"You can't rest yet young man." Prenelle gently nudged Loki as he paused to look up at her with clearly tired eyes.
"You kind of took our only chance of beating 'Her' away…" Nicholas spoke softly, scratching the side of his face as he looked somewhat troubled.
"...." Loki stayed silent for a while, trying to rearrange his body and mind for another battle before speaking, "Took it away? What did I do?"
Nicholas and Perenelle looked at each other before sharing a glance with everyone else before finally deciding on letting Hermione begin the explanation, "I don't know what the plan was…" Hermione said a little confused but continued nonetheless, "...but you…showed up in what was Grindelwald's body…so I'm guessing it had something to do with that?"
Loki's eyes widened slightly as he looked down at himself.
"I appeared in Grindelwald's body?" he mumbled in disbelief, confused about the situation as he tried looking into his memories to figure out if there was a shred of evidence left in them regarding whatever everyone else seemed to believe so easily.
"...that can't be possible, can it? I mean where did Grindelwald go then?" Knowing others wouldn't have an answer, Loki looked directly at Nicholas and Perenelle when he said it, but when he saw them confused too he turned towards the white soul still hovering.
Loki studied the vague thoughts hovering around the strangely morphed body of heart and mind of the soul and felt a little surprised as Daphne confirmed his doubts.
'...this was Grindelwald's body?'
'...How did I get here then?'
'What even happened to bring me here?'
'The last thing I remember was 'Her' finger piercing my forehead… or wait, was that a hallucination? No that was real, right? But then…how am I even alive?'
Loki closed his eyes as he tried to recall his fragmented memories.
His heartbeat sped up as he thought deeper as an instinctual grip of dread tightened itself around his chest automatically, as if warning him of the upcoming danger should he proceed in the direction he was currently going.
'...'
But Loki didn't stop, instead he ignored it and dove deeper, he had to have answers, after all he felt like something too bizarre had occurred!
'Did 'She' do something to me?'
'Did the True Creator do something to me?'
'What about the Chaos Sea?'
'What about magic?'
'What about my Sequence 3 Mentor of Deceit Beyonder Characteristics? Hadn't I forcibly accommodated it? Shouldn't I be a mad creature beyond any hope of saving that lost all control right now?'
Questions blared past Loki's mind giving it no rest as he hammered his memories that seemed to have been locked, or even wiped since he really couldn't even feel them.
It was as if his mind had suddenly turned into a blank and empty slate that had been cleanly wiped for a short period of time until he showed up here, in what everyone else claimed to be Grindelwald's body.
'Was it a backup plan I made?'
Loki frowned.
He did have backup plans when he realised he was going to meet the True Creator soon.
Of course he'd already realised that the True Creator was acting suspicious with how eager the man seemed to want him there at the Chaos Sea. As such he'd created a plan, the contract that Loki had given over to 'Him' claiming to be from the Sun's domain was simply the contract that had been used by Hermione and the DA club members.
He'd summoned the contract by deceiving the connection he had to it and bringing it to him, before changing its contents by rearranging the actual words in the borders like elegant patterns while writing a fake one up in the middle.
Given it was a simple contract created by a small ritual to the Sun Goddess meant it was weak and it wasn't representative of 'Her' full power. That is Loki could break such a contract rather easily, and if Loki could do it, even a True God could break it!
So the True Creator couldn't be bound by it no matter how easily he signed it off on it.
But that wasn't Loki's aim.
Loki didn't aim to trap the True Creator in the contract in the first place.
The contract had just been a means for Loki to form a connection to the True Creator.
A connection to use his parasite abilities to parasitise the True Creator should the need arise for him to delay or distract 'Him' for a few seconds under some strenuous circumstances.
But even that wasn't his true aim.
Loki knew well that he couldn't in any life truly parasitise a True God while being a mere Demigod so it was only supposed to be a distraction while he escaped using some other method like the Sefirah Castle or even partially accommodating the Mentor of Deceit Beyonder Characteristics.
'....but things have gone completely out of whack…have they not?'
'How did I come to possess Grindelwald?'
