The Red Hand

Chapter 277 – Akagi’s Phobia.

As Halifax looked upon the Blade that Akagi called the Black Sunrise, she felt something deep within her stir. Her battle with Vikes had been millennia ago, but for someone like her, that was practically yesterday. The death and destruction that he'd wrought on the land was of a level that those alive today could scarcely understand, and her mental scars had never truly healed.

{That blade... Why does... Why does looking at it... I feel...} Halifax's train of thought was interrupted by Hishya's screech.

"What the absolute hell is that, Akagi?!?" Hishya yelled. "That blade... It feels positively evil!"

{WHY MUST YOU ALWAYS MAKE MORE CRAZY THINGS?!? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME WITH STRESS?!?} (Hishya)

"I told you. This is an old friend of mine." Akagi smiled.

"And that explains nothing!" Hishya shook her head vigorously before turning to Imp and Imperial, annoyed. "How could you go and make something like that?!? I don't know how powerful it is, but just looking at is giving me a sinking feeling!”

"Isn't it great-amazing?!?" Imp smiled, proud of her creation. "Evil sword cool-neat! Me like! Yes-Yes!"

"It's the greatest weapon that I've ever had the displeasure of forging." Imperial sighed. He really didn't have a choice since he was under Akagi's thumb, but even still he was fully aware of what he'd made. "But you are right to call it evil. That blade is literally darkness incarnate, and I shudder to think what kind of hell our resident Demon Lord could cause with it."

"The Black Sunrise is a blade that's very near and dear to my heart." Akagi's voice returned to normal as she slowly swung the blade back and forth in front of her, black aura spilling from the blade only to dissipate before it hit the floor. "I never imagined that I'd get to see the real thing with my own two eyes." She smiled as she looked into the pitch black blade.

{You're even more beautiful than I imagined.} (Akagi)

"That blade... It's as if it came from the very darkness of the world itself." Halifax said quietly, her mind still recovering from whatever just happened. "I've seen many Demonic weapons during my life, and even Demon Lord Vike's Great Axe couldn't compare to that thing." Her eyes flickered between Imp and Imperial, filled with both confusion and concern.

{How could mortals create something like that? It shouldn't be possible!} (Halifax)

Seeing her bewilderment, Akagi let out a low chuckle. "Your comment is on point, Halifax." She said as she flipped and spun the blade in her hand. "This blade was forged from the very darkness of the world itself, at least, that's part of how it was made." She snickered.

"You... You made it from a part of you, didn't you?" Halifax asked, recalling that she'd seen something similar in the past. "That's the same way that Vikes made his own weapons."

{He pooled some of his power into whatever twisted form he wished. His Axe was an object of pure evil, and was formed from the darkness within his heart. Elariel mentioned that even after he lost his first weapon that he simply replaced it with little issue, and that it made him no less powerful afterwards.} (Halifax)

"Indeed." Akagi nodded as she slid the blade into a small loop on her belt. "Demon Lords are essentially darkness incarnate, thus I took a sliver of that darkness and merged it with both World Breaker and the shards of the Demigorgon that I recovered from Rivenshaft."

"Demi..." Hishya racked her brain trying to recall that name. "Why does that name sound familiar?" She figured that it was something from FWO, and it was on the tip of her tongue.

"Because it was the name of the so-called Demon Lord of FWO's blade." Akagi's answer instantly jogged Hishya's memory and her mind was flooded with all the lore she'd seen during her time in the game.

"That blade... Wasn't it just a myth?!?" Hishya yelped.

{It was just FWO lore! Rivenshaft shouldn't have had something like that!} (Hishya)

"A myth it may have been, but the shards that were part of Omega were very real." Akagi noted that like with many other parts of FWO flavor text, the fact that Omega was said to have been made from shards of the Demigorgon became real when Rivenshaft entered the real world. "When I killed that idiot, I took his blade and extracted those shards for use in making a new weapon. If you'd read more into the Great Demon's lore, then you would've seen that it clearly described his blade as being forged from parts of the legendary weapon wielded by the so-called Demon Lord of legend."

