week. She would never carry memories of the True Form-her one attempt at doing so saw its beauty slowly and steadily twist her into a slave for the Goddess over the course of a week, which was then purged from her mind-but with great effort and experimentation she slowly found herself lasting small bits of time longer each time she exposed herself. 

Of course, despite her and the Goddess's best efforts, this continuous exposure to the Goddess's true form had...side effects. Scathach found herself more and more attracted to The Goddess on a subconscious level, more and more amorous, and slowly came to the conclusion that perhaps she didn't need to die...in fact, if it was her, then perhaps...

By the end of those two centuries in Ireland, Scathach and the Goddess had grown extremely close-to the point that it was all but confirmed that Scathach would be joining the Goddess's harem. When the world called to the Goddess and her wanderlust saw her leaving the land, Scathach joined her in her travels-to help keep the Goddess's skills sharp, she said, but the wild nights they had together disagreed somewhat.

The year was 90 CE.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Jump 5: Fate/Legends - Land of the Rising Sun

Starting Time: Kingdom of Yamatai - 190CE
Timeline: Grand Designs
Origin: Swordsman
Gender: Female
Age: 22

Perks
>Blossoming Sun -Free
>Mamamoto -50 **
>Beniemiya -50 **
>Traditional Japanese Art (Writing) -100 **
>Grudge Forged -200 **
>Swordsmith -400 **
>Live By The Sword -Free
>Man Slayer -Free
>Bladeless -100 **
>Shukuchi -200 **
>Sword Saint -200 **
>Root of All Swords -300 **
>Heavenly Eyes -300 **
>Goooooolden -100 **
>Nine Tails To Be -600 **

Items
>Garb And Blade -Free
>Mountain Heaven Enhanced -200 **
>First Edge -Free

Companions
>Mini Nobu -Free
>TOHSAKA -Free

Drawbacks
>Continuity +0 **
>NEETSpeak +100 **
>Drill Sergeant +100 **
>Liver Liquor +100 **
>Demon King Reborn +200 **
>Hunter's Mark +200 **
>Family Fire Curse +200 **
>I Wanna Be A Ronin +300 **
>Youkai Meat +300 **
>Yandere Battle Royale +300 **

Scenarios
>Slay The Swallow
>Final Tournament of the Blade Masters
>Insect Jar 
---------------------
The Goddess arrived in Japan a little after 180 CE-nearly two centuries after the Age of Gods had officially ended. It was a strange thing she considered, stepping onto foreign land once again, but she was perhaps the last true God that existed on this side of the world. There was still the Reverse Side of course...but that was barely any better than death, imprisoned and isolated as the Gods were amongst themselves. What little influence they had on the physical world was fading away by the decade-in a few centuries, they would barely be whispers. Yet here she still stood, more powerful than ever and only growing stronger yet not rejected by the world in the slightest.

Kama and Medb were the other two divinities that managed to outlast the Age of Gods. Medb was a much more orthodox deity-well, "orthodox" for a deity. It took a great deal of magical assistance from the Goddess's own artifacts and New Rome's magitech in order to allow her to outlive the Age of Gods; in many ways, it was akin to being on life support. Not too unlike the Amazon Queen Hippolyta, who even now relied upon the Mantle of Ages to maintain her existence. Kama, on the other hand, was just a strange freak of nature much like the Goddess herself; she subsisted on the Desires of Humanity, and thus only grew stronger as humanity itself did. In one conversation she mentioned that she wasn't originally like this, but her initial transformation into a Beast had allowed her to take on this nature...but either way, she was entirely unbound to the fading of Mystery despite her existence and capabilities.

Kiara's powers didn't rely on Mystery in the first place, and she maintained her youth through a combination of Soma and the Goddess's own divine blessing. Nero was...strange, and similarly was maintained eternally by the Goddess's help. Medea had relied upon Soma for a few centuries, but with time and effort had developed her own set of magics to maintain her immortality...though she complained about the weakening of Mystery weakening its potency over time, and that she'd need to find something better soon enough. Scathach, of course, had simply proved her unkillable nature to the world so hard that she had erased her own Concept of Death entirely and thus was both eternally youthful and utterly unkillable. By normal means, at least.

Three Deities and four-five, including Hippolyta-immortals outliving the Age of Gods, all but untouched by the slow loss of Mystery. Turning her thoughts away from the matter, the Goddess and Scathach entered the lands of Japan proper. Their first order of business was simple: finding a place where the Goddess may initiate her "attunement" ritual. 

As the two traveled covertly, they had no way of knowing that legends of The Goddess had traveled ahead of them to the far east. Legends told how the Goddess was a living calamity, how she bathed in the blood of countless armies, slew demons and gods alike, how she was disaster incarnate. Legends spoke of her terrible evil, and of her grand beauty-great enough to drive any man or woman to madness with just a single look or touch. Legends whispered of the boons she would grant on a whim, the weapons and armor she forged and discarded, tools so powerful that they could shape entire dynasties. Many looked on with horror at the approach of the Goddess...but a select few looked upon her with greed. And while the armies of Japan began to marshal to repel this "grand demon goddess", a few select beings and one family in particular made plans...

Finding a mountain that resonated powerfully with the legends of the land-both past and future-the Goddess began to prepare her ritual. The ending of the Age of Gods made things a slight bit more difficult for her, but with her immense magical knowledge and capabilities it was nothing that the Goddess couldn't adjust for on the fly...but...this land had some truly incredible legends and powers etched into it. Power that tempted the Goddess. So she took her time with the ritual, adjusting it carefully. With careful focus she even managed to tap into the effects of the curses she'd previously borne in past centuries; balancing the power of those curses against the power she was taking in, she could actively work to draw in even further power by taking on great burdens.

Scathach, of course, was rather leery of the plan and decided to stay a good distance away while the ritual itself was initiated-for safety's sake. Unfortunately that would lead to some issues for the Goddess. As a prismatic pillar of light began to split the skies, grand bolts of lightning rained down in turn-twisting the pillar of light into a whirling tornado of force. As the ritual reached its peak the Goddess was bodily launched into the sky, to land somewhere far, far away...specifically all but directly in front of the manor of a certain noble lord. Etched into her Divine Core would be a whole new curse of servitude, as well as an entropic curse and a bevy of minor curses. Laying on the scorched grass for several moments...the Goddess would eventually raise her head to the sky. Though her face could not move, an unholy light gleamed in her eyes. "All according to keikaku." She declared.

In fact, the Goddess had planned all of this out ahead of time-even taking several days on that now-distant mountain to make sure she had gotten everything correct. Her eyes were capable of spying into the distant future after all, and with the help of a great deal of magecraft her hazy sight evolved into near-perfect prediction of future events. She knew exactly what curses would be inflicted on her, exactly which lord she'd be sent to serve, even what troubles she'd be facing soon-she had carefully planned for ALL of these things.

Of course, she couldn't plan out EVERYTHING in the following three hundred years-the length of her curse of servitude this time. Just enough to make sure she wouldn't die or do anything she found particularly distasteful. If she could plan out that far, then she almost certainly would have changed her plans...but alas.

And some distance away from the mountain at which the Goddess had conducted her ritual, a strange sound echoed across the sky. Staring at the mountain, Scathach frowned as she tried to pinpoint exactly what that sound was. Now, she couldn't exactly be sure, but it sounded a lot like...

"nnnoooooooBBBBUUUUUUUU!!" A strange, high-pitched voice screamed. From the sky came a falling star, and that falling star managed to aim itself directly at Scathach. Despite her attempts to dodge the impact, the star managed to correct-course enough to keep up with the celtic warrior...and land directly on top of Scathach's bosom with a soft *pomf*.

Blinking dumbly, Scathach tried to process the existence of the strange, miniscule figure now attached to her chest. "Nobu!" crowed the figure, cuddling deeper into her cleavage. So distracted by this strange being, Scathach took no notice of the OTHER shooting star in the sky.

"WAH!" screamed the star-and from its body fell countless glittering gems...filled with uncomfortable amounts of mana.

Said star and gems proceeded to impact the ground directly in front of Scathach, unleashing a blast that would leave a deep crater and knock out all involved for at least a week. This would be but the beginning of Scathach's own bizarre adventures with the Mini Nobu and the Counter Guardian TOHSAKA.

Returning to the Goddess, it took her just a single week before she was sent away from her "lord"'s grounds. Not exactly banished...but close enough. It began with the first holder of her Curse of Servitude: the head of the family. This man was a deeply lustful, lazy, and not particularly bright man. Holding the obediance of the being rumored to be the most beautiful existence in all the world, it was quite obvious what his very first (and last) orders would be.

"Hmm..." The male head of the house stared at the Goddess standing in his backyard, he came to a decision. "Show me your true face, the vision of beauty which slays lesser men. I wish to experience you in all your glory, then make love to you."

"[Master, I truly do advise against such a thing...]" The Goddess spoke in a cutesy mix of languages, her voice and face bored and unchanging. Despite that, she could already feel the Curse of Servitude tug at her within, trying to get her to obey unquestioningly.

"I care not for your baseless assumptions of my weakness, Goddess." The lord spoke. "You may be use to the weaker constitutions of foreign men, but the men of the east are strong! It is a truth you shall come to understand in my bedchamber, but for now, reveal yourself!"

"[Very well...]" And so spoken, The Goddess revealed her true and unshielded form to the man before her-at her full power, as he demanded. 

For just an instant the lord was struck speechless and insensate at the sheer beauty before him, his mind wiped of all thoughts save for love and worship of the Goddess. And then he could speak no more, as his body was spontaneously remade by the sheer radiant power of the Goddess's Authorities present in her beauty. The backyard of the lord's manor was transformed into a verdant ********, and standing in the center was a beautiful golden statue of a man, caught smiling and with tears in his eyes. A profoundly powerful holy aura continually exuded from the statue, and even by the year 2000 CE all it would take is but to touch the statue for small wounds to be healed, skin to be cleaned, and a light beautifying effect to sweep through the body of any human who touched it. This statue would be titled "The Beholder of Beauty", and the grove around it "The Beauty's Cradle".