'...is there a connection between the True Creator and this guy?'
'How did I even exploit that connection?'
'I doubt a simple Mentor of Deceit Characteristics can even let me do something so brave and defiant?'
'Did I get cursed with some corruption or something?'
Loki scanned himself from head to toe.
And yet-
'Nothing!'
'Absolutely nothing's wrong with me!'
'Well except for my apparent memory loss and this frustrating situation…'
Loki knew full well that a true fight with any True God could've only ended with his absolute and full death, so something had to have happened, or someone had to have interfered for the outcome to have changed so drastically.
'Did the Founders and the other True Gods come in to rescue me from 'Her' and then wipe my memories away to prevent Mr. Error's vessel from becoming corrupted?'
Loki frowned, something felt off about that.
And not even a moment later he knew exactly what it was.
'Why would I even know about anything else about having a fight with 'Her' at the Chaos Sea if they wiped my memories away in some way?'
'Why wipe away the memories of specifically a short amount of time that relates to me 'switching bodies'?'
'What even happened to my 'other' original body?'
'...should I perform a divination?'
'But only ones in the Sefirah Castle might help me…'
'And I can't go to the Sefirah Castle with all these people around…'
'But I did reveal to them that I'm a vessel for Mr. Error…so maybe I can cook up some sort of ritual and pretend like Mr. Error summoned me back by just teleporting me using the worms I left behind and the Mentor of Deceit Characteristics?'
'Yeah that'll be the solution to all my problems…'
'I can divine about where my Sequence 3 Mentor Of Deceit Characteristics are and what happened in that short period of time that my memories vanished and I apparently had to switch bodies…again…'
Loki was about to open his eyes and pretend like Mr. Error was suddenly calling him back when he noticed a surprising fact.
'That's…not right?'
'...how!!!!???'
Loki shut his eyes harder as he felt his connection with the Sefirah Castle once again.
Just now when he'd probed his connection to the worms of time he'd left behind in the Sefirah Castle through the Grey Fog he suddenly felt three things.
Firstly, he shouldn't have been able to execute such fine control over the Grey Fog without the Mentor of Deceit Characteristics and secondly, he shouldn't have forgotten the fact that he couldn't do such a thing without the Mentor of Deceit Characteristics, even though he seemed to have conveniently forgotten about it.
But thirdly and most importantly of all.
He could still completely and perfectly feel his connection to the Sefirah Castle as if he was holding the Mentor of Deceit Characteristics in his hand.
In fact it was even better.
His control over the Grey Fog was deeper and much more finer, as if it had integrated deeply into his fate.
As if-
'...as if I've truly advanced to a Sequence 3 Mentor Of Deceit…'
Loki shuddered.
He felt his body once again.
And it was true.
While whatever Daphne had done had only healed him as he had been before all this had started, he had overlooked the fact that he still felt 'empty'.
As if he had used up most of his spirituality and his body was currently out of fuel or empty. Almost like the spirituality currently in store within his body was only a drop in the ocean for him.
His body itself felt like it had gone through a qualitative change, as if his muscles had become denser, tighter and even more lethal.
His mind felt sharper. He could think much faster, even though he'd already thought so much not even a second had passed in the world outside.
His abilities felt stronger.
He couldn't pinpoint what these new abilities were, as if his memories of them had been wiped, but he could still feel like he could do so much more.
Thinking of something a little crazy, Loki focused on Hermione's skin.
Almost immediately he felt a billion little creatures living in it, and with just a little extension of his mind he felt like he could completely overtake them.
His ability to parasitise had improved by leaps and bounds.
He could now parasitise multiple targets independently while still retaining his original body. In short he could create Avatars!
Loki was flabbergasted.
'How!!?!'
'How did I advance to Sequence 3!?'
'When did I advance to Sequence 3!?'
'Where did I advance to Sequence 3!?'
Loki couldn't believe it.
He felt a shred of disbelief at the fact that he'd just suddenly been 'freely' handed a promotion for the short price of the memories of a few minutes if not seconds.
His joy should've been immense, yet suddenly the world felt just that much colder.