{And lucky for me I had just the maniac to help me recreate the weapon that I'd always wanted.} (Akagi)

"So, you basically reforged it?" Hishya asked.

"No." Akagi shook her head. "Rather than remake the original blade I had these two make something better." She let out a slight Demonic laugh. "Tell me, Hishya. What do you remember of a small conversation we had many, many years ago?"

"You're asking a lot there." Hishya rolled her eyes, thinking that Akagi was intentionally being stupid with her question. "We talked about a lot, so you're going to have to narrow it down."

{Sometimes I can barely remember what I had for breakfast the previous day, there's no way in hell I'm going to remember a conversation from years ago!} (Hishya)

"The conversation in question occurred on December 30th, 2052, at approximately 1:02 AM." Akagi gave her an exact time and date, which caused Hishya to sigh.

"Do you really think that's going to help? That was nearly nine years ago. With everything that happened since then, I'm not going to remember some random discussion, even if you're that specific." Hishya said.

{Unlike you and your cheating photographic Demon memory, I still have a physical brain, albeit I am a bit sharper now that I'm a Dragon, but that doesn't mean I just remember ever stupid thing I see.} (Hishya)

"Fair." Akagi nodded, pitying the Dragon for having such a tiny mortal brain. "So perhaps this will jog your memory." She cleared her throat for dramatic effect before reciting a small passage in a very formal and overly dramatic voice. "A White Dawn or a Black Sunrise? When Twin Emperors clash, one of these will come to pass." Her words seemed to jog a bit of Hishya's memory, while everyone else had no clue what she was talking about. "The Emperor of White seeks to subjugate all life, while-"

"While the Emperor of Black seeks to destroy it." Hishya's brow furrowed, as she remembered where this was all from. "You and your damn self-published..." The Dragon clicked her tongue.

{I can't believe that stupid story she wrote all those years ago is coming into play now...} (Hishya)

"What is this about? That sounded like some kind of ominous prophecy." Halifax had heard her fair share of mythical stories to be wary of Akagi's words.

"Oh its fucking ominous alright...” Hishya groaned. “Before FWO, Akagi decided to try her hand a writing a short story." Hishya sighed as she explained the context behind the blade in question. "The one that she had me look at was called 'the Twin Emperors', and it was a story of two beings that were fated to clash over the fate of the world."

{I hate that it wasn't a bad story either...} (Hishya)

"The story focused on the strange relationship between two beings known as the Emperors of Black and White respectively.” Akagi took over the explanation. “The Emperor of Black was a being that was born with the sole goal of eradicating the world they found themselves in." Akagi giggled. "A bit ironic there, huh?" She continued, while the others rolled their eyes at her comment. "While the Emperor of White was tasked with the subjugation of that same world. The two would inevitably clash as their reasons for existing ran contrary to one another, with the only end being the death of one by the other hands."

{Though in my story the two were friends bound together by a strange twist of fate.} (Akagi)

"Ok, but what does that have to do with your sword?" Halifax asked. "This was all just a story you wrote for fun, wasn't it?" She'd read many such things and figured it was little more than a work of fiction.

"It was." Akagi nodded and smiled. "But to answer your original question. The Black Sunrise was the name of the blade that the Emperor of Black was born to wield. It was a truly horrific creation, and its special ability was that it had the power to destroy anything." She cackled slightly.

"I mean, that's basically me." Halifax commented that she was a very powerful blade meant to destroy anything. "My blade is enough that nothing can really survive it, so was this Black Sunrise really that special?"

"No, No, No." Akagi shook her head vigorously and waived her hands. "When I say anything I mean anything. The Black Sunrise from my story was a blade of disaster, and it was said to only appear at the end of history. The relevant text stated that once it was drawn that would signal the end of the world."