In the present, everyone involved was simply deeply annoyed to have a small forest spring up in the manor's backyard.

The lord's wife, however, was much more overjoyed than annoyed. Speaking to the Goddess inside the manor, she explained; "I had always hated that man, but our marriage was out of my hands...now that he is dead and I hold your servitude, I shall be the most powerful woman in all the land! Oh-hohohohoho!" 

The Goddess nodded with an unchanging expression, drinking deeply from a bottle of sake she kept on her waist. It couldn't get her drunk, of course, but one of her many curses this time around was a deep abiding thirst for the liquid-and so she drank regardless. 

Seeing the sake bottle, the lord's wife had a wonderful idea pop into her head. "You know, this calls for celebration! You are the greatest craftsman in all the world, yes? Then I have an order for you, Goddess. Make me wine-the greatest wine possible, harnessing all your power to do so! Create a wine that shall never be matched in all the world!"

"[Master, I really...]" The Goddess tried to interrupt, but the lady was already laughing to herself and imagining the grandest wine in the world. Forcibly pulled by the Curse of Servitude, the Goddess left the room and began her work: to create the greatest wine in all the world, harnessing all her power to do so.

Now, it can't be szaid that the Goddess is not experienced in the creation of wine-over the millennia she has cooked herself many foods, and cooked for others as well. She took it as a part of her Authority as a Goddess of Artifice to be skilled in such things, though her Authority applied very little to kitchencraft. This latest attunement had added an incredible level of skill atop her already extensive experience, and if that was all then the Goddess could have easily made a truly incredible-but ultimately mundane-wine. 

Unfortunately, the Goddess was physically incapable of stopping there. She had been ordered to harness ALL of her power in the creation of the greatest wine in all the world-and thus, was forced to move far, far beyond making simply mundane wine.

The Goddess forged strange and incredible blades which she used to stir, mix, and prepare the ingredients for the wine. She weaved life out of nothing, and rendered that life down for parts and traits to imbue in her wine. She Sang and harnessed the very essence of Humanity to distill its power into the wine. She forge grand heavenly constructs above the earth with her Enlightenent, capturing sunlight and Aether beyond the bounds of Earth then distilled it down in intricate metaphysical machinery which she designed specifically for this purpose. She harnessed the Eyes of Balor to excise the very concept of Death out of her works, harnessing Death itself as yet another ingredient in her winemaking. She even worked grand rituals of magic in order to capture the essence of her own divinity and beauty, render it into a workable form, and distill it down into the wine alongside everything else.

The working took merely five days, for the Goddess was swift in her works...but though the wine was nominally "complete" at the end of those three weeks, it was not "complete". It had been perfectly formulated, perfectly formed, and worked into a wine that was beyond all the world...but it was not safe to drink, not as it was. Merely the divinity within a single drop alone would slay anyone who dared to taste it save for Divine Spirits, and even then such beings would have their Divine Cores corroded by the sheer potency and flavour of the wine. Two drops would render even the weakest of mortals immortal, temporarily purging them of their very concept of death so long as the wine was in their system; even a corroded and decayed spirit would be granted a fleshly form, healthy and whole. Three drops would send the drinker on a vision quest to the very center of the Root, from within which they could witness the whole of existence spiraling around them. Or induce hallucinations so powerful that even a god of madness couldn't compare; the Goddess hadn't been able to figure out which.

The Goddess tried to explain the myriad and improbable effects of the wine to her master, but it was no use. The lady picked up the clear bottle of shining golden liquid, considering it for several seconds as she listened to the Goddess's strange words wash over her, and shouted "Kampai!" And then, with a remarkable thoughtlessness, she proceeded to drain the whole bottle dry in a matter of seconds. She smacked her lips a bit as the Goddess stared at her with an utterly gobsmacked expression. "It may not be particularly lady-like, but I've always been fond of drinking competitions." The lady of the manor shared her secret with the Goddess. She continued to consider the wine for a moment. "Truly, exquisite. A truly remarkable flavor and feeling..."

And then the wine's actual flavour and effects hit her.

It was an assault on the mental, physical, spiritual, and conceptual level. It was nirvana contained in a bottle, all of reality contained in a drop. The lady witnessed the birth of creation, and saw all possible endings for it. She saw the whole of reality, and even into the next world-a world of souls manifested amongst the stars. Her body was restructured by the enlightenment of the wine, evolved into a primordial human-then refined with the enlightenment of the end of mankind, the Ether Liners. She became both Alpha, and Omega. Her very soul stretched from the present, to the past, to the future-to all points in spacetime at once, a false existence that made itself true. For just a moment, the lady was all. And then, she was none-or rather,「 」.

"Truly exquisite." The lady murmured, before her Origin and the very concept of her existence was wiped from reality.

The Goddess watched as the Lady dispersed into motes of light that promptly ceased to exist, shrugged, and began to carefully dispose of the remains of the wine. She might have a powerful craving for wine these days, but she wasn't stupid; no way was she going to drink this without diluting it into something that wouldn't kill the person drinking it. Or, y'know, make a wine that ISN'T mashing literally every power at her disposal together and seeing what comes out the other end.

On the seventh day of her stay amongst the mortal family who held her leash, the Goddess had slain both the Lord and Lady she served by simply fulfilling their orders. Of course, a family of madmen, this didn't bother the eldest son in the slightest.

"My family has always been full of boorish fools," The young man complained, swinging a katana up and down as he spoke. 

The Goddess hesitated to call what the man was doing "practice"; though she was still adjusting to her new swordsmanship skills and instincts, she could tell that this man had a truly remarkable LACK of such. And what he was doing was not going to change that in any meaningful way-in fact, it worked to reinforce terrible habits. But, annoyed with her own speech mannerisms lately and beginning to realize just what kind of family she had been cursed to serve, the Goddess held her tongue. 

Taking this as approval of his words, the young man continued. "No, your service to our family is not merely a means of political power, or satisfying base urges. You are a goddess! I have read the legends, listened to the stories-you are the craftswoman who brings immortality and death, hand in hand! You have traveled the world slaying demons and monsters, righting wrongs and purging the wicked! And this land, yes, it is full of wicked beasts and monsters." The young man stopped speaking for a moment, and looked off to the side and upwards a ways-as if looking out to the land beyond the manor. "You have been brought in our service for a reason, I know this to be true. That my father and mother used you for such base purposes only reinforces it-you must fulfill that purpose! Yours is the power to slay the wicked, and serve humanity! Yes, I see it now!"

With a shout, the young man swung his katana at a tree. His form was horrendous, but he had enough muscle to swing with appreciable speed...but the tree was one of those trees born from the Goddess revealing her true appearance, and was thus blessed with supernatural strength and durability. Predictably, the sword shattered against the tree's bark. Despite this, the young man smiled. 

Turning back to the Goddess, he presented the hilt of the katana to her as if it was a divine treasure. "Do you not see the signs, the portents?!" He questioned her, a manic smile on his face. "Goddess of Humanity, your greatest skill and power lies in artifice for a reason! You have journeyed so far and learned so much, and it is clear to me why!" He stood, holding the katana hilt up to the sky as he shouted. "Goddess, this is my order to you! Forge me a blade which can shatter the heavens! Forge me a blade which can sunder fate! Forge me a blade which can shape the world or tear it apart with equal ease! Then, forge me a suit of armor-a suit of armor which will grant its wearer the body of a god! A suit of armor which can carry the sky, and shatter the earth! Forge me armor which only grows greater with age, which holds the essence of human spirit and will within it! Let the weapon and armor be wielded by anyone, yet only those who are chosen and attuned to them be capable of drawing out their TRUE power!"

"Then, when you are done...make me two more sets! One set of Armor for the Land, one for the Heavens, and one for the Sea! One sword for the Earth, one for the Sun, and one for the Moon! Let the wielders of these weapons and armors be the new Gods of this land, immortal and undefeatable, and through them the land itself shall be reborn!"

"Now go! Begone from this house; your purpose is not here! The signs have been clear; you do not belong in a mortal abode. You must journey, as you always have! Slay demons and monsters, punish the wicked, and seek the treasures of this land! You shall correspond with me once per month, and return at the turn of each year. I shall have further orders for you in time; until then, your quest must be unending!" 

The Goddess gave a lazy wave to the man, took a final swig from her sake bottle, and wandered away from the manor in a lazy amble. The eldest son-now the manor lord-smiled as he watched the Goddess walk away...then frowned. "Perhaps I should have asked her to remake my katana before she left-" He murmured-only to find a weave of light forming around the katana which repaired it in but an instant. "Oh, quite handy, that. Now I must return to my practice!"

The lord's eldest son was quite obviously insane and had previously been confined for most of his day to day life...but with the death of his father and mother, was now free and the ruling head of the family. This would later lead the family's holdings to utter ruin as the madman was unable to properly manage the lord's estate in favor of throwing everything into his delusions of being a warrior who slew the wicked...but would still live a long and happy life thanks to the help of the Goddess.

For a time the Goddess wandered somewhat aimlessly, not particularly sure of what exactly her orders from her master even /meant/ aside from the fact that he wanted her to forge three sets of super-powerful swords and armors. Sure, she was charged to "slay demons, punish the wicked, and seek treasures", but that didn't really /mean/ anything in a definitive way. That wasn't a real quest, or an order. So at best, the Goddess wandered blindly, looking for demons to slay, wicked to punish, and treasures to attain, all while planning out the forging of the Armor and Blades.

Then, like the calm before the storm, the Goddess began to stumble upon various monsters and demons as she wandered. Just a few here and there-youkai and oni, strange beyonds who hungered for her flesh...and then more. And more. And then a whole slew of Demon Hunters began to hunt her down as well, under some strange belief that she herself was a demon? According to her Master's orders she was not allowed to kill them for they had done no wrong in seeking to strike down evil-they were merely misguided, and should be set back on the correct path. This, of course, did not make things in any way easier.