What was the price that he had to pay to gain this 'great reward'?
'...is divination the only answer?'
Loki thought for a while and nodded to himself.
And with that he didn't teleport directly into the Sefirah Castle, instead he exercised his deeper control over the Grey Fog and reestablished his connection with the Worms of Time present there.
He connected with one such worm of Time and instantly turned it into an Avatar.
Inside the Sefirah Castle, a new Loki formed.
Loki took over the Avatar and observed the Sefirah Castle.
Confused for a second before forming a 'fake' monocle over its right eye with its fingers and whispering, "...interesting."
The place seemed untouched. Exactly like it had been just a few minutes prior when he'd used it to scare away Grindelwald.
Loki then moved to the head of the Tarot Club table where he sat down and spotted a small and simple parchment on the table.
He only glanced at it and it read-
"Divination."
'Yeah, yeah, divination is the only answer.' Loki nodded to himself before leaning back into the chair and closing his eyes.
"The events that happened in the short time between Mother Goddess of Depravity piercing my forehead and me waking up in Grindelwald's Body."
"The events that happened in the short time between Mother Goddess of Depravity piercing my forehead and me waking up in Grindelwald's Body."
"The events that happened in the short time between Mother Goddess of Depravity piercing my forehead and me waking up in Grindelwald's Body."
"The events that happened in the short time between Mother Goddess of Depravity piercing my forehead and me waking up in Gr-"
Loki felt chills run down his spine.
His eyes snapped wide open as he glared at the piece of parchment on the table.
The parchment was still there alright.
However the words on it had changed drastically from before.
Loki could still feel the strong sense of deception and trickery radiate off of the parchment, influencing his mind, or at least trying to so that he would divine about the happenings of the current situation, egging him to just close his eyes and 'rest' so that he could find out the truth.
Only the new words on the parchment stopped him.
Written on it with blood were the words.
"DO NOT DIVINE ANYTHING!"
Loki's heart turned cold.
His fingers gripped his seat at the head of the Tarot Club as his body felt numb.
Blood rushed to his head as it tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
His hands almost trembled but he managed to grip the seat tighter to make them stop.
'...so someone was here?'
'Inside the Sefirah Castle?'
'The Goddess of Fortune?' Loki immediately thought of her but he couldn't see how she could escalate in action from mere scare pranks to full blown blood writing like a crazed murderer.
Loki felt things spiralling out of control.
The raging fear in his chest that he'd been ignoring till now only felt more real.
'Am I doing something I'm not supposed to do?'
Loki closed his eyes, leaned back on the chair once again and took a deep deep breath.
He kept his eyes closed and exhaled calmly before reopening them and grabbing the necklace around his neck.
He opened it and flipped open the locket to see the mirror that allowed him to see Elane at any time he wanted.
Except…
Loki's eyes reddened.
His heart wrenched as if a stake had been driven through it and his fists closed tightly enough around the arm of the chair of the Sefirah Castle that it shattered under his grip.
The wood splintered in all directions as some of it even managed to pierce his hands since this Avatar was formed using only a single Marauder beyonder Characteristics.
Loki felt his cold heart turn colder.
Frigid.
As he turned livid.
And yet Loki's mind that should've been burning with questions cooled sharply.
It was as if an ice age had descended on it as Loki's mind moved with mechanical precision.
'They took Elane….'
'They took Elane from me…'
'Was that the price I paid?'
'Is that why I wiped my memories?'
'To free myself of the burden of the crime I committed?''
Despite the end of the arm having been squeezed off, the Grey Fog rushed in to fix everything.
As did Loki by slowly filling in all the answers he'd been seeking.
'No.'
'No matter what would've happened, I wouldn't have staked Elane.'
'No matter what.'
Loki had the confidence in himself that he wouldn't have let anything happen to her no matter the cost. No matter who the cost was, even if it was him.
To him Elane represented not just the only 'real' family bond he had left in this world.
In truth, to him Elane was his anchor.
Not as a deity.
But as what his identity as a transmigrated human had been to him.
