“Please free Amaterasu,” Prometheus said. “She deserves to see the final fate of her counterpart, and experience the world for herself.” At the mention of her name, the sword glowed a brilliant white, as if awakening from its slumber.

“...Is it safe?” Davis asked, nervous.

“Hah! Is it? Would I ask you, a mortal, to remove it if it wasn’t safe?” He chuckled, urging Davis to move closer. Davis swallowed some of his saliva and tied Masamune to his waist.

“...Here I go-” Murmuring under his breath, he gripped the blade's hilt with both hands, expecting an intense flame to sear his palms.

Contrarily, it was cold. Too cold. Caught off guard by the temperature, he had let his guard down for naught but a fraction of a second before he felt his entire consciousness warp and shift, his reality replaced with a new one entirely.

Instead of Prometheus kneeling on the ground with 10 golden chains, the view in front of him was a king’s hall, complete with a blazing gold throne at the very end. An orangish red carpet lined the floors, whilst blinding white lights danced around the gold pillars. Pure white flames had long since left its original gold braziers, consuming entire sections of the golden hall in ever brilliant flame.

And Davis, instead of holding the Hilt of a blade, was holding the hand of a beautiful young maiden. She was kneeling, her silvery white hair cascading down her back, spilling out onto the carpeted floor. Dressed in nothing but simple purple robes, her face and body made her the subject of allure for anyone, regardless of preference or gender. Davis couldn’t help but meet her eyes, those deep, intense reddish-orange eyes, with miniature suns for her pupils, similar to the monster Helios, which had killed Jonathan…

‘Shit.’ Davis wanted to let go of his hands, but he found that he could not. They were stuck.

In front of her was Amaterasu, someone so powerful, that had she not been split and sealed into this sword, she would've killed him with naught but a second thought. 

Amaterasu opened her mouth, but no words came out. The white flames danced and twirled in the corners of his eyes, getting ever closer to Davis and Amaterasu. The temperature was rising dramatically, and he found glowing white lines tracing their way up his arms.

‘Pull.’ He heard the voice of Prometheus from behind him. With a glance, he discovered a massive open door, with an endless void of white hidden within it. Davis didn’t doubt Prometheus one bit as he began pulling with all his might. Amaterasu seemed only mildly annoyed as she was dragged toward the white void.

The white lines soon reached the beginnings of his shoulders, with a few outliers already snaking their way up his neck. A painful, burning sensation emerged from his body. His vision turned blurry, as his entire life flashed between his eyes. His childhood, his first love, his adventures…

But then it moved past that. He saw himself old, recounting stories to a crowd of children. He saw himself dying peacefully of old age, surrounded by his friends. Lewis, Jack, Anna. Future accomplishments, achievements, adventures, possibilities.

All of it burned in front of him, Davis feeling as if his soul itself was being consumed. His spiritual form was covered with white fire, slowly chipping away at his form. Davis instantly knew what Amaterasu, or at least, her curse, could do.

It drained one Lifespan and burned the obsolete strings of fate attached to them. 10 years. 20 years. 30 years. His figure was being devoured bit by bit, his past and future slipping away little by little, until finally, Amaterasu herself stood up, and they both fell past the white void.

Davis snapped out of it, his vision warped once again, finding himself back in the real world, laying spread across the cold porcelain. The hilt of Amaterasu was tight in his grip, cold sweat covering the porcelain in a layer of dew.

He knew that, if Amaterasu had not willing stood up to leave, his entire soul would’ve been burnt to a crisp, taking off the rest of his lifespan with it. Never before, had he been so close to an unavoidable death.

“Congratulations!” The sound of slow clapping rang across the gigantic room, echoing off the infinitely stretching walls.

Davis suddenly felt angry at Prometheus. He had just watched Amaterasu use nearly 30 years of his life as fuel. Just for putting his hands on it?!

“Now now, I would sheathe Amaterasu before you do anything rash.” A calm smile rippled across Prometheus’s face. “The sheathe, of course, is Masamune’s sheathe.”

An ugly expression crossed Davis’s face. “...What?”

“As I said. I escaped my brother’s rage with Amaterasu embedded in my chest. Why do you think I would have his sheathe as well? I’m sure the sheathe is hidden within the last temples of the Sun, on the other continents closer to the center.” He simply let Davis finish the rest of it in his head.

“So I would have to go on a fruitless journey to find her sheathe, so I don’t have to juggle between agonizing pain or my lifespan being fucking BURNT AWAY?!” Davis growled.

“Correct again!” Prometheus laughed, the golden flames clapping their hands in approval. “As long as you survive the first night of the blood moon, in roughly 2 days now, you will have the adventure you have always dreamed about!”

“I DID NOT-” Prometheus cut him off. “Ah- ah -ah, beggars can’t be choosers. I have seen your wishes, your dreams, your mind. And what better parting gift I will give to my mortal friend than another Primal weapon and his lifelong dream?” He grinned. “Perhaps, you can even journey down to Erebus and free your dear friends and lover from the clutches of the Triad?”

Davis was fuming so much that he couldn’t form words properly. He knew that whatever he did, he could not harm Prometheus in the slightest. Nor would it have any lasting consequences for him.

Before he could think of a proper plan, a ring of golden flames emerged around him, reality inside it sizzling and shrinking away within fractions of a second. The last thing he heard before he fell through was Prometheus’s calm and slightly amused voice. “Good luck~”

…

The brightly lit golden halls dimmed considerably once the mortal had left. It almost felt… empty.

Prometheus looked at the spot where Davis had left, reminiscing. The way Davis had reacted was so similar to someone else he had the pleasure of meeting… was it several thousands of mortal years ago?

“Hades, was it naught?” Prometheus savored the word on his tongue. Named after one of the many names his Uncle was called once the mortals first started dying. The job was forced onto him, and it naturally took its toll. He was pretty sure his uncle forged Hades from the massive corpse in the underworld.

“Ah well… Im sure Hade’s original owner is long dead…” He suddenly frowned, seemingly remembering something. “On mother’s great name…” Prometheus sighed. “I forgot to tell Davis that Masamune was starving…”

He could only imagine the pain and agony that Davis was feeling right now, while not even close to a fraction of what he felt daily, must’ve been tortuous for a mortal like him. “I just hope I dropped him near something he could kill.”

Prometheus activated the secret rune that he had placed on Davis before his departure, and a bright blue scroll unfurled in front of his face. “Ah, Uncle, you truly are the best.” The scroll showed Davis writhing on the ground in pain as he desperately crawled toward an impaled tiger, skewered through the base of its neck by Masamune, Davis somehow managing to sheathe Amaterasu in the process.

“Oh ho-” Prometheus chuckled. Did he have sympathy for mortals? Maybe. But Primals weren’t constrained to the same morals as mortals were. “Can you make it, Davis?” Davis slowly crawled towards Masamune, inching his way past the forest floor, desperately stretching out his muscular arm to touch the hilt.

“This will be interesting to watch...”