By the time I had realized what it is I was seeing, I was already too wrapped up in the scenes that sword was showing me to look away. This was Tia’s family from her previous life. And, by the looks of it, it was playing out a particularly sensitive event from her past.

Of course, I had to wonder. What is the point in showing me this? This is easily the last thing I had expected to see from this sword. I had been expecting to maybe get some vision of some kind of disaster that had hit I-17 after I died as a result of my deal with Tia. Some kind of attempt at alienating me from her. This, however, seemed more like it was attempting to make me feel for her. It was the most sympathetic vision of her it could have possibly given me.

The scene continued to show the process of them feeding this former life version of Tia the blood and then having her vomit it into the clay jar her brother had previously filled with alcohol.

After this, they sealed the jar and placed it in a box which was carefully stashed away.

After this, the scene faded and then came back into focus. It must have skipped forward through time, because now the corpse on the table showed significant signs of decay. It had become desiccated and rotted, the skin having turned a dark withered purple-brown similar to what I had seen on the blade of the sword when it had started all this craziness.

The mother from the previous scene was holding a bowl to the lips of the corpse, presumably filled with a dose of that potion they had made before.

The siblings were all there, looking on eagerly. This included the former-life version of Tiaren, still held by her sister so that she could get a good view of what happened.

As the potion was poured down the dead man’s throat, his eyes suddenly snapped open and he began to gag on the potion in surprise.

“Wh… what? Mother?” The moving corpse croaked out in a raspy voice. “What… what is happening?”

“Oh, my son!” The mother said.

“Damu!” The other man said. “My brother, you had died! It was with a potion that mother made with your blood and Amashilama’s aid that you were able to come back to life.”

“Come back to life?” The dead man said in a questioning tone, and then looked down at his own withered and decayed hands and his shredded bloody robe. “Hah! These do not look like the hands of one who is alive.”

“No,” the other man said. “We could not stop the process of death from taking your body. As we brewed the potion for your revival, time took your body. We had hoped that the potion would help recover your body as well, but…”

“Hmm… no, that will not be possible.” The man sitting on the dais said. “I can feel it in this body. Although you have returned life to these decayed bones, it did not remove the death. Death is something that cannot be undone.”

“Nooo!” A shrieking wail came from the black leech. “Brother! You have greater healing power than any one of us! You must have some way to fix your body, right?”

The man shook his head. “No, Amashilama. It is impossible.” He said, and then stood up off the table. “You should never have revived me in this way. This body is still dead, and the dead belong in the underworld. I must return there.”

“You are being too hasty, son. There must be another way.” The mother said.

“There is not.” The living dead man said. “Mother, Ninazu,  Gunurra, Amashilama, I have seen the dead who haunt this land too many times. I know what it is that becomes of them if they linger too long. I am no longer a creature who belongs among the living. This life you have placed back into this body, all I can use it for is to simply say my farewells.”

There was a silence over the room for several seconds. Then, it was the brother, Ninazu, who moved first. He placed a hand on the reanimated brother’s shoulder with a solemn look on his face.

“I understand, brother.” He said, and then looked to the rest of his family. “Everyone, let us accompany Damu to the entrance of the underworld. We can spend all the time we can with him on his journey back to that place.”

The scene faded. When it came back into focus once again, everyone was standing in front of a large cave entrance.

“I have decided. I want to go with you, brother.” The high-pitched voice of the black leech said.

“Amashilama, what are you saying?” The sister who was holding Tia as she was in her past life said.

“I will go to live with Damu in the underworld.” She said. “I will go with him and keep him company.”

“Amashilama, if you go with me, you will be unable to see mother and Ninazu and Gunurra again. Wouldn’t you miss them if they were gone?” The walking corpse of a man asked.

“Yes, of course I would miss them. But you are going to miss them too, and you would be all alone if you went to the underworld with no one. I will travel with you, and we can ease the loneliness that each of us would feel.”

The scene faded forward once again. As it came back into focus, this time it depicted the man, Damu, laying on the ground. Tia in her former leech form was on the ground next to him.

“Brother…” She said in a worried voice and inched forward. She nuzzled the man’s arm with her head in a worried manner.

“Amashilama.” The man croaked. “I can feel it. My divinity is nearly depleted. Soon, I will no longer be able to retain this form… hah! It is ironic. I am the one among the gods who had lived my life in the underworld, and yet I am the one who has lasted the longest. All the others, mother, Ninazu, even Marduk. All of them have fallen as they lost followers… I lost mine long before any of theirs had gone, and yet somehow I retained my divine power for this long.”

The man reached up a weak hand and pet his leech sister on the head.

“Somehow, I feel as though I have you to thank for the fact I was able to last this long. Even now, the divinity which you have has not even faded in the least. It would seem this is the difference between a god and a divine beast. You do not rely on the worship of humans. They are irrelevant to you.”