Elane was the first other human in this world that Loki had cared for, protected and wished to hold closer.
Had she not been the first person he'd beheld, Loki didn't think he could ever remain as faithful to his humanity as he had been till now.
Everytime he did something good it was only because the first thing he'd been taught after coming to this world was that in spite of the terrible things in this world that had taken Elane's true brother from her, someone like her existed who could still smile while looking at it, be engrossed by it and be so lost in it to love it.
Of course, you could say that she was too naive to know anything about it all, too childish to even comprehend what was happening around her.
But was that naivety not worth saving?
To Loki it was.
It was why he donated to orphanages when he could.
To help any naive kids like Elane hold on to their naivety just so that the dreary world of Gods intertwined with humans who were unknowingly only playthings could seem a little brighter.
And so Loki knew.
He knew well that no matter the cost, he would've never sacrificed Elane for personal gain.
And that just made it all that much crueler to him.
Because it meant he'd failed to protect her.
He'd failed to be the big brother she'd always looked up to.
Loki closed his eyes and focused his mind.
With but a thought Loki swapped his bodies or rather the Beyonder Characteristics in his bodies.
'This is the crime scene…' Loki mumbled to himself looking all around the Sefirah Castle. '...and so I need to be at my best to be able to think through everything while I'm here.'
Loki gave the avatar body he was in, all the Beyonder Characteristics until Sequence 3.
Loki exhaled calmly and went through all the things that he'd noticed thus far.
'I or someone else erased very recent memories from my mind.'
'A note in the Sefirah Castle that I possibly wrote but was tampered with by myself or someone else…'
'Elane's missing.'
'I woke up in Grindelwald's body.'
'I was fighting with the True Creator and Mother Goddess of Depravity.'
With all the facts laid out, several things suddenly became crystal clear in Loki's mind as new ideas formed.
'The note in the Sefirah Castle has signs of deception and trickery. Both only a person of the Error pathway could've used.'
'And I woke up in Grindelwald's body. So perhaps because he's connected to the Fool pathway through his other soul he used me during the switch to do something because our pathways are part of the Lord of the Mysteries Group?'
'He's connected with Elane too since he cast that strangely useless charm on her back during summer.'
'...'
'Is he also connected with the True Creator then?'
'How did I even escape from the True Creator and Mother Goddess of Depravity?'
'No I'm getting sidetracked.' Loki shook his head, even after becoming a full blown Sequence 3 inside the Sefirah Castle Loki could still feel the note in front of him as it tried to influence his mind to peer into his lost memories.
Loki opened his eyes, looked at the note again and then instead of grabbing it or touching it in any way, abruptly stood up.
With that Loki did something he should've done long ago.
Loki began to examine every inch of this space.
'This is the crime scene right?'
'So there should be more clues lying around…'
'If the culprit can get sloppy with the note they could've gotten sloppy with the other things.'
With that Loki started randomly walking around.
Aimlessly at first but soon his eyes glinted sharply as he began walking in the exact opposite directions he'd just taken inside the Sefirah Castle.
And pretty soon Loki noticed exactly what he'd suspected.
Loki's eyes turned towards a seemingly innocuous wall of grey fog in an innocuous corner of the Castle only to be surprised.
'...well, well, well.'
"Look who we have here." Loki said softly as he walked towards what he was seeing.
An upside down cross stood in the corner, on it, hung a red eyed cyclops, chained and restrained by thick chains that seemed to be glowing in spite of the lack of a light source within the Castle.
Almost as soon as Loki noticed the Cyclops he felt a dangerous rush of corruption filled information rush into his head, but even without thinking, the information was automatically filtered when one of the other worms of time spread around the castle stole it from his mind, keeping him protected, safe and sound.
The heels of Loki's shoes clicked on the smooth marble surface of the Sefirah Castle, producing resounding clacks as he took calm and measured steps towards what was currently the only key, his only key, to finding Elane.
His mind spun at speeds he'd never thought possible as he finally reached his destination.
Loki stood in front of the True Creator and didn't bother bending low to match its eyes, instead Loki raised his foot and slammed it into the True Creator's cyclopean eye.
