The Hunter and the Doll have officially entered the new arc. If you want to read it, just go to my (P)(A)(T), where there are 3 chapters ahead for both Hunter's story and Devas' story, all for just 2 dollars.

If not, still, thank you for reading my stories!

That said, good night to everyone and happy reading!

(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori

[...]---[...]

POV: Doll

The Good Hunter and I walked for a few hours, enjoying the mild weather and each other's company without haste. This continued until the sun set and into the next day.

Three days later, we finally reached the coast.

"I'm always amazed," my voice echoed, slightly muffled by the waves crashing on the shore.

The vastness of the sea and the comforting presence it provided always left me impressed and, at the same time, calm.

"I'm glad you like it," the Good Hunter's voice came from behind me, surpassing me and reaching the sea.

When the Good Hunter touched the water, the sea calmed down, the waves and the wind seeming to stagnate for miles, turning the sea into a calm yet alive expanse of static water.

I wasn't surprised; how could I be? The sea recognized its master; greeting him was obvious.

The scene lasted only a few seconds before the Good Hunter waved, and the waters returned to normal, but even after that, no waves appeared around him, let alone collided with his legs.

"Come," the Good Hunter extended his hand in an invitation.

I walked to him without hesitation; my wet clothes were not a concern. When the seawater touched my body, the sensation was inviting.

I realized that the sea treated me as well as the Good Hunter.

We spent a few minutes walking along the beach, close to the sea, with sand and sea under our feet. I was so immersed in the feeling that I didn't realize I could sense everything with much more vividness than I ever could.

The stroll lasted for some time before it was interrupted when the Good Hunter stopped walking and looked at a specific point in the sea.

I stopped moments later and stood beside him, turning to look in the same direction. Unlike the Good Hunter, who I was sure had noticed something, I couldn't see anything.

"What's there?" The sea seemed normal to me.

"A Beast." The way he said the word sounded different, as if it were not a common beast but rather a title.

"Is a hunt approaching?" I asked curiously.

"Perhaps..." The Good Hunter's voice was calm. "But I don't think it will be necessary. Let's go see it..." The Good Hunter said just before starting to walk towards the deep sea.

I followed him without fear, the water around us parting and giving way without the Good Hunter even giving a single command.

After a few seconds of walking into the deep sea, I felt the environment around us distort and change. In one second, we were surrounded by the ocean, and in the next, we were above it... But it wasn't the same ocean as before.

The sea beneath our feet was black, made of a thick yet thin mud. The world around us was different too; there was no sky. Everything beyond the black sea was a vast imaginary white void.

I also noticed that the Good Hunter's arcane surrounded me like a thin veil, protecting me from any effects this sea might have and allowing me to walk on the "water."

Before I could ask what this place was, a noise echoed throughout this imaginary world...

... A mournful sob from a sad female voice.

"What..." My voice came out as a whisper. "Is something here?" A separate artificial world from the planet?...

"Is this a prison?" The Good Hunter answered me with a nod. He wasn't protected by his own arcane, not that he needed to be; the sea didn't affect him at all.

"Yes, a very, very ancient prison." The Good Hunter began walking, gesturing for me to follow. "When it comes to what's here, it's not something..." The Good Hunter stopped his steps, looking into the distance.

Looking at the same spot as him, this time I could see what he was looking at.

It was a woman. I instantly realized that she was bound by restraints chaining her arms and legs.

She had long light blue hair flowing into the black sea like a waterfall; her eyes were red, with an "X" in each of them. But from afar, the most striking feature about her was the two enormous curved horns on her head.

"...It's someone..."

The Good Hunter's voice echoed, drawing the woman's attention to both of us, who seemed surprised, ceasing the crying and lamenting that echoed throughout this artificial world.

"...Tiamat."

 ~ Fate/The Hunter and His Doll ~

POV: Third Person

"You two..." Tiamat's voice was low, yet it seemed to resonate throughout the World of Imaginary Numbers.

The contained surprise in those two words was immense. Tiamat had been imprisoned for years... Many, many years... So many that she herself had lost count.

She hoped to never see anything or anyone again, none of her children. Seeing other beings in her prison was, at the very least, a surprise... A hope...

Could she finally be free?