“No! They are not irrelevant!” the leech shrieked. “Their worship is life or death to you, and with none of it you are now dying just as all that we knew on the surface had before you. If we had the time, I would go to the surface now and spread your name to all of them so that I could keep you. But…”

“Haha. Yes, I know. It is far too late for that.” The man said. “I do appreciate it. But, I believe this is for the best. I do not see how a leech would be able to spread my tale and be listened to by the humans of the surface. You would only come back here depressed and discouraged. It is better that we got to spend these last moments together.”

As I watched this scene, I suddenly recalled all the times Tia had corrected us every time we called her a goddess. She would always remind us that she was a divine beast, but every time it seemed as though she was a little bitter as well. I had always thought she was just irritated about us repeatedly getting it wrong, but… was there something more behind her irritation all that time?

Sometime as I had allowed my mind to wander, the scene had changed again. This time, Tia was alone. She crawled along in the underworld, inching along on the dry land. Suddenly, a man approached her.

“Well, what do we have here?” The man said. “It is incredible. I sense a divinity from within this creature.”

“My name is Amashilama.” The leech said. “I came down to the underworld with my brother. He… is no longer around.”

“Haha! Oh, is that so?” The man said and reached down to pick her up. “So, you say you are from the world above? Then you are a lot like me. I once bore the title of the light bringer in the world above. However, I was cast down into this world. Very well then. You are here alone, aren’t you? How about you come along with me then?”

Cast down? The light bringer? Shit! That’s where this was going all along! Crap crap crap! It lured me in by showing me painful yet non-threatening scenes of Tia’s past. It wanted me invested. Now’s the part where it shows me the stuff it wanted me to see all along.

“Stop! I don’t need to see anymore!” I shouted. I tried to turn away, but just like when it was the sword, the great dark hole that was showing me the scene teleported as a whole to stay in front of me, and it was already playing the next scene. This time, it was a woman walking along side the man I had seen in the previous scene.

“Nope.” I said, and immediately turned on my heel. The scene shifted along with me. I continued to shift around violently, hoping to use this transferring effect to somehow shake up the scene, hoping to maybe cause it to become unintelligible. However, it was futile. Erratic movement or not, it could not disrupt their voices. Even closing my eyes could not help me avoid this now.

I was able to make out the woman. It was the sister from the earlier scenes. Except… no. That wasn’t really right. This wasn’t the sister. A couple scenes ago, it had very clearly said the sister was dead. This was Tia. Somewhere along the lines, she had learned how to take a human form. And, she had chosen to look identical to her sister. This was the form that she had appeared to me in.

“Amashilama. Does it ever bother you? What those who follow me do to the humans?” A new man asked. He bore a striking resemblance to the man in the previous vision, even dressing very similar, but his face was different.

“Well, a little bit.” The woman said. “But, you have explained it to me already. It is your job to test the humans, and to expose their weaknesses. It is the only way they can improve. It does upset me a little bit, but I know that what you are doing is right. You have taught me a lot, lord Samael. I am very grateful for everything I learned.”

“Is that so?” He mused, and then nodded as though satisfied by that answer. “It has been a long time since I have taught you though. It has been so long that I was even surprised that you came back when I’d called on you.”

“Yes, you said it was something important.” She said.

“Yes, yes indeed.” The man said. “Do you recall, a long time ago, when I had asked what it is you would like to do most in this world?”

The woman made an unpleasant face.

“The answer that you gave me was quite interesting. Do you remember what it was?”

“I do.” The woman said. “I said that I would rather leave this restrictive world, and then go to another freer place where I can start over and be together with a new family. Why are you asking me about this now?”

“I believe I may have found a way for you to do exactly that.” The man said.

“Really?” The woman turned to the man, looking clearly excited.

“However.” The man said, holding up a finger. “In order to do this, you will have to act in a manner similar to my satans.”

She made an obvious displeased face when she heard this.

“There is a certain man who practices a very ancient and very special meditation. It is called Key to the Void, and it has the power to open the path to leave this world. The ancients would use this method to to summon mana from outside the world barrier in order to perform feats of magic long since lost. Now days though, it can do little more than simply allow some of this world’s excess spirit energy to flow out through the gap.” He said.

“Ok.” The woman said. “But why do you say I have to use the tactics of the satans to get this man to help me?” She asked.

“Because, the gaps he can open now are not even enough to allow a spiritual entity to pass through the world barrier. However, there is exactly one way to temporarily increase this power. If he is fully and intensely using this power at the moment of his death, the effect will be amplified enough that he will pass through the barrier himself. You will be able to ride along with him at that moment. However, you must find a way to convince him to do this. Meditating in this way would not be a person’s first instinct if they were dying.”