At the very least though, it provided direction for the wandering Goddess. And it was in these adventures that she encountered the strange Phantasmal Beast known as the Swallow, and gained the inspiration she needed to forge the Armor of the Heavens. Wielding a blade formed from her own flesh and built to channel her powers well, the Goddess used pure technique and skill to strike down the Swallow with a cage of slashes that struck manifold times in an instant-several strikes at once, refracted across dimensions. She had started with just two strikes at once, but by the time she slew the Swallow she had managed to develop the technique into four.

From the Swallow's flesh, she began her work in crafting the first of the Three Divine Mantles-the Human-Divinity Terminals. This first one, the Heavenly Terminal, began with physical and metaphysical materials harvested from the Phantasmic Swallow...but that was nowhere near enough to make what her Master wanted her to make. She had to draw out a great deal of her own flesh and Divinity, cultivate it into a strange human-like being with her Authority, and then harness its existence in forging the Terminal. What she created was human in form...but mountanous in stature, dozens of meters tall.

On its surface and from an outside perspective it seemed a strange and giant suit of armor, inscribed with countless runes, swirling patterns, and esoteric designs. Its armor was foreign to all the world-blocky, thick, yet the sheer scale of its body seemed like scales. On its head was a strangely angular helmet, three eyes set into it and shaped somewhat like the beak of a grand bird. On its back were strangely glowing vents, from which would emerge grand glowing wings-allowing the Terminal to fly through the air with deceptive grace and speed. 

Underneath the armor was flesh and metal melded together, acting as one. It couldn't be called a truly "living" thing...but it wasn't wholly inanimate. Blood that was as much physical as it was metaphysical flowed freely through the flesh-like metal, and its muscles were as much mechanical as organic. In the torso of the strange mechanical beast was a-comparatively-small spherical gem, large enough for even an eight-foot man to stretch out freely yet entirely hidden and protected within the Terminal's body. Within this core was both where the armor's metaphysical heart laid, and where the control system for the entire armor-set was.

The armor was fundamentally incomplete-it was designed that way. It was essentially indestructable, but utterly immobile and useless aside from being a giant lump of beautifully crafted metal...until someone entered the Core. By entering the Core, their soul would complete the Terminal, activating it and granting it access to its countless systems. Strength enough to match a Fleshly God from the days before Uruk, speed enough to cross the whole of this island nation in minutes, internal mana engines that continually gained greater capacity and output, a Pseudo-Authority derived from mimicking her own Enlightenment and inscribing the concept of "Heaven" into the Core Systems, allowing it to enact divine miracles regarding the skies and "Heavens" to degrees...and her magnum opus, the Evolutionary Variable Ascension system. 

It was a complex calculation system existing within the Terminal, which continuously worked to observe the state of the armor, record its strengths and weaknesses, then extrapolate changes that could be made to the armor in order to increase its strengths and minimize its weaknesses. Initiating evolutions would cost the armor a truly immense amount of mana and degrade the internal mana engines, thus requiring extensive downtime between each change...but with each change, the armors would grow greater than before. And each change could be guided and selected for by the user-if the user wished, they could evolve greater speed, strength, devote more energy towards Authority manipulations, so on and so forth. They could develop biological swords, shields, weapons and tools of all types...assuming the armor had the requisite power, at least. 

Lastly were the life-support systems, which served to perpetually heal and restore the body and soul of the pilot of the Terminal-granting immortality and even refining the body and soul of a pilot to greater heights the longer they piloted. It would softcap after a certain point, never even matching ten percent of the Terminal's base capabilities...but nine percent was still essentially on the scale of a powerful Divine Spirit.

With all of these benefits, came costs. The Terminal was...picky, for lack of better word. It was both designed to be so, and actively had to be in order to function at all. While any old human being could jump in and take it for a spin if they wished, it would flat-out reject any being that lacked at least some degree of humanity. Further, most operators would only be able to access a small degree of its power depending on how well their mind and soul could "synchronize" with the Terminal. An average pilot might have maybe 5% compatibility, and would only get access to 5% of its power-enough to lumber around as an unbreakable giant and pull off some strange sky-based magic, but it wouldn't be enough to activate the flight systems let alone the E.V.A. system. An ideal wielder could bring the Terminal to a state far beyond what it was designed for. 

Synchronization could be trained of course, but only to a certain point...and an ideal natural wielder who trained to bring the Terminal to its peak could even achieve "apotheosis"; their soul would fuse with the Terminal, their body becoming a divine avatar they could deploy at will. In effect, they would become an artificial Fleshly God that was capable of continuously evolving and adapting over time. Just as the Master had specified.

The making of the first Human-Divinity Terminal, EVA-Unit 1 "Heaven", took nearly a full year. The Goddess returned to her Master's manor just as she completed it, sharing the year's achievements and fulfilling various requests of her Master...before the manor caught on fire, and her Master sent her out once again to the world so that she may continue her "holy mission".

It would take her three years before she would find inspiration for the next EVA unit, let alone any of the swords she was to forge. That inspiration would come in the form of six insect demons, formed from the shattered fragments of an iron tea kettle. Though the Goddess kept the kettle and demonic familiar held within, she would forge a replica for her own use in creating EVA-Unit 2 "Earth". It was quite similar to Unit 1, barring that it was installed with a pseudo-Authority of "Earth" rather than "Heaven", and instead of wings it sported multitudes of insectile tendrils.

Returning to her lord's manor once again for her yearly check-in, she ended up getting a surprising order from her master.

"You have lived countless millennia, haven't you?" He asked her, carefully working on a piece of calligraphic art. It was...less art and more childish scribbles, but the Goddess would give the man points for effort. "You have seen things that mankind has long forgotten, known tales lost to time. Goddess, I have an order for you. Speak, and share with me one of these tales. Share with me a tale from the beginning of the world, some grand triumph or battle you had taken part in back when humanity was young."

The Goddess sighed, and cast her memories back to the early ages of the world. All things considered...that was about the only story that fit, wasn't it? Taking care to try and make her story understandable through the strange speech curse she was currently afflicted with, the Goddess began to tell her tale.

"[Once upon a time, thousands of years in the past, there was a foolish and proud goddess with far more power than sense. She was the greatest craftsman in all the world; she had created the very first implements known as 'tools', and taught both Gods and Man how to wield them to magnify and leverage their power to grand heights. She was also a clever goddess, and had taken Authority of that young and bumbling species called 'man', when they were first born. It was by her Authority that man grew clever in tool-usage, and by her Authority that mankind learned to create that grand tool called 'civilization' that would one day supplant the world.]"

"[But though it was many millennia away, the other gods had shunned and reviled the Goddess of Humanity for her betrayal of their kind. The Goddess cared not at the time-she saw no harm in helping build up her own Authority, her Artifice and her Humanity...but while she grew stronger, the other gods knew that there was only so much strength to be had in the world. And if the Goddess would continue to grow stronger, they would soon begin to grow weaker. No deity was more incensed than the Mother Goddess Tiamat, who had given birth to mankind and all manner of beings."]

"[She was the mother of life itself, the progenitor from which all things had come-and here I had come, taking Authority over her own children, giving them tools and wisdom with which to conquer the world when all she desired was to hold humanity safe in her bosom. Spurred on by the actions of the Goddess, Tiamat poisoned the seas with her own Sea of Life and gave birth to countless monsters. With her new horde she tore down the young cities of Man and captured humanity in ten zones, where she held them. These zones were not harsh, in fact they were quite paradisiacal. Gentle gardens of life guarded by Tiamat's children, where humanity would live peacefully. There was but one rule of these zones: no human was allowed to develop that tool called 'civilization'. No clothes, no tools, no cities were allowed. Even language was frowned upon. And this, I could not allow. And outside of these zones, the most primal and monstrous children of Tiamat reigned supreme.]"

As the Goddess spoke, she called upon the World with her soul and began weaving a gentle, primal magic to create images to accompany her story-and to help disguise when her strange curse of speech played up and made her tale particularly difficult to understand. As the world around them transformed into a vision of ancient Mesopotamia, when Tiamat raged and ruled the world...the Goddess felt a pang of nostalgia, allowing herself to drift in memories even as she continued to share her tale.

"[The Goddess was powerful, you must understand...but Tiamat was, far and away, one of the strongest divinities of the age. And there was not just Tiamat to consider, but also her children-the countless monsters, the Lahmu...the Goddess was just one being, and though powerful, she would need to strike down entire armies across the world if she wished to free humanity and defeat Tiamat. Alone, she simply was not enough. But the Goddess held Authority over Artifice as well, and thus simply began to create tools that would lead her to victory.]"

It started with just a nameless magical blade, a half-assed imitation of Excalibur using subpar materials that burnt itself up to fire a blast of scorching mana. The Goddess could produce them by the dozens, even so many millennia ago, and happily did so. But that just let her clear out massive areas quickly-and others couldn't use them. So she created a metal stand and flint-system that let even the least of humans smack the flint and unleash a single-burst discount Excaliblast. Then she developed the Recapture System, which harnessed the principle of releasing energy that she had only just discovered in those days to draw energy back into the mechanism, forge it into the same blade-pattern, load it into the stand, and fire it at will.

Of course there were a thousand steps in-between, where she had to adjust the stands' durability, develop the forging system, refine the method by which energy was released and captured, so on and so forth. That went without saying, in her mind-it was all merely a part of the process of artificing. But merely stationary magic cannons was not enough to fight off Tiamat's armies, so the Goddess learned to integrate the strange energy loop into their foundations to allow them perpetual flight. Studying the will of the world and the workings of mortal magic, the Goddess learned to imbue crude consciousness to each cannon-to imbue them with orders and direct them to her will. She learned to bend the energy loop system to create a sort of energy barrier around her weapons which could be connected and extended to other instances. All of these things built up and up, until...