THUD
"Tell."
THUD
"Me."
THUD
"Where."
THUD
"Elane."
THUD
"Is."
Loki looked now at his unassuming captive who remained completely unfazed and then frowned.
"Is that so?"
"So you won't listen to me when father asks nicely will you?"
Seeing the True Creator still silent, Loki spoke again, his tone carrying a hint of finality.
"Alright. Your wish then."
Loki snapped his fingers and for a second nothing happened.
But almost immediately in the next the True Creator vomited blood, fountains of it, spewing it over and over, painting everything around it in a vermilion red as Loki held a still beating heart in his hands while his entire body was soaked in blood.
"You know what this is?" Loki asked softly while looking into the True Creator's eye that was still under his foot.
"This is your heart. Now either you answer me, or the next thing in my hands will be your divinity."
The True Creator stopped spewing blood, seemingly having created a new heart for himself but he still remained defiant.
A maniacal smirk even dared to show up on his face under Loki's boot as if daring him to do anything about his divinity.
A mere Sequence 3 was talking about stealing divinity as if it was like stealing candy from a baby, and even if Loki did steal it how was he gonna deal with it? After all, it was the divinity of a True God, something that would develop as a vessel for him to break out of the chains that had been placed onto him to trap him here in this forsaken castle.
Loki was literally taunting it with freedom.
What a kind captor.
Except that was not what Loki had meant at all.
Seeing the True Creator not responding, Loki did two things.
Firstly he used the Grey Fog to create a seal around them. Much like he used his own spirituality to create a wall of spirituality before rituals.
Secondly, Loki for the first time used his ability to deceive the world as a Sequence 3 Beyonder.
Loki deceived the True Creator's connections with his believers.
The result was instant.
The True Creator felt his mind start to slip.
What was already a manifestation of madness started to slip further and further, being consumed by the depravity that festered within its own confines.
Yet Loki wasn't done there.
He waited patiently to see what the True Creator would do.
In the seconds he had walked up to the True Creator he had already thought of a simple but elegant plan.
If the True Creator was in the Sefirah Castle right now and hadn't done anything to him yet, that meant that the True Creator had been sealed into it using some means.
Loki couldn't decipher if this was using the Grey Fog itself or if it involved the Beyonder that had messed with the note to himself and likely his memories.
He could figure out the method if given more time to examine the chains, but he currently did not because he feared for Elane.
On top of it all, he didn't think the True Creator would've helped him out or even let him study those chains given that he'd chosen to remain hidden all this time instead of helping him against what seemed to be a common enemy.
And so Loki came up with a different plan.
If something was sealing the True Creator, why not take further advantage of it?
A True God shouldn't be as helpless as the True Creator was pretending to be. In the books even though the True Creator had been sealed in the Western Continent he could command the Aurora Order and even try to descend at various times.
Of course this True Creator didn't seem like anyone as important or powerful as the fallen spirit of the Ancient Sun God, but it was likely this one had other tricks.
And so Loki devised a risky but quick plan to get the True Creator to speak up.
Loki was going to steal his followers, all of them, at once.
And steal he did, but by deceiving them.
Loki deceived the targets of the True Creator's faithful believers through his connection to them by deceiving their minds about the True Creator's Honorific name, changing it just ever so slightly and randomly in all of them that it wouldn't point to the True Creator anymore.
And given that there weren't very many high Sequence Beyonders present anymore since he'd just killed most of them, the task was rather easy for Loki who was a Sequence 3 empowered by the Sefirah Castle.
The True Creator's face started morphing.
His bony face flubbed up almost instantly and then Loki felt it.
His instincts reacted as he felt a shift not in the True Creator itself, that would've been impossible given the current stage he was at, a mere Saint, but it was enough to feel the shift in the chains holding the True Creator back.
Loki felt a profound application of the Fool's authority.
For a moment, and just for a moment the chains holding the True Creator back seemed to slacken, almost confused as to why they were chaining their captor, as 'He' stretched 'His' hands forward to snap Loki's neck.