{Or at least that was the lore I made up for it, though in fairness, that wasn't entirely an exaggeration.} (Akagi)

"Hence the name, Black Sunrise." Hishya continued, not wanting Akagi to ham things up anymore. "In her story Akagi showed a scene where the Emperor of Black literally destroyed the Sun with one swipe of the blade, and thus the world was plunged into eternal night.” She recalled the passage in question, noting that it was far more horrifying than she'd initially thought.

{Being of darkness plus blade of doom... Great...} (Hishya)

"Hey, I thought it was a fitting name, and I like it." Akagi pouted. "Don't shame me!"

"So, you brought some kind of insane weapon like that into the real world?!?" Halifax squeaked.

{WHY?!?} (Halifax)

"Not quite." Akagi shook her head. "This blade is not, and cannot be the weapon that I wrote about in my story. It's simply not possible to make that kind of weapon in the real world, but..." She put her finger up. "It's damn close. This version might not be able to wipe out all reality in one slash, but I could sure as hell do a lot of damage with one strike." She gave an unnerving laugh.

"H-How much damage are we talking about?" Hishya asked, almost not wanting an answer.

Akagi thought for a moment. "Hmmm. Weeeeeellllllll, I think erasing an entire solar system in one strike might be doable if I put my back into it." She smirked. “But I don't really know. I'll have to give it a proper test at some point.” She winked.

"S-She's joking, right?" Halifax turned Hishya, hoping that this was a joke.

{RIGHT?!?} (Halifax)

"I... I hope so..." Hishya had given up by this point.

"I suppose we'll just have to wait and find out!" Akagi stuck her tongue out playfully.

"PLEASE DON'T!" (Halifax x Hishya)

"I don't think you need to worry about her doing something that drastic." Yumi sighed.

"And why not?" Akagi asked. "Are you saying I'm not capable of blowing up the world?"

"I say that because this." Yumi pulled her phone out of her pocket and showed Akagi a live picture of Earth from a satellite stream. "Unless you magically got over your fear, you aren't going anywhere in space."

"..." Akagi squinted in displeasure before bapping Yumi on the head lightly. 

"Wait... You're afraid of space?!?" Hishya said. "Seriously?!? You the fucking DEMON LORD afraid of SPACE?!?" She started laughing hysterically. "That's rich!"

{HA!} (Hishya)

"I'm not afraid of space!" Akagi hissed.

"Wooooo. I'm a scary space alien, here to haunt your dreams!" Hishya started wheezing, and even Halifax was struggling not to laugh.

"Ok, smartass." Akagi grabbed Hishya's shoulder and teleported both her and the laughing Dragon far enough above the Earth to where you could see its curvature.

"What the fuck?!?" Hishya freaked out. "What are you doing?!?"

{Holy fuck we're in fucking space!} (Hishya)

"Take a look at it... and tell me that's not fucking scary." Akagi turned Hishya around so that she could see the blackness of the void and then showed her the floating blue and green ball beneath them. "That's not much better either now, is it?" Her smile was terrifying.

"Please take me back..." Hishya weakly asked to go home.

"Good." Akagi snapped her fingers returning them to where they were a moment prior. "Do you understand now?"

{No more smart comments? Because I WILL drop your ass in the void and let you float around for a while!} (Akagi)

"Oh, holy fuck..." Hishya fell to the floor.

{SWEET GROUND!} (Hishya)

"So to clarify, space itself does not scare me... It's the void... and specifically the fucking sight of celestial bodies floating in it that freaks me out the most..." Akagi shivered as she recalled the previous sight. "Why do you think I couldn't handle any of those VR space games? The few times I played them the VR had to kick me out due to my body going into shock!" She'd experienced nearly crashing into a planet due to flying to close and that experience convinced her never to play such games again.

{Fucking hell, even that little trip has me freaked out! I'm going to need lots of snuggle time to make up for that...} (Akagi)

THIS CHAPTER UPLOAD FIRST AT NOVELBIN.COM