The scene around the Goddess and her lord showed a grand battle. On one side was an endless black tide of beings, strange twisted mouths on their head and insectile arms and legs. They chittered and zoomed across the world at impossible speeds, and where they struck the world seemed to shudder under the weight of their blows. Against them was a tide of metal and light. Strange diamond-shaped mechanisms floated in the air-and in their centers were scintillating orbs of swirling light. From each of the diamond vertices would shoot lances of light at the countless monsters, piercing them and sundering them. When a Lahmu struck at one of the diamonds a blue and white light would ripple across the construct. Sometimes many of the constructus would suddenly float together, combining into more complex shapes in bursts of light. Then these super-constructs would unleash immense blasts or assaults on Tiamat's armies, clearing entire sections of the field.

"[My Myriad Gems...It took many battles and much time to develop them, but they were quite the weapon against Tiamat's hordes. They were terrible as direct weapons, but as fodder...yes, they were perfect. It took barely a handful of mana and some clay from the earth to forge one, and soon I could match Tiamat's endless monsters against my own endless hordes. With my Gems, I slaughtered Tiamat's armies, and zone by zone began to free humanity from her clutches.]" Scenes of countless battles, of monsters and Gems that blotted out the skies, of a Goddess striking with spear and sword and countless other strange weapons against divine beings even while the Gems guarded humanity and began to purge the monsters of the world filled the manor.

With a gentle smile on her face, the Goddess continued. "[Without hesitation, I slaughtered a confused and grieving mother's children by the millions. Oh, Tiamat had certainly enslaved humanity...but it was not out of malice. She hated what I had done, but did not hate me. No, Tiamat was merely confused and despairing. She, the mother of all life, was being abandoned by her children. The Gods had turned upon her already and tried to strike her down, and in return she simply rose up and engulfed the world in her Chaos Tide. For all she wanted, was to mother us all. She wanted to nurture and create life, endlessly. She didn't want to be abandoned by her children, Humanity and Monsters alike. Civilization would pull humanity apart from the gods, pull her children away from her, and so it had to be fought. I did not understand this then, and simply saw her as a tyrant. And so I slaughtered her monsters, her children, and began to rebuild civilization without a care as I ripped her own children further and further away from her.]"

"[In time, the ten zones were freed, the armies of Tiamat were shattered, and all the remainder of her monsters corralled around the Sea of Life which spread endlessly from Tiamat's body yet was shrunk by continuously burning it away until it was naught but a lake of black mud that surrounded her. The final battle had begun, and my victory was all but assured...but gods-especially Mother Goddesses-do not die easily. For many weeks, my Gems and her Lahmu warred while Tiamat and I dueled; her children born endlessly from her Sea, while my Gems were recreated endlessly from the sheer energy in the air. And in the meantime, I simply could not slay Tiamat. No matter with what sword, spear, axe, club, torch, arrow, or more I struck Tiamat with, no matter how many times I struck her, she simply regenerated and continued to battle me.]"

The illusions twisted, showing the grand battle against Tiamat. A feminine figure of gold and white light wielding countless weapons peppered a draconic yet similarly feminine figure, black and blue and green. Tiamat stood titanic in stature, while the Goddess seemed akin to a gnat...but every weapon, every strike that the golden figure made against Tiamat shook the world and tore entire chunks from the Mother Goddess. Yet Tiamat never stopped fighting; whenever she was injured black liquid would gush from her, recreating the flesh in instant and restoring her strength. Grand blasts of red and black light lanced from her and shot to the Goddess, who would block with swirling shields of black and white light or dodge out of the way. And all around them an endless swarm of monsters and Gems battled.

"[So long as even a single child of hers lived, Tiamat could not die...and all of humanity was her children. I could not, would not, execute humanity merely to slay Tiamat. So I sought a different method. I sought a way to truly slay the Mother Goddess, and the Mother Goddess alone. Through weeks of battle and thought, I found my solution. I simply did what I did best: I created a weapon.]"

Grand bands of light encircled the entirety of the Sea of Chaos, formed from countless Gems linking together in sequence. One, two, three, four, five, six...seven bands of light. Far above, the Goddess sang a song to the world. The bands of light began to rotate, and within the Sea of Chaos a grand, cataclysmic wind began to kick up. Pressure formed, as if the entirety of the world simply grew heavier and heavier. One by one, Tiamat's monsters quite simply began to pop-dissolving from the sharp winds and immense pressure. Yet Tiamat stared above at the Goddess, unbothered. Light lanced from her to the Goddess, who defended and continued to sing.

The bands of light spun, faster and faster, and the winds within them grew sharper and greater. The pressure within simply grew greater and greater...yet Tiamat never stopped staring up at the Goddess. After a point she even stopped firing, instead simply staring at the Goddess with those strange cross-shaped eyes. The Goddess stared back, never pausing her song. And as the song reached a cresendo...the winds turned red, and the world within the bands of light was torn asunder. Reality itself frayed apart and fell to chaos, revealing the origin of existence underneath all things-encapsulated within those bands of light. Cut off from all reality by the light, torn apart by the winds, pressure, and Truth, and cast out of reality...Tiamat never stopped staring at the Goddess, even as she fell apart into nothingness. At the center was a single string of red light, which rose from the disintegrated Tiamat's body, twisting and turning...until it was caught in the Goddess's hand. 

Then the illusion fell away, and it was just the Goddess and her lord, back in that manor in the present day.

"[With this grand weapon, I slew Tiamat.]" The Goddess said, her eyes closed and lost in her own memories. "[All that was left was a final bit of essence, containing her Authority as a Mother Goddess. I took it into myself, erasing the concept of death from my own existence and gaining control over my own Sea of Life. I did alone what an entire pantheon of deities could not. Without hesitation, without consideration, I slew humanity's mother-my mother-consumed her heart, and crowned myself the queen of life. It would take me many millennia to truly understand the cruelty I had inflicted without thought, and attempt to make amends for my conquest. But that is a story for another day.]"

For a few moments, the manor was silent-the lord in solemn contemplation, the Goddess lost in her own memories. Then the lord spoke. "Goddess, I am curious. What exactly were those monsters, those...'Ra-muu'?"

"['Lahmu'; they were...humanity, after a fashion. A different idea of what humanity could have been, from an entirely different origin of life. Born to be both divine and human, without the touch of civilization and eternally reliant on the care of their mother to live. Children who would never, ever, abandon their mother.]" The Goddess explained, not opening her eyes. 

"[Tiamat was the mother of life, yes, but couldn't quite understand what it was about humanity that made it different from any other form of life. She tried, of course, but her failure was apparent in the Lahmu. They were innocent beings, without language, without individual thought. They had no need for food, for water, did not age, did not die to anything save violence. Powerful and primal...and fundamentally, they were no different from animals or even insects. They tried to understand humanity, but only ended up tormenting and torturing it. Don't think of them as cruel; they held no malice in their actions. They simply did not understand.]"

The lord nodded to himself, coming to a decision. "Goddess, I have a request for you-not an order, just a request." The Goddess opened her eyes, staring at her master curiously. "When you make the final Divine Armor...consider dedicating it to the Lahmu, the younger siblings of humanity who never got to live. Consider leaving at least one remnant of those final children of the Mother of Life that will never fade away. And, should you have the time afterwards...perhaps write a story of these events. Let humanity not forget the days when it nearly ended, and the death of our brethren that allowed us to spread throughout the world."

The Goddess smiled, and nodded.

And so, rather than the strange mishmash of artificial creatures which formed the biology of the other to EVA-Units, the final EVA...was instead forged from the Sea of Life that the Goddess was able to call upon. Its flesh, rather than chimaeric, was that of a Lahmu's. Its form was human, its core was much the same as the other...yet its pseudo-Authority called upon a fragment of the Sea of Life that the Goddess imbued into it. EVA Unit-3 "Sea" was a human-shaped Lahmu, the lost and forgotten little sibling of humanity shackled in metal and forged into a guardian for its elder species. It carried a fragment of the Sea of Life, and held the greatest potential of all three EVA Units.

Reporting the completion of the three Divine Armors to her lord, he stroked his chin as he considered the three titanic beings. "EVA Units, you call them..." He murmured. "Yes, I think I understand. These...are the Evangelion, who shall spread the word of Yamato's new gods. Now, they must be distributed. Goddess! At the northernmost tip of this land, bury away the Evangelion of Heaven! At the southernmost tip, bury the Evangelion of Earth! And in the center of this land, you shall bury the Evangelion of the Sea! Once this is done, begin to spread legends of their existence throughout the land. Write books, sing songs, spread tales! Let the worthy discover them on their own, and ascend to becoming the new gods of the land!" The lord declared.

And the Goddess did so; she buried the Evangelion of Heaven underneath the land of what would one day be called Hokkaido; the Evangelion of Earth, she buried in Kyushu. The final Evangelion, the Evangelion of the Sea...she buried under a certain mountain in what would one day be the Kyoto prefecture. Specifically, a mountain that would one day be called "Mount Ooe". And after that she returned to wandering the land of Yamato, writing songs and stories of the Three Evangelion in her spare time and when the mood struck her.

It was not long afterwards that the Goddess received a letter of invitation to a certain island some distance away, where a tournament of the greatest swordsman of ALL eras were being gathered. Intrigued and eager to practice her own ever-refining swordsmanship skills, the Goddess set out to that distant island. Upon arriving she sensed that the claims of the tournament were not falsities; somehow, this island was cut off from the natural flow of space and time itself-an island that existed both within and without reality. In such a place, it was actually quite trivial for strangers from any and every era to arrive. It was even possible to find swordsmen from an entirely different "Tree of Time".

"Senpai!" A bubbly voice greeted the Goddess as she was exploring the island. A strange purple-haired girl skipped up to the Goddess, her rather impressive bosom bouncing as she did so. She smiled and leaned forward with her hands folded behind her back, smiling at the Goddess. "Oh, I'm so glad you arrived! I'm sure you'll love the Ultimate Swordsman Festival!"

"[Who...are you?]" The Goddess asked the strange woman.

The purple-haired girl giggled and answered. "I'm...hmm, I suppose I should be called BB! I'm the organizer of this tournament! But you can call me 'kohai', senpai!"

