“How does one defeat a god?”

This question had plagued the minds of others long before the Lord of Mars, long before even the men of Abel and Cain.

Upon foreign soil, in a distant age appeared a woman clad in coat, cap and boots.

Her gaze back then beset upon the distant no man’s land of a raging warzone.

Giant metal cylinders erupted overhead, the recoil forced them back as black smoke burst from their barrels.

The sky was orange, like fire, and the soil was grey and sickly.

One could not tell whether the soil was sandy, muddy or watery at a glance, it looked dead and that was all that could really be said.

She stood upon a cliff and overlooked this wasteland, what little grass that lingered lay at her feet as the shells flew back and forth.

Some of those metal shells crashed into the cliff below, others passed wildly overhead.

There were no men swinging swords to cut down their foes on equal footing, there were no disciplined formations marching as one army against another, there was only cannon fire.

Accompanying those cannons were the Zeppelins that flew overhead but it was the fate of many among them to fall into the valley and sink into the barren sands, the world was quickly recognising that the time of those machines was now well and truly ending.

The woman raised her hand and freed her side arm revolver from its holster.

Ash emerald green in colour bathed the weapon and the bullet in its chamber.

She pulled the trigger, and with a thunderous boom shockwaves scattered about as the propelled object started tearing through the sound barrier.

The projectile exploded on impact with a soldier who’d been struggling in futility to free himself from the grey sandpits down below.

Were it that she bid to let him remain as he was he’d have only suffocated in the embrace of the dead soil.

They could not rescue him, could not alleviate his pain nor reward his struggles, all that she and her peers could do for such men was end him in a quick and painless manner.

The woman then watched as the man’s lifeless corpse was slowly swallowed by the canyon sized pit of squirming sand.

Only then, when there was no sign left of him, did she put away her weapon and walk back towards the battlements to her back.

She passed an aged bulwark and then paused to face the battle-worn barrier.

There she beheld a younger woman with black hair cut to chin length and skin pink as a peony.

The lass sat on the corner of the barrier wall looking down with melancholy.

She must’ve sensed her gaze then, for the girl looked back at her soon enough after.

The woman who one day would become the Vanir Goddess, Feng, met the sight of this young girl with a distant gaze.

“At ease,” She said, and thus the girl did not salute.

The Duchess looked upon her, this girl who, like her, came from a family with a military background and thus must brave the march to war.

She did this, or was made to more specifically, even despite the fact that her powers were only that of a Bronze Class commoner lass.

The peers among the Gold Class Royalty and the Silver Class aristocracy, to which she should’ve belonged, rejected her wholly as a sign of their decline.

Naturally such a girl was doomed to die, she would not last long at all on this perpetual battlefield and indeed that was the reason she’d been sent here in the first place.

Feng, who knew all of this, walked quietly to the girl’s side.

“Private,” She said, reaching into her bosom, “I have orders for you, a request from your family...on behalf of his majesty.”

The girl’s shoulder’s trembled, she looked up towards the Duchess, who bore the Rank of Major, and then stood ramrod straight.

“Yes, Major,” She replied, and so it was that Feng passed her the envelope that contained her suicidal orders.

Naturally she wanted to decline at all costs but ultimately, weakling or not, this reclusive girl was still a noble of military background.

She could not refuse the duties she was commanded to carry out, and no one was likely to weep if and when she died in the line of duty.

“I know very little,” Said Feng who, either from pity or more genuine compassion, bid to help the girl in at least some minor way, “It seems that your job will be to escort a VIP across the border...his name is...”

The Private raised her head, a feeling of something being out of place struck her.

She frowned, for in her memory the Major hadn’t known anything at all about the contents of that envelope, yet here she was talking about it.

“...Diehurtz, you’ll find him,” The major said as her form began to overlap with someone elses, someone similar and yet different all the same.

The Private began to stumble back, but a pair of hands, neither covered by the Major's typical military gloves, gripped her trembling shoulders.

The woman before her now stood tall as a bear, just like the Major, but was clearly wearing a blue dress and had a far more innocent face, even if that face was currently twisted in desperation and dread.