Before the Hunter or the Doll could speak, the voice of the Mother of All Life echoed again, her authority as the mother of all life, who initiated the world, instantly perceiving something...

"You are not my children..." It was not a question.

That the two beings in front of her were entirely Foreigners, coming from outside the planet.

"No." The Hunter's voice replied calmly, confirming what didn't need confirmation.

"What do you want here?" Tiamat asked curiously and hopefully. "Have you come to free me?"

Anyone would have made the effort to help her. If Ishtar was the epitome of luxurious beauty, Tiamat was the epitome of maternal beauty, a mother to all, who would embrace everything in her arms.

Seeing her in this state, chained, imprisoned, crying, was enough to convince any being, man or woman, to help her...

"No." The Hunter repeated the same word, this time a denial.

...But not the Hunter.

"I imagined..." Tiamat's voice and face showed the same emotions: Defeat, acceptance...

Her children had confined her to this place; it was foolish to imagine that complete strangers, foreigners, would set her free...

Doll had an almost sad look on her face but didn't try to convince the Hunter otherwise. She knew from the Hunter's words that Tiamat was a beast, and no matter how sane she might seem, her real nature remained the same.

A beast would always be a beast.

"What are your purposes, then?" Tiamat asked again, her voice this time heavy and neutral, hiding the emotions she felt under an unmoving mask.

"None." The Hunter replied, looking at Tiamat before shifting his gaze away, as if he were seeing another place... Another being. "We came here out of curiosity." The Hunter's voice contained a small trace of amusement.

It was ironic, the same emotion that moved the Pthumerians and, years later, the Yharnamites, was the same that brought him here.

The first time, driven by curiosity, the Pthumerians and the Yharnamites encountered the Great Ones.

Now, the Hunter had encountered Tiamat, the Mother of All Life.

It was ironic, the same emotion, different moments in time, different worlds... But almost identical consequences: Encountering something far beyond one's own race, humanity, that left them wanting.

The only difference was that, unlike the Pthumerians and the Yharnamites, the Hunter was not the one lacking in this scenario, not the one who had encountered the unknown...

Still, this, in part, pleased the Hunter, for he knew that this curiosity was a remnant of humanity that still remained in him...

"Curiosity..." The word came out of the goddess's mouth, creating a small crack in her mask. "What is so curious about a mother imprisoned by her own children in a lifeless world?..." And through that crack, what emerged was bitterness and anger...

Along with Tiamat's words, the Sea of Life aggressively trembled, the mud writhing along with the goddess's negative emotions.

Tiamat didn't intend to harm the two beings in front of her, but to scare them away from her prison, to leave her alone again, as it should be...

Still, when the mud of the Sea of Life tried to push the two, neither of them moved.

Doll remained untouched; the mud couldn't even touch a thread of fabric from her clothing, protected by an illusory aura, a dream...

As for the Hunter, the Sea of Life didn't even attempt to attack him, push him, or even dare to touch him, which surprised the Mother of All Life greatly.

She held absolute authority over life; the Sea of Life was her authority given form, part of her being and existence, to defy it was impossible, but it was happening at this moment, in front of the goddess.

"What are you?..." Tiamat murmured.

"I ask that you don't do this." Hunter ignored the question. "I understand you're in pain, but we are not the cause of it."

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND MY PAIN?!" Tiamat shouted, her mask shattering. "HOW CAN YOU UNDERSTAND?! HOW CAN YOU UNDERSTAND MY LOSS?! THE PAIN OF THE BETRAYAL I SUFFERED?!" Her voice was laden with anger, anguish, sadness, and above all, pain.

With the goddess's screams and her turbulent emotions, the Sea Of Life became entirely aggressive, turbulent, with huge waves forming and colliding with each other everywhere... Except where the Hunter and Doll stood.

Whether it was because Tiamat didn't want to harm them or because of the Hunter, the goddess herself couldn't say.

"I may not understand the pain of betrayal..." The Hunter's voice remained calm, completely ignoring the world that seemed to tremble. "But I can understand the pain of loss."

The Hunter had suffered betrayals and suffered for them; allies driven mad by blood attacking him from behind was more common than the Hunter would have liked.

But involuntary betrayals were few compared to the pain of loss.