Now, it has to be said that the Goddess was not an idiot. It was actually quite obvious what was going on here, after a moment's thought. A strange person she had never met being extremely familiar with her, specifically on an island where space and time was distorted so blademasters from every single era could all gather to duel in a tournament? The answer was obvious: this woman was someone she would meet and grow close to in the future, possibly the very distant future given that the Goddess had not seen her with her God's Eyes which, currently, could scry hundreds of years into the future to see countless possibilities. That said, her God's Eyes were honestly rather useless in this place; space and time was all twisted up on this island, rendering distant past and future unreadable. She could still see minutes, even hours, ahead and behind...but not much further in either direction thanks to the nature of the island.

Filing these thoughts away, the Goddess nodded to BB, who smiled and giggled once again. "Senpai's so cute as a little girl!" BB commented, confirming the Goddess's thoughts. "C'mon, senpai! Lemme show you around!" BB hooked one of her arms around the Goddess's, and proceeded to drag her all across the island, showing off every nook and cranny she could. 

As the evening approached BB had to leave in order to attend to her duties as the tournament organizer, and the Goddess found herself having a /fascinating/ conversation about sword philosophy with a strange pink haired woman named Musashi. Even as the blade masters of the island were called into a central plaza for an evening announcement, the Goddess and Musashi didn't pause their conversation-right up until BB put herself on loudspeaker, causing all conversation to come to a halt.

"Helloooo everyone!" BB called out. "Welcome, one and all, to the First and Final Tournament of the Ultimate Blade Masters! You have been gathered across space, across time, across the boundaries of reality itself to test your skills against one another and truly decide who, amongst all of space, all of time, and even across realities, is the Final Blade Master! The Blade Master whose sword surpasses all swords before or after! Whose blade cuts down all opposition across all reality!" BB paused there, and allowed the cheers of the hundreds of blade masters gathered from across reality to ring out through the plaza.

"I'm your host and organizer, BB! Now, for the nitty-gritty details! Now, under a normal flow of time, this tournament would last for what may be two weeks...but since time is silly here, we've taken the liberty of including a special 'BB-Token' system into your invitations! Just think about it for a second, and your invitational pass will pop right into your hand along with your current token count!" BB waited a moment to allow the various blade masters to do so, then continued. "As I said earlier, time is wonky here; the BB-Tokens work to 'stabilize' the flow of time for yourself and allow you to participate in various activities! Each Token represents an hour of stable time where you can interact with the festivities of the island, participate in matches, eat, drink, fight, and be merry! It's up to you to make the most of your time, but every single participant is guaranteed a minimum of three-hundred and thirty six tokens!"

"You can earn further tokens through a wide variety of activities; certain games on the island will grant tokens, you can gamble your tokens in duels against others on the island, and you will always earn a sum of tokens in victory during the main Blade Master Tournament! While you can gain tokens and spend them, you will ALWAYS be guaranteed to have the opportunity to spend your initial tokens-so don't be afraid to play fast and loose with your time! One token will be deducted per hour you spend on the island, maintainin the stable flow of time, but further spending of tokens will be required for certain activities so that you can experience them in their entirety without compromising your time on the island. Consult your island passes for further details at your leisure!"

"Now, there are also certain rules to your stay on this island. Outside of a sanctioned duel which both participants have fully agreed to without coersion or during the actual matches of the tournament itself, it is EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN from attacking another participant. And don't try to weasel out of it by saying that such an attack is unintentional; the Lunar Eye System acts to monitor all activity on the island constantly and flawlessly! Sabotaging your opponent's weaponry before a match, poisoning outside of a match, and theft outside of battle are all forbidden as well; DON'T DO IT! Essentially, any attempt to negatively affect another participant's combat abilities outside of sanctioned combat is forbidden."

BB began to smirk as she prepared to say her final bits of the speech. "Now, we have just a few things left before you can get to your night-time drinking and partying. Preliminaries will begin tomorrow and run for the following three days; seventy-two tokens have been automatically deducted from all participants to participate. If you've been knocked out of the prelims, don't worry; while the preliminaries are still running, you may freely choose to challenge any participant who has passed. Should you succeed in such a challenge, you will take their spot in the roster-but be careful, because now you can be challenged too! The final tournament bracket will hold two-hundred and fifty six participants, so do everything in your power to make a spot! Those who don't will still be allowed to participate on the island, or leave early if they wish. They may not, however, challenge any of the main tournament participants after the roster has been finalized...with one exception."

BB was smirking fully now, barely able to hold herself back. "Now, one final rule! The GODDESS CHALLENGE!" A grand spotlight shone down from the evening sky onto the Goddess, who looked a bit gobsmacked to suddenly be turned into the center of attention. "We have the Goddess of Humanity herself participating in this tournament, and she has some special rules set on her! First; anybody and everybody facing her will be blessed with Anti-Divinity, Anti-Humanity, and Anti-Saver qualities by Lunar Authority, and may optionally take a variety of buffs to face her as well-from attack blessings, defense blessings, you can even request special skills and powers while facing our lovely Goddess! Though only up to three buffs may be applied per duel, so choose carefully! Oh, but that's not all! Anybody who challenges the Goddess will be granted twenty-four extra BB-Tokens, no questions asked. Further, the Goddess is expressely forbidden from turning down any challenges! That does, of course, mean that even after the tournament roster has been finalized, anybody who manages to defeat the Goddess can take her spot in the main tournament-even if she's already in the finals! The one rule about that is that she MAY turn down repeat challenges from someone she has defeated...for up to a single hour after she has defeated them."

"Lastly, every time the Goddess is challenged, I'll personally spin the Goddess Wheel." Here BB gestured, summoning forth a rather giant gameshow wheel. "What's the Goddess Wheel? It's a list of challenges that the Goddess will be forced to fight under! There's already a dozen challenges on the wheel, but all participants may submit their own ideas to the Goddess Wheel at any time; it will cost one BB-Token to submit a minor challenge to the Wheel, three BB-Tokens for a moderate challenge, and nine BB-Tokens for a major challenge. If you wanted, you can even decide to help the Goddess out a bit; a minor boon costs twenty-seven BB-Tokens to submit, a moderate boon costs eighty-one, and a major boon costs two-hundred and forty three! All challenges will remain permanently on the Goddess Wheel, whereas once a Boon is placed it will be permanently removed after it has been selected just once. I think you all know what to do here~!" BB winked to the crowd, sticking her tongue out cutely as she did so. "And just so you know, you can have the Goddess Wheel spin more than once per duel; by paying twelve BB-Tokens, I'll spin the Goddess Wheel again, adding a new challenge for her to fight under-though only up to three at a time! I trust you'll know what to do here as well~!"

"Well, that's all! If at any time you want to check the rules of both the Tournament and your stay here on the island, just pull up your island pass and it will display the information at your leisure! I'll leave you all to enjoy the night, and hope you enjoy the rest of the tournament!" BB cheered, concluding her speech. It didn't even take a full five minutes before someone challenged the Goddess.

The Goddess would swiftly become all too familiar with BB quite literally popping out of nowhere, gameshow wheel by her side, and slapping arbitrary restrictions onto her with the force of an Authority that seemed more akin to something that equalled or even superceded her own Authority as an Enlightened One than anything that an actual deity should be capable of. It was madness...but this tournament as a whole was something utterly impossible under her current understanding, yet existed regardless. So the Goddess simply accepted things as they were, and fought to the best of her abilities no matter what strange challenges she was saddled with. Fight with only one hand? Effortless. Fight without eyes? Her insight into the World substituted easily. Forbidden from using all mana, any natural strength or speed beyond the most mundane of human beings, and must fight on a single foot while in extremely unstable terrain? That one was particularly tricky...but by harnessing a variation of the movement skills attained through Breathing and Walking as well as the pure swordsmanship techniques which allowed her to refract her blade across spacetime and strike multiple times at once, the Goddess was able to eke out a win.

Using her experience with Breathing and Walking, as well as her already existing skill to refract her strike across dimensions to strike multiple times simultaneously, to form a technique that essentially allowed her to use her own bladestrikes to teleport around the battlefield was both insanity and inspired. Were it not for her years of skill in both disciplines as well as her sheer genius, the difficulty of such a technique would have made it fundamentally impossible to master-and even now, she had to rely on her qutie literally divine durability to handle the sheer strain of the technique.

If she had her way, the Goddess would never have discovered such a technique-it was far too difficult, far too strenuous, to achieve something she could easily have done with simple Breathing and Walking. But with the Goddess Challenge that BB forced on her, the Goddess was forced to improvise...and thus, discovered entirely new branches of techniques and abilities that she would never have considered before. And on this island, facing what were literally the greatest blade masters across all of space and time, that sort of experience was pure gold. A new, never-before-seen technique might mean the difference between victory and defeat, after all!

Merely getting through the first day of the Preliminaries was no easy feat for the Goddess. Where all other participants had MAYBE a single battle under their belt by the end of the day, two or three if they were particularly unlucky, the Goddess had already undergone several dozen duels. And if she wanted to stay on the island, she had to win Every. Single. One. A little unspoken rule that BB seemed to thoughtlessly toss in when nobody was looking; if the Goddess lost ONCE, she was gone. She may have been lovey-dovey to the Goddess's face, but BB was without a doubt a sadist attempting to do her level best to crush the life out of the Goddess. This, the Goddess was absolutely sure of.

Of course, a deeply unpleasant challenge came about late into the second day.

"Tyrant God, Usurper of the Sea of Life...I have returned from beyond the abyss to seek restitution for thine crimes." An elderly rumbling voice pierced the Goddess's thoughts.

She placed down the plate of food she had been eating-something called a "pizza"-and stood from the picnic table she had been at. She knew that voice. It was one of her many, many regrets during her early years. "King of the Hashshashin." The Goddess greeted. She did not turn around to look at him, not yet. "It's been a long time."

"The river of time has flowed ceaselessly, washing away old sins...but here, in this place where the flow has been usurped, thou shalt be forced to answer once more." King Hassan agreed. "Time is limited; I shall not waste it further. Tyrant of Humanity, I challenge you to a duel of blades."