“Muspelheim!” Said the apparition of Authun, who was daughter to both Feng and Rognir, “Please hurry to Muspelheim!”

The dream shattered like glass all around her.

The Private watched on in shocked silence as golden chains snaked their way around Authun’s body and pulled her into the grip of a titanic hand.

Authun’s form vanished behind a mountain-sized set of fingers, and then a pair of eyes pierced the abyss to leer at the Private who was now entirely alone.

Yet, she was only afraid for as long as she did not recognise the dream.

Once she did realise it was but a nightmare, finally, she managed to instantly and completely collect herself and then looked back upon this pair of eyes with bottomless loathing.

She sneered at him, her king from back then.

“Asagrim.”

 ________________________________________________

The Private opened her eyes in the continent of Helheim, from her lips was uttered that wretched name aloud.

Her surroundings were a deep hollow filled with mud and roots beneath the fertile soil.

Her form remained largely unchanged, though her hair had turned pink and her uniform was white as snow.

She looked out into the massive sky beyond the borough where she slumbered and recalled her mission from that time.

With Asagrim’s order she journeyed into the Kingdom of Silbur and found that seemingly ordinary young man living in the temple that worshipped Hertyr on the mountain peaks.

He was named Diehurtz, just as from the dream, however he turned out to be anything but normal.

He was a bastard prince, brother to the newly risen King of Silbur.

Asagrim, King Josfer of Midas, was at war with that Kingdom of Silbur, so it didn’t need much brainpower for her to figure out why he wanted such an individual.

Unfortunately, it took slightly more effort for her to figure out they knew too much, and so it was that they were ambushed and massacred the day after handing that lad over to their superiors.

That revelation dawned as she already lay dying in a puddle of her own blood, even choking on the red liquid spewing from her maw.

One bullet was all it would take to end her pain, she desperately wanted someone to do it, to put her out of her misery as the Major had done for that poor man in the dunes.

Yet when she heard the sound of just such a weapon being raised to do the deed, she wept in fear of death.

Her life had ended that day, but her existence had not.

Because she was the first and only friend that Diehurtz had ever had, and that feeling was mutual.

She confided in him her fears and insecurities, her complexes and troubles.

He listened, he even prayed for her and as fortune would have it he came back to say goodbye.

Thus he found her and he pled with Hertyr, his overseer, his mentor and King Midas’ “mother”, to save her.

The Goddess was reluctant, for this mortal woman named Vilia simply knew far too much.

She could not risk reviving her, there was a reason they were killing her, but she gave in to him eventually and pulled a Beacon from her golden armoured bosom.

Thus was born the Einherjar Vilia Nou, who would one day be known as the Sakura Vanir, Vak, Goddess of Helheim.

 ________________________________________________

“How does one defeat a God?” Vak repeated the words as she sat up in her borough.

The roots about her greyed and died, the walls exploded and fragments of mud cascaded down only to evaporate as her boots trod down.

She peered upon the continent-spanning forest of Helheim with an icy cold gaze and then turned to look out towards the distant east.

There lay the sea and beyond it the continent of Muspelheim that Authun wished her to see.

After all this time she had awoken once again.

That dream, a summons from the daughter of Feng, called to her.

She mulled it all over inside of her head, for in truth she did not like Authun, all that much.

They fought more often than most, so she really couldn’t say she cared all that much for her, or her mother, for that matter.

When she served in that army way back in the bygone days of their former world Feng hadn’t treated her well but nor had she treated her poorly either, that was the plain truth of it.

“I don’t know why you’d come to me for help,” She complained, “But still...you said that name?”

Diehurtz.

She couldn’t ignore that utterance from the Goddess of Muspelheim.

She sighed as she pondered just how many cogs might start to move if that seemingly mundane boy re-appeared in the modern day world of Ymir.

“The world is moving whether I involve myself or not, the gods are stirring, it would seem I'm done sleeping."

Her form scattered, she began to turn into a mist upon the wind.

Sakura coloured dust thus swept across the sickly green sea.