Anticipation
Veskal’s Exchange, Tobusekai
“You there,” the Spider commanded, his raspy and graveled voice preparing itself to bark another command at one of his peons. “Those ores won’t move themselves.” With a heavy hand he motioned toward three large crates; one marked as a delivery to the Port of Innovus, likely stuffed with iron ore, and two others with mysterious and likely nefarious technology and tools for less-than-reputable buyers. The Spider grunted, turning back to his ledger.
The laborer leaned over, picking up one of the crates with a pair of oversized muscular arms. “Boss, this shit is heavy,” he breathed, voice strained from the iron ore destined for the Port.
“You don’t grow operations staying sma–” the Spider’s words were suddenly interrupted as he sat in his oversized throne-like seat before his labor staff in Veskal’s Exchange. The post shuttered for a moment, almost as if something rolled beneath it. And then it began to violently shake. All around him crates smashed to the ground. His peon that carried the heavy iron ore fell, box shattering beneath him as he crumpled onto the ore.
A chorus of shouts and pleas for help echoed in the operations center. The Spider’s eyes grew panicked for but a moment until his pupils receded, realizing what had occurred. So it happened, huh? He thought to himself. The Spider sat there, stoic and unbothered, as the world crashed and shook around him. The Mage King warned him this would come to pass. Their time was at an end. “A profitable business relationship,” the Spider mused, his own gravely words drowned out by the ensuing chaos.
Tsuchi Heiho, Mainland
“Wah!” Alexandros shouted, his light feminine voice unable to cry for help above the sound of the earth trembling. He fell to the side of his bed with a loud thud, body gyrating along his stone floor as the earth violently shook. Around him his shelves and the books they carried crashed to the ground, his desk following suite. In the distance, roaring above the chaos that enveloped him and his home, he could hear the very earth split open to form a yawning chasm in the middle of Tsuchi Heiho. Cries for help were all but drowned out as it split open, some of the villagers falling in as irreparable damage was done to the Village Hidden in Sin.
The quake continued for another fifteen minutes, though it felt like an eternity. Once it subsided Alexandros crawled out from under his bed and dusted himself off. “Was..what happened?” He asked out loud to himself, still dazed. Though hearing his own words, no longer obfuscated by the roar of the quakes, was comforting and refreshing.
The pink haired doctor stumbled out of his home, coughing through a cloud of dust that was dislodged during the chaos. But once his eyes adjusted to the light of the early morning his mouth hung open. All he could see was sheer chaos.
An assortment of villagers were on their knees, tears streaming down their face as they looked down the chasm in search of their loved ones. They howled toward the sky, pleading with whatever god they kept faith with to return them. Surely they weren’t dead? How deep did the chasm go? It was a crescent scar cut along the central market of Tsuchi Heiho. But its depth was unknown; a black void that stretched to what seemed to be infinity.
Alexandros sprinted out. “I’m here! I’m here!” He cried, trying to get the attention of any wounded villagers. Across the town square at the other side of the chasm was an elderly man, no younger than seventy, trapped beneath the caved in corner of his stone rooftop. He cried out in pain as he clutched the trapped stump of his leg. Though he couldn’t feel it, the leg’s lower half was no more than paste now. “Please…” He begged, his gray-haired wife pulling at his shirt to try to dislodge him.
Alexandros kneeled next to him and realized he had left his medical supplies in his home. Somewhere in the chaos they had fallen from his shelves. Instead of running back he only did what he could to help: dislodge the man before it was too late. With all his might he wrapped the edges of his fingers at the bottom of the stone, trying to flip it on itself to free him. He struggled, face strained as beads of sweat mixed with the dust spread by the chaotic earthquake. He gripped so tightly that his fingertips began to bleed. And in that struggle there was no clarity; only a deep sense of concern for what was to come.
Enkidu…where are you? Alexandros asked, quietly hoping for his prayers to be answered.
Eanna
The earthquake shook Eanna for fifteen minutes, per human measurement. The ivory temple at its heart trembled as the quake ripped through its domain. The Igigi housed under it lay there, struggling to maintain their balance as the cosmic quake gripped the celestial temple. Pillars collapsed and celestial blue dust clouded the air. But the god stood still, stoic. His eyes were fixated on the starry skies above. “It’s him,” Anu spoke, a fresh frown scrawled upon his divine countenance.
Beside him stood Enkidu, cloaked in his typical simple garb. Was it fear? Anticipation built at the base of his spine, if a god formed of Void had similar human anatomy. “Was it always certain?” He asked, turning toward Anu with a similarly calm and stoic expression.
“There were opportunities to change the course of history, though it had always been written in the stars,” he began, feeling the last of the tremors pulsate through the temple. ”Had Athos not have been slain then Phetra would have far less cause to bait the Champions of Humanity into her domain. When Isabella Uchiha’s heart was crushed by Nefarian, had Madara not asked for her to be returned to life…perhaps He would not be shaped in the way he has been. His sight would be far more limited than it is now. Worse yet, had Isabella not battled him alone maybe he could have been stopped before the Prismatic Plague was mutated, causing the deaths of millions. It would have preserved the Domain of Condition and the Soul, buying us much needed time. Or had Lucifer, driven by self righteousness and vengeance, not followed his baser instincts then perhaps the Domain of Desire too would be preserved. There were moments where destiny could have been altered…but here we are now Enkidu - at the precipice of oblivion.” Anu’s frown deepened as he turned to his younger, yet more powerful, distant sibling.
”I am no leader. When it comes for humanity I will be their weapon. It’s what I’ve prepared for all this time.”
”You will strike at your own father if you must? Your own siblings?” Anu asked, probing the Chains of Heaven for any final doubts before he would depart.
”He’s no father. He didn’t pull me from the Hokubu, he didn’t raise me to love humanity. I was born to be a weapon for Him and to rule a broken world in his place.” Enkidu clenched his pale fist, showing nothing but resolve in his purple eyes.
”Soon there will be no place left to hide. Even I won’t be able to hide from the Chaos Tide. Examination of the Void is like looking at a snowflake; the very act of examination changes the result. Peering into its future is nothing like looking into the future of our own reality. One is set and ordered. Sure, there are slight deviations. We cannot read or know the machinations of the Twin Fates. But the Void…that is something else entirely. But I do know this: when all is said and done, we will meet again Enkidu. Perhaps on the battlefield or when all is said and done.” Anu paused, an expression of sadness, for an extremely brief moment, was written across his face.
”What will happen? Is this the beginning of a new dawn, as Imeroth predicts?” Enkidu’s question was somewhat rhetorical. The past year he had spent in Eanna taught him one thing: that the capability to see the future did not mean one understood it. A comforting thought knowing despite being the opposite side of the same coin, he was nothing like him.
Anu sighed, ”No,” he replied. ”What he has heralded into this world is not a dawn. It is the sunset.”
Enkidu nodded and, in a flash of bright light, was vanished.