The Goddess sighed, even as a strange gridlike barrier formed around her and King Hassan-cast from light falling from the three eyes in the sky. The world outside the barrier was washed away in an instant, remade into a flat, desert-like plain that harkened back to that ancient desert where she had fought King Hassan so many centuries ago. She did not watch, but knew that a circle of light had opened up beneath King Hassan-granting him incredibly powerful blessings specifically designed to pierce her defenses.

"Goddess Challenge!" BB's voice cut in, as she quite literally popped into existence between the two combatants. "Today's challenge is special! Thanks to a special contract with Gaia, the following challenges have been forcibly implemented exclusively for this duel!" Ropes of light began to descend, intangibly tightening themselves around the Goddess in a procedure she had grown all too familiar with by now. "Challenge 1: The Concept of Death has been forcibly imposed on the Goddess by joint Authority of both Gaia and Lunar Authority, ensuring that any death she suffers is final and absolute! Challenge 2: All non-self directed usages of Authority, magic, or magecraft have been expressely forbidden for the Goddess by Authority of Gaia! Challenge 3: By the Authority of Gaia, the Goddess's defeat is locked as a Quantum Time-Lock, and thus this match can only end in her defeat and subsequent erasure from pan-human history, or through a temporal paradox to shatter the Quantum Time-Lock!"

The Goddess took a deep breath, and sighed. This...was a bit more than she was expecting. Gaia clearly wanted her to be erased from this world-something about her existence was realling sticking in the planet's craw, it seemed. If she was allowed to use her Authority as an enlightened being she could easily just banish the QTL that was assuring her defeat...but external Authority usage had been banned for her. This would be quite difficult. Not impossible, though. She still had options.

"Additionally, a special set of boons has been prepared by Gaia to empower King Hassan!" BB continued, heedless of the Goddess's thoughts. "Boon one: King Hassan is granted invulnerability to anything save the flesh of the Goddess by Authority of Gaia! Boon two: King Hassan is granted invulnerability to any effect which does not harness the Concept of Death to an equal or greater degree than he himself does! Boon three: Any direct contact with the Goddess's living flesh shall exponentially magnify the Concept of Death held within King Hassan's weaponry, ensuring that a single attack is all that's required to permanently slay the Goddess! Get ready folks, because this promises to be one of the greatest duels of the age-and we haven't even gotten to the official tournament yet!" BB cheered. This match, just as all the others had been, was being broadcasted around the island for anyone interested to watch.

In the sky above King Hassan and the Goddess, a set of numbers appeared. These numbers appeared differently to anyone looking, but always meant the same thing...they started at twenty, and slowly began counting down to the beginning of the match.

At last, the Goddess turned around to face King Hassan. Though she could not change her expression due to her curses, she truly didn't feel the desire to do so. Her eyes stared into the azure flames that burned in his eye sockets. "Was all this truly necessary, Old Man?" She asked.

The King of the Hashshashin nodded. "The bells toll for thee, Tyrant Goddess. Both God and the World shall cast thee down."

The Goddess shook her head. "No, no they will not." She denied. If she could, she would have smiled. As it was, she simply drew her sword and prepared herself. The count reached zero, and in a burst of godlike speed both combatants began to battle.

Once upon a time, the Goddess was the epitome of "powerful, yet unskilled". She could throw a punch, kick, block, fight in a /general sense/...but any human being with even a few weeks of combat training would have been her superior. Of course, skill doesn't really matter when your casual punches and kicks can level mountains, so the Goddess had seen no need to genuinely work towards rectifying the situation. And for that matter, physical combat was a last resort of last resorts for her; the Goddess was skilled with manipulating the world through the Song of her Soul, through her Authority as a Goddess, and even through mortal magics. Dirtying her body with crude combat was far beneath her, when she could reshape the world around her with but a thought. This was the Goddess that King Hassan was familiar with. Powerful beyond compare, but essentially without skill-a mage at heart who was all but helpless without her magic or Authority, yet had never been far from it and so had never faced a challenge in her life.

This was not who the Goddess was anymore.

With inhuman grace the Goddess weaved her blade, deflecting King Hassan's strikes and striking back such that it was only his current invulnerability that saved his neck. No matter how swiftly the Old Man of the Mountain struck, the Goddess's blade was there to parry and deflect. No matter how harsh the blow, the Goddess managed to use a minimal amount of force to all but spin King Hassan's blade around and deflect him. With just a single step she could weave in and out of his range, moving so swiftly that it was less a form of movement and more an instantanous translocation-only there was not even a hint of magecraft or divine Authority involved. Her strikes were strange as well-sometimes powerful, with the force of a true fleshly god behind them, and sometimes soft, whisper cuts that nevertheless screamed death for anything caught on her blade's edge.

...And yet, none of it was enough to actually harm King Hassan. His invulnerability granted by Gaia protected him from every single attack the Goddess made, and his empowerment by the Quantum Time Lock ensured that despite everything, his victory was still assured. That did not mean that the Old Man would slack off in his duty in attempting to slay the Goddess, of course. He was as relentless as death itself, chasing her and striking at her over and over again, just waiting for even a single strike to make it through to take her down-

There was a flash of metal, blood, and bone.

...And suddenly, a grand cage of bone and flesh appeared around King Hassan. The eldest Hassan did not hesitate to strike at the cage...yet it resisted his blade. It was not immune, but it was sturdy; it would take him many strike to break through it. "Hmm? What sorcery hath thou wrought, Tyrant Goddess?" He asked.

She would have smiled if she could, divine blood leaking from the stump where her off-arm had been. "Just did a little magic on myself to get some breathing room." She said. Her arm definitely counted as "self-targeted" after all, and by using it this way she could circumvent the banning of most of her mystical abilities. She didn't have any expectation that it would do much more than keep King Hassan trapped for a little bit, but that's all she needed.

Because, at last, she had figured out King Hassan's power. In truth, and in full.

The Goddess dropped her blade, even as her arm began to regenerate. "You know, for so many centuries I could never quite figure out your connection with the very concept of Death." The Goddess mentioned, watching as King Hassan struck his cage over and over again. Yet her flesh, severed and dead, was powerful regardless; she would have some minutes to do her work. "But it's been a long time, I've gained new power...and now, fighting you again...I figured it out." Around the Goddess, a strange array of smithing tools formed-as if pulled from her very soul. "And given the restrictions I'm fighting under...it is only fitting to fight you this way."

With a shout, the Goddess plunged her hand into her eye socket, and ripped forth one of her own eyeballs in a spray of divine blood. Calling forth the tools of the Sword Smith's hut around her, she began to work the divine eye-pouring blood and mana into the forging freely and with a certain possessed madness. Underneath her hands a paradoxically blinding black glow began to form, and in just a handful of minutes the shape of a katana was visible beneath her workings. This blade was no natural blade however; the metal was black as pitch though the edge glowed a bloody crimson. A mist like death seemed to continuously drift off of it, yet in that mist were white dots that almost seemed to harken to the stars.

Just as she finished her work King Hassan broke through the Goddess's cage, and in an instant rushed forth to slay the Goddess while she was distracted. The strange spiritual workshop disappeared and in a clash that sounded like the tolling of a distant bell, King Hassan's blade met the edge of the newly forged katana. "Forgive me if it's not my best work." The Goddess murmured while King Hassan tried to press through and slay her. "I was working under a bit of a time crunch."

The dance of death between the two resumed, with just one change...now, the Goddess was actually able to hurt King Hassan. As her blade flew through the air, its crimson edge would flash and carve through King Hassan's own body. Where it passed the azure flames of Kur poured forth from King Hassan's body, sealing the wound...yet it was proof that this was no longer an impossible battle.

"Yet another usurpation, Tyrant Goddess? Now you seek to steal Death itself?" King Hassan asked, not pausing in his attacks. 

"Call it what you will." The Goddess answered. "It's just a prototype."

"It matters not." King Hassan decided. "Even should I fall beneath your blade, God has decreed that such an outcome is forbidden. Thine victory shall become ash on the wind, as will thine life."

"Let's test that, shall we?" The Goddess asked. With a sound of static, the Goddess jumped backwards-moving an immense distance in just an instant. Then, she breathed out and closed her eyes. A peaceful serenity seemed to encompass her, yet in her heart she became utterly empty and still. When her eyes opened, they were black-reflecting only the void. With deceptive slowness the Goddess raised her blade, preparing for a singular strike.

Feeling a sense of absolute crisis, King Hassan harnessed the flames of Kur to teleport to the Goddess and attempted to interrupt her strike before it could begin...

But it was too late.

The Goddess struck, and as she struck the world was shattered. DEATH passed through space, through time, cutting every possibility that was called "King Hassan". It passed through reality, to the very core of Gaia, and severed the Quantum Time Lock that had been established upon the Great Tree of Time. The very island itself shook and rumbled from the sheer power of that singular strike. 

At some point, the Goddess realized she had closed her eyes, and opened them. In front of her was a line in space, a scar upon reality that was refusing to be sealed. The black katana in her grip disintegrated, unable to bear the sheer strain of what the Goddess had done. And behind her, the Old Man of the Mountain knelt in the sand.

"One day...thou shalt answer the tolling of the bells." King Hassan decreed, though his voice was weak.

"No, I will not." The Goddess denied. "The bells can ring all they wish, the planet can rage, and your God can roar...yet I shall remain unbowed."

"Truly, thou art an unmatched tyrant..." King Hassan trailed off, as his body dissolved into nothingness-consumed by the death that the Goddess had inflicted upon him.

The dueling arena faded away in a burst of wireframe light, and the Goddess found herself standing beside the picnic table where she had previously been...though with her pizza gone. It took only the barest fraction of effort with her God's Eyes to discover who had stolen it. The Goddess sighed, sat down, and decided that for once she'd let this go. She wanted to dwell on her memories for now.