But Loki had already predicted such a thing.
He was searching for the connection between the True Creator and Grindelwald after all, of course he'd already predicted that the True Creator might be the other part of his soul that had accommodated the Fool Pathway authority.
It was an especially prominent theory in his mind since the True Creator was supposed to be 'mad' god.
But given everything Loki had seen so far shouldn't the True Creator have been a highly intelligent God? One that could plan so many several steps ahead and also collaborate with an Outer God so deeply just to get him killed?
It didn't make sense since the True Creator had a readily available source of belief keeping him sane, the entire Wizarding Magic system. Plus there was also the Aurora Order as a backup.
So why was the True Creator a 'mad' god?
Perhaps 'He' was only partially mad?
Perhaps 'He' went mad only at 'certain' times?
Certain times when he used his 'other' powers? Like the Fool pathway Authority?
And it seemed like Loki had nailed the problem on the head since almost as soon as the chains loosened Loki felt his intellect drop.
Except the worms of time around him had already acted.
Almost as soon as the predicted event occurred Loki executed the planned retaliation.
The worms of time used deceive again!
Of course mere worms couldn't deceive a True God, even maddened, but they could still deceive something else!
They deceived the target of the True Creator's attack.
The True Creator was now attacking himself!
And Loki felt great joy as he watched the True Creator's face smack in horror as his intelligence suddenly dropped.
With the True Creator's already worsening condition without his believers and his sudden application of the Fool's authority on himself, the True Creator fell into a positive feedback loop.
The True Creator lost his sanity first due to his divinity acting against himself without his anchors to keep his humanity, that plus the madness of abusing an Authority not of his pathway group accelerated his madness!
Then out of the only thing available to him due to his suddenly lowered intelligence, his instinct to survive and live, the True Creator used his Fool's authority on himself to fool his divinity to stay sane for longer!
This would've worked fantastically had it been a normal scenario.
Except Loki had redirected the first use of the Authority that aimed to get rid of him at the True Creator himself, this dropped his intelligence and stopped the True Creator from allowing to distinguish between his divinity and his humanity.
So not only did he end up fooling his divinity but he also ended up fooling his humanity! His own intelligence! He fooled himself! A fool fooling himself!
A smile blossomed on Loki's face.
"A true fool indeed." Loki said calmly, finally bending low to match the True Creator's eye level before grabbing up the hair that was hanging down from the rapidly mentally declining True God and giving 'His' head a good shake.
"So want to tell me now?" Loki spoke, stealing just a fraction of the spirituality in the Authority to make the True Creator lucid enough to listen to Loki but not change things in any way.
However, the True Creator still only glared at Loki.
And so Loki frowned before standing up and sighing.
Loki closed his eyes and then looked back down as if he could see the entire world from where he was.
Then without a word, Loki deceived something else.
Loki deceived the space around the True Creator to reduce his size and once he was the size of a tie clip, Loki pinned him to his robes before returning to everyone else's side outside the Sefirah Castle after swapping places with his Avatar that had been standing in.
'You won't talk to me?'
'Fine… however, I wonder if you'll talk if the corruption of Outer Gods is involved in the picture.'
Loki finally opened his eyes in the real world and looked at Perenelle who, along with Nicholas, hadn't noticed the True God pinned to his robes because of the Grey Fog.
"You need to defeat Mother Goddess of Depravity right?"
Nicholas and Perenelle widened their eyes, almost instantly looking at Loki with horror before looking at everyone else, however they seemed to not have heard what he'd just said, causing them to become even more surprised.
It was since Loki had deceived everyone else into thinking he hadn't said anything while using illusions to cover up the fact that his lips moved.
Perenelle quickly nodded.
"We were going to steal Grindelwald's fate of holding the doll related to the Goddess of Fortune...but then you showed up and the doll was frozen and 'She' left…so…"
"Don't worry." Loki said calmly with a smile, appearing completely relaxed and jubilant as he continued to ask a different question softly, "Explain to me how you want to steal Grindelwald's fate again though?"
…
A/N : Happy new year everyone!