How many had the Hunter buried, how many allies had he had to bury after killing them with his own hands? How long had the hunt lasted?

The night had been long... His losses even longer...

But none of it compared to the pain of knowing that he would never return home, that he was forever separated from his homeworld, his family...

The Sea of Life calmed down, almost forcefully, a small rhythmic drip echoing throughout the artificial world...

Tiamat widened her eyes upon seeing that, just like her, who had an entire ocean within herself, the Hunter also contained one, but it was something entirely opposite to hers.

The Sea of Life was all life itself, the sea that originated life on the planet, the mother of all life... What Tiamat could see inside the Hunter, the drip... It wasn't life, even though it was composed of something essential to her...

The ocean inside the Hunter was equal, if not larger than Tiamat's; the goddess couldn't see its extent, let alone its depth, the reddish-tinted and static liquid... Motionless and lifeless.

What existed within the Hunter was an ocean of blood, covered by a rusty red mist that obscured much of the night sky, partially concealing a reddish full moon...

In the sea, many and many bodies floated and sank... Dead and lifeless bodies of all those he hunted... And of all those he failed to save...

The night had been long... The horrors much longer...

"How?" The goddess's voice was calmer, her emotions exchanged for just one: Doubt.

"How do you still remain sane?... How haven't you gone mad?" Tiamat had no doubt that, over time, the pain would consume her completely, causing her mind to collapse into something bestial.

What she had seen in that sea of blood was more than pain; it was pure and unaltered despair.

The pain of the betrayal of her own children hurt Tiamat more than the goddess could put into words, and it would hurt forever, a scar that would never heal...

But that?... That should have broken any being... Pain was pain, comparing it was wrong, but Tiamat would admit that it was something of the same magnitude as the pain she felt...

The Hunter could understand her pain, which is why Tiamat was full of doubts. How could the being in front of her still stand? How had he not gone mad?

Doll, in the meantime, watched the conversation with a pained face, a pain that seemed to increase when the Hunter responded to the goddess.

"I could answer that it was because I had hope... But I would be lying." Yharnam had killed his hope a long time ago...

The Hunter's words seemed like cuts that almost physically hurt Doll, her face sad and her eyes even more so.

"What kept me for a very long time was just one thing, oh, Tiamat..." To the Hunter, the goddess in front of him was almost familiar.

So similar to Kos, a mother who loved her children until the last moment, even in her death...

So similar to Rom, caged and imprisoned for something she didn't commit, suffering because of others who merely used her...

"A womb discarded after the Genesis." That's what Tiamat was, something discarded and thrown away after it was no longer needed.

"The answer is simple." It wasn't anything grandiose; it was something everyone had. "What kept me all this time was a cold and cruel determination..." Many times the Hunter had wished to just let go of everything, but he didn't let himself lose... He didn't let himself give up.

The night had been long... His strength even longer.

As he spoke, the Hunter approached Tiamat, the goddess only realizing his proximity when he was inches away from her.

The goddess didn't step back or try to push him away but looked at him with curiosity, waiting to see what this being in front of her would do.

The Hunter reached out his hand toward the goddess's forehead, who looked at the hand without moving, but before his fingers could touch her, a hand grabbed the Hunter's wrist.

"Stop!" A chorus of voices echoed, coming from a single being, a being that held the Hunter's wrist.

The being holding the Hunter was illusory, shrouded in a red cloth that entirely covered its body like a shadow...

... A red shadow.

The Hunter didn't try to disentangle himself; he just slowly turned his head towards the Red Shadow, stared at the single white spot where the face of the being should be, and spoke a single word...

A name...

"Wow..." Tiamat, even with all the events and what was happening in front of her, exclaimed in amazement as she looked up at the sky.

The sky that was once an infinite white void made of imaginary numbers had transformed into a night sky containing thousands, millions of stars...

"Alaya..." The Hunter's voice echoed, overriding the echoes of the countless voices coming from the Red Shadow.

... And in the center of the sky, a Pale Moon illuminated the night.

[...]---[...]

The next chapter is the conclusion of the Babylon arc.

I won't comment much; if you have any questions, comment, and I'll respond to the best of my ability without giving spoilers.

Well, this time, have a good afternoon and enjoy your reading.