For a land that was caught in a strange flux of time, it was to be expected that time moved quickly. Though there was a lull in challenges that the Goddess faced after defeating King Hassan, such a thing lasted only as long as the preliminaries; afterwards, the challenges picked right back up. For the sheer joy of battle, for a final shot at making it into the tournament, for the glory of facing a goddess in battle-she was challenged for all sorts of reasons, and met every challenge with the same unchanging face as always. It wasn't like she could change her expression with the curse she was operating under, after all.

It didn't matter what sort of challenges or boons BB threw out; the Goddess held the skill and sheer willpower needed to remain utterly undefeated. The Goddess found it a little bit humorous, in a way; every other contender in the Tournament only had to have a single match per day now, for eight days-completing the tournament in just over a week. Theoretically, she also was only mandated to have a single match per day too. But due to the "Goddess Challenge", she was having close to sixty duels a day.

The constant battle made it difficult for the Goddess to grow close to any of the other participants except for when they were dueling her directly-and since the other active tournament participants were forbidden from challenges, it made it all the harder to interact with them at all. On the other hand, of course, the Goddess got to know the blade masters who didn't manage to make the cut for the tournament /quite well/, especially those who just kept on challenging her repeatedly. Every single hour. Every single day.

"Goddess-chan! Eli has returned to defeat you, once and for all!" A high-pitched and cute voice called out. All but falling out of the sky, Elizabeth Bathory appeared...clad in bikini armor. "This is where the story of Brave Eli-chan truly begins!"

The Goddess sighed, one of the few emotive actions available to her, and faced the "reskinned" Elizabeth. "[Hello again, Liz.]" She greeted the (more than) slightly insane dragon girl. "[Ankle okay? You took a pretty nasty fall after last match.]"

"Oh! It's fine; BB provides complementary healing services! The first three heals of the day are free, and after that cost five Tokens a pop!" Liz explained, kicking her leg up high and rotating her ankle just to show off that she's fine. "See, all fine!" She demonstrated. If she was wearing anything aside from bikini armor, she'd have been flashing her panties doing that. But Liz was wearing so little as it was that somehow the idiotic movement that would have normally been revealing was simply normal. Truly outstanding, Liz-chan. 

Instead of BB popping up to the side, a cardboard cutout of BB appeared that was holding a sign saying "out to lunch". The Goddess Wheel, of course, appeared just as normal. "Ah! BB, you're still out to lunch?" Liz asked. "Don't worry, Eli-chan's got this for you!" Guillessly and without hesitation, Liz skipped right on up to the Goddess Wheel and gave it a hard spin...then began shaking her arms up and down while chanting. "C'mon, Eli-special, Eli-special, Eli-special!" 

This had happened a few times; it was all bullshit, of course. Even when she wasn't "around", BB ultimately controlled the Goddess Wheel. But Liz was either too stupid or too pure to actually realize that, and thought that BB was genuinely out to lunch. And not ONCE had she actually taken advantage of that to try and just move the wheel to the option she wanted. Each and every time, without fail, Liz just spun the wheel and hoped for the best. It was just so cute, BB confessed at one point between duels, that she couldn't help but keep the charade going to see how long it would take for Liz-chan to realize that she could just /choose/ what she wanted to land while BB was "gone" on instead of actually spinning the wheel.

Several days into the tournament and over a hundred duels, and it still hasn't occurred to Liz.

The wheel slowed, and came to a stop on "May Only Counterattack"...which itself was just one option away from "Eli-Special". Objectively speaking, Liz managed to roll a pretty damn good Goddess Challenge that would greatly limit the Goddess's options...but still, Liz groaned. "Ah man, just one off!" She complained. Slumping, she began to trudge back to her starting point.

The Goddess turned towards the "cardboard cutout" of BB, and actively used her hands to manipulate her expression into a glare. The "cutout" of BB promptly flipped her sign, which now read 'C'mon, senpai! It's so annoying!' The Goddess continued to forcibly hold her expression. Sighing, the cutout flipped her sign again-which now read 'Fiiiiiiine. Since it's for you.' Then, reaching out to the wheel with her free hand, the "BB Cutout" moved the wheel exactly one space...right to Eli-Special. Letting her face go back to its cursed passivity, the Goddess gave BB a thumbs-up.

Having seen absolutely none of that exchange, Liz reached her starting position and looked back to the wheel...to discover that it had, in fact, landed on Eli-Special. She gasped in joy, and proceeded to pose. "Aha! This time it's sure to be my victory, Goddess-chan!" She cheered, even as the sky began its countdown to the beginning of the match. "Ehem! Since BB's out to lunch, I'll explain the Eli-Special for her! Basically, all your attacks do zero damage! But that wouldn't be fair alone, so there's a way to power up your attacks!"

A musical beat suddenly picked up in the background, and from seemingly nowhere a band and soundspeaker system appeared. Liz continued, as if all of this was planned. "You can only do damage to the beat of the music! And just to be fair, I can only damage you to the beat of the music too! But that's not going to help you very much, because Eli-chan is the best there is at rhythm games! I always manage to score a B, for Best!" Flashing lights shone from above, and the music in the background kicked into gear just as the counter in the sky dropped to zero. "Now, time to face Eli-chan at her very best!"

Now it was important to keep in mind that the Goddess was, in fact, a Goddess of Song along with Artifice and Humanity. It went without saying that she knew how to keep rhythm to a quite literally divine degree. Her skill in Breathing and Walking-a skill which worked to synchronize one's breath with one's action and required an incredible degree of both bodily control and an internal sense of rhythm. 

Needless to say, the duel didn't even last five full minutes.

The Goddess didn't even have to actively hurt Liz; she just tripped her up, tied her up with chains (well, swords that could fall apart into chains, just so that they were legal for the duel), and waited until Liz conceded defeat. As the music disappeared so too did the chains holding Liz down, and she immediately sprung back up.

"Ha! You may have bested me this time, Goddess-chan! But I shall return, greater and more powerful than ever! And then, the legend of Brave Eli-chan will truly begin!" Liz cheered, spun on one foot, and promptly faceplanted into the ground out of sheer clumsyness. "I'm okay!" She called out, jumping back up again and running off. Of course, Liz would be back by the turn of the hour-hoping to challenge the Goddess again to rhythm-based combat.

Time did as it always does, and continued to flow onwards. Despite herself, the Goddess found herself growing close to a few contestants. Brave Elizabeth Bathory, of course, who the Goddess felt could not be trusted on her own to actually take care of herself and unilaterally decided to all but adopt purely for Elizabeth's own sake. Another of her "adoptions" was the young swordswoman who went by the name of Beni-Enma. An incredibly serious little girl, caring, focused, and a surprisingly good cook...but rather lonely as well, and so it only felt natural to take the girl into her arms and pamper her like a mother would. 

The final companion the Goddess ended up picking up from the Tournament was an odd girl who introduced herself as Mysterious Heroine X, the Ultimate Saber Slayer. Participating in the tournament and proving her renown as a Saber was just a side-objective for her, she explained at one point. The truth was that she was hunting "The Ultimate Saber Goddess", who plagued her own Tree of Time for over a thousand years. Said Goddess was the ultimate, absolute pinnacle of what it meant to be a Saber, and so Mysterious Heroine X naturally had to hunt her down. Except, by the time she appeared in the Saber Universe, the Ultimate Saber Goddess was far and away too powerful to be beaten-no Servant nor God could so much as hope to scratch her. 

So the only reasonable option, MHX decided, was to travel backwards through time to kill the Ultimate Saber Goddess while she was young! But the Ultimate Saber Goddess wasn't originally from the Saber Universe, so not only did MHX have to travel back through time, but also across universes! And now she had arrived in the Blademaster Tournament, where legends told that the Ultimate Saber Goddess would appear within. Unfortunately...MHX couldn't seem to find her. There was no Saberface of Saberfaces around, and the Goddess herself-though matching some superficial descriptions such as "utterly divine swordsmanship skills", "power overwhelming", "beauty incarnate", and "Authority over Humanity"...was not a Saberface, and therefore could not be the Ultimate Saber Goddess.

Even when the Goddess eventually won the entirety of the tournament and became crowned as the Final Blade Master-just as the Ultimate Saber Goddess was said to have been in the distant past-MHX still scoffed at the idea that the Goddess could be the Ultimate Saber. She didn't even have an Ahoge, for pity's sake!

The Goddess felt that it was only fair to ****** MHX to join her on her own adventures, at least until the Servant from a different universe finally """found""" her target. Overjoyed, MHX agreed happily...and gluttenously, as both the Goddess and Beni-enma were happily willing to spoil the silly Saber with nigh-divine home cooking.

The tournament preliminaries took three days to complete. The tournament itself followed a schedule of "one round per day", and with 256 contestants that meant that the tournament as a whole lasted eight further days. On day twelve there was an awards ceremony, wherein the Goddess was crowned as the Final Blade Master. That left two more days to celebrate, relax, and just enjoy the pleasures of the island...and with the tournament completed, the Goddess was finally free to refuse challenges just as everyone else was. Meaning that, FOR ONCE, the Goddess could actually enjoy herself!

The Goddess found herself relaxing on the beach, clad in nothing but a bikini and bathing in the sun...when a shadow passed over her head. She opened her eyes to see a blushing yet smiling BB staring down at her. "So, how was the tournament senpai? Loads of fun, right?"

The Goddess blinked at the purple-haired women, and came to a decision. "[When we meet in the future, I am going to relentlessly bully you.]" The Goddess decided. 

"My my, senpai is such a meanie! But I like that kind of senpai too~!" BB giggled. With a flick of her hand her outfit disappeared, becoming a bathing suit...and without further aplomb she all but tossed herself on-top of the Goddess. And there, she began to cuddle her. "This is nice, you know?" She said. "I may like the gallant and incredible you who overcomes all odds...but just cuddling together on the beach is nice too."

The Goddess sighed, and conceded that point. She wrapped her arms around BB, pulling her closer, and let herself drift into a restful nap.

The Goddess and BB would spend some time together for those last two days, but time inevitably moves forward and the two weeks of the Blade Master Tournament came to a close. There was the issue of bringing Beni-enma, Brave Eli-chan, and MHX with her back to the normal flow of time, however. They were not normal beings like the Goddess were, but strange existences called "Servants"-somewhat similar to Hippolyta, the Goddess considered. And like Hippolyta, the Goddess forged each of them Mantles which would support their existence as well as tie them to the Goddess-ensuring that they would not fade away and could draw upon the Goddess's power in an emergency. 

As a final memorial of her time spent on that strange island, the Goddess got the idea to forge commemorative swords-and since she had yet to forge any of the swords that her Lord had commanded her to, this would help her fulfill that order as well. The symbology was easy to assign as well; Brave Eli's sword would be the Sword of the Sun-shining brightly, happy, and powerfully. Beni-enma's sword would be the Sword of the Moon-calm and collected, yet crystal clear in its power as well. MHX's sword would be the Sword of the Stars-mysterious and powerful, strange and awe-inspiring.

All three of the Celestial Swords-as the Goddess decided to name them-were forged from the same base alloys...that being her own flesh, blood, and bones. Painful, yes, but the Goddess was not one to skimp when she decided to make truly legendary artifacts. But once she had formed the initial ingots of the material, each was treated differently, to create truly unique weapons.

The Sword of the Sun was forged from solar fire, gathered in the skies by her own Authority as an enlightened being and distilled into nearly liquid flames by her own magic. This liquid solar fire was infused directly into the blade, forming a mystic circulatory system that pumped solar blood through the blade...and in its core was the heart of a star, gently beating. By synchronizing with the star-heart within the blade, the power of the Solar Blood within would rise to the surface and empower the wielder with the force and energy of a star. It was a fragile synchronicity however; any interruption of it, a single attack even, would cause the Solar Blood to retreat back into the blade and reduce the user back to the base level of power granted by the blade. 

But the Sword of the Sun had an answer to that conundrum; the Goddess had forged the essence of her own God's Eyes into the blade, allowing it to grant a sort of "Eye of the Mind" or perhaps "Instinct" to its wielder. As long as the wielder remained synchronized with the blade, they could effortlessly dodge every single raindrop in a raging storm and cut down a singular hair off of a fly without otherwise harming it. At the absolute peak of synchronization, the wielder of the blade would be capable of briefly tapping into the power of the Heavenly Eyes which, when backed by the full power of the Solar Blood, could forcibly enact a specific vision of the future or even cut away a destined fate. Doing so would naturally put incredible strain on the user and weaken the energies of the sword for an extended period of time, but the fact that it was possible was all the Goddess needed to fulfill her orders.

And the fact that this synchronization took the form of musical accompaniment-specifically idol and pop songs-just gave an auditory indicator on how to move in synch with the blade. And the fact that as the user grew more synchronized, they would begin glowing, generating sparkles, and forming illusions of a modern idol concert around themselves was similarly just a visual energy vent, to prevent the Solar Blood from overwhelming the wielder.

Regardless of eccentricities, it was an immensely powerful blade; even at its base power, it granted the power to unleash towering blasts of solar fire, granted incredible energy and strength to its wielder such that they could cleave mountains in half if they wished...and if they were fully synchronized, they could possibly even shatter the Heavens. Further, it granted its wielder an innate resilience, a sort of restorative immortality that kept them in their prime and let them continue to grow stronger with age-though not at the same level as the Evangelion. Instead, rather than a specific simulated Authority, the sword itself was forged into a sort of self-contained thaumaturgical foundation; by shaping and wielding the energies of the sword, just about anything could be accomplished. It held the power to both sunder and shape the world with theoretically equal ease...limited only by the skill of the wielder. The Goddess was not skilled in forging these sorts of grand foundations, but enough time, effort, and the fact that it was wholly self-contained within the sword and powered purely by the perpetual energy of the sword itself ensured that it was at least possible.

The second blade she forged was the Sword of the Moon. The Sword of the Moon was to be a calligraphy brush, compared to the brute power of the Sword of the Sun. It granted the same sort of base powers as the Sword of the Sun-the same sheer power, immortality, the mystical capabilities...but rather than the Solar Blood of the Sword of the Sun, the Sword of the Moon held an entirely different power within itself. It held a power of enlightenment, or perhaps madness, within; the Goddess had infused her own intellect, her own insights into the world, manifold sutras, mathematical formula, and learning capabilities into it. The sword was a mind without a mind, capable of calculating and comprehending endless information without possessing any will of its own...and by wielding it, the wielder would be capable of drawing on the calculation resources of the blade.

But such a thing was vastly, hilariously beyond human capability. The Goddess was naturally attuned to such, but condensed and distilled in this way, trying to harness the full calculative powers of the blade would drive most humans mad. Thus the blade locked most of its computational power up within itself and only unlocked it as the wielder passed more and more "trials" that were set to test their mental resilience and help them develop it. Wielded in full, the blade simply did not provide the same sheer power of the Sword of the Sun, but instead provided mental acuity that allowed them to perhaps apply their power to vastly greater effect. And with the complete calculation power of the blade unlocked, the Goddess made sure to include a "Void Formula" which would allow the blade to ape a fragment of the Goddess's own "Empty Cut". Not enough to sunder literally anything, but perhaps enough to cut fate and karma. Regardless, it was a blade that maximized efficiency, and allowed the user to end things with just a single attack-minimal force for maximal effect. 

The Sword of the Stars was a bit unique, as MHX was determined to aid in its forging some small amount-and did so by donating a strange material that she called "Altrium", claiming that it would be extremely useful in forging a "Saber's Sabre". It was an incredibly energy-dense and unique material, to be sure, and the Goddess was happy to include it in the forging of the Sword of the Stars. After a great deal of thought, the Goddess just decided to say "f**k it", ripped her eyes out to use them for forging a sword once more, harnessed the destructive aspects of the Principles of Mana, and accidentally created something vastly more powerful than she thought she was going to.

The power of the Heavenly Eyes was that they were capable of perceiving manifold possible futures, then narrow those futures down to a singular possibility-forcibly actualizing that future. The Principles of Mana harnessed the destruction of things in order to generate energy. In combining the two principles, the Goddess created the "Fires of Possibility"; the sword was capable of first perceiving, then burning, possible futures. By sacrificing "possibilities", the user became capable of generating incredible amounts of power-at the cost of closing them off from being able to do certain things or forcing specific outcomes. The "Fires of Possibility" were extremely difficult to control; for an inexperienced wielder, it would be all too easily to burn away their own victory instead of burning the possibility of their defeat. Such was the cost of not being a natural wielder of the Heavenly Eyes.

If the wielder had absolute control over the "Flames of Possibility" and could handle the strain of it, they would even be capable of burning away all of their possible futures for a few moments-leaving them utterly fateless. Then, harnessing the flame generated, they could carve out a strike that could shatter fate-a poor and jagged imitation of the true "Empty Cut", but powerful nevertheless. Doing so would immensely strain the very existence of the wielder, and if they are too weak or try to burn away something too powerful may even erase them from existence entirely...but such was true for the Empty Cut anyways.

The Swords of the Sun, Moon, and Stars forged, The Goddess returned to meet with her Lord once again. By this point several years had passed, and the young man who had inherited command over the Goddess had grown older. Yet...he hadn't grown up at all.

"Good. Good! Good!" The man praised, staring at the three Celestial Swords. Each held within them enough raw power to "sunder the heavens", had the capacity to "reshape the world", and could "cut through Fate and Karma". The ways they did so were all unique, but each fulfilled the requirements that the man had set so long ago. "With these, the Treasures of the Yamato have truly been forged! Though the gods have largely disappeared from the world-present company excluded-our land shall be able to raise up our own gods! But...how should the blades be distributed? How could we possibly ensure that the swords are granted to their rightful wielders, those who are worthy and deserving of the power and divinity that these blades would grant?"

The man sat in uncharacteristic silence, genuinely contemplating the question. And as far as the Goddess could tell, he did not actually consider himself worthy of one of the blades-he genuinely didn't care for the power that such a thing would grant. He may be an utter fool, the Goddess considered, but this man was at least a purehearted fool.

The man nodded to himself. "Goddess, I can see no solution. Hold onto the blades for now and search for a method of binding the blades such that only the worthy may wield them. I care not if I will die long before you find such a method, nor if you must travel the lands far beyond Yamato to acquire such means. Once said means are found, return here. Construct a temple, and place the Celestial Blades within it. The temple must describe the blades and their powers, what exactly would make a person worthy of wielding the blades, and must allow anyone and everyone to attempt to wield them. Further, it must be highly accessible for the people of this land-the temple must not be in a remote location, but one that is easy to travel to. Beyond that, I leave the details up to you."

Nodding to himself, the Lord smiled. "Now that this matter has been definitively settled, there is another matter of great importance that must be discussed." The man leaned forward, staring at the Goddess with serious and deeply focused eyes. "I have heard tales...tales of many female youkai falling in love with you, in your travels. You have spurred these advances for the most part, so the stories go. This is unacceptable! Yours must be the heart that encompasses all things, the love that can soothe even the most savage monster! This is my next order, Goddess: those youkai who seek your love, you must court in turn! You must make peace between them all, and share endless love for all!"

The Goddess sighed, and mentally crossed out that "pure-hearted" bit she'd been thinking earlier.

Years, decades, and centuries would pass. Despite her best efforts, the Goddess would never quite find a way of infusing bindings directly into the Celestial Swords themselves; Geas could be applied to the wielders, but not the swords. After a couple centuries the curses had faded away, leaving the Goddess free once more...and feeling a profound wanderlust. This land was a wonderful one, and she had left her mark in leaving behind the Evangelion-though none had been discovered yet. Still, she wished to see more of the world-and so, the Goddess once more moved on.

After finding her previous companions. What Scathach, the Mini-Nobu, and Counter Guardian TOHSAKA got up to while the Goddess spent a few centuries wandering around the land that would be called Japan...is a story for another day.

The year was 480 CE