A Mistake was made
"No go, True Hero Luka. You have people waiting for you…" said the former Goddess Ilias with the faintest of smiles as gently sent the soul of the same one who had ruined all her plans back to the world of the living after preventing him from being overcome by the holy energy that was eating away at his existence.
Like a sunset shadow fading into the night the purple haired young hero who had started out as nothing more than a mere pawn to her when he left his village starry eyed and full of dreams slowly vanished from what was left of her crumbling realm.
He was no longer the Fake Hero Luka who dutifully served the one true Goddess Ilias, he was now the Great Hero Luka! Who had saved the world from evil schemes of the insane and genocidal Goddess Ilias!
Luka would return to his world to be greeted as a hero, friend, and even lover if he could survive the insane marriage trials put forth by a certain 9-tailed kitsikune while Ilias would be left to meet the end of her existence.
She was, or rather had been, the goddess of mankind and the only who had ordered humans to fight and hate the monsters they shared the world with up until she decided they weren't worth the trouble anymore and attempted to wipe out both in a mass genocide. Illias had done terrible, unforgivable things without a second's worth of regret or compassion in the name of her schemes. A city where monsters had lived in peace with humans had been slaughtered down the last baby by her orders, countless lies spread to reinforce her worldview and addiction to worship, humans declared "Heroes" so that they could be given a powerless sword and sent on a suicide mission to kill the monster lord. Even if she hadn't killed many by her own hand countless humans and monster had died for her ambition and refusal to change her ways.
All of it, all of the killing and the hate, all the years of humans suffering under the weight of her ideals; all of it could have been avoided if she just had shown one single speck of compromise or compassion during her rule.
'So then' thought Ilias as she watched the last of her holy realm filled with golden light and soft white clouds begin to fail and fade 'This is how it ends huh? I believed myself immortal and beyond death for so long I never thought about my own death but here we are.
It's lonely.
Very lonely.
….Loney
Why did I have to send Luka away? I don't want to die alone. I'll accept I had this coming but please! I don't want to die alone!''
As a slight panic set in Ilias briefly realized that it always came back to that for the golden haired Goddess, the one overriding fear that had driven her for well over a million years, the fear of being alone. Truth be told Ilias was and always would be someone with a utterly psychotic fear of being alone; who was willing to become a God to the mortals of the world and fill their head with lies and half-truths all to make sure she was never alone again. While this fear did not excuse her actions even her most hated enmies would have to admit a million years of isolation would drive anyone mad.
'But what did that get me? I try again and again to get the mortals of this world to keep from leaving me and even go so far as to try and wipe them all out and replace them with a new species not even CAPABLE of abandoning me! Yet...here I am.
Alone...
About to die...
And hated by and entire world of people who used to adore me.
Back in the fucking void and waiting to leave this world as I entered it...alone.
What was the point of it all? I killed so many, spread so many lies, manipulates both friend and foe alike and for what!?
Now I die; and not a single soul in the world below will miss me. Ha! Miss me? They'll be celebrating!
What the hell was the point of it all?! What did I achieve with my billion year life!?
Ilias let out a soft sigh as the first part of her body began to waver and vanish into nothingness.
"No. If I die here I don't want to die angry. They all earned their peaceful world while I tried to destroy it all for my own petty desires" Calmly admitted Ilias; not even watching her feet dissolve into pure holy energy below her, slowly signaling her doom "It's too late for me to completely make up for what I did but at the very least I can be happy for them"
"In these last few seconds I can at least try and act like a real Goddess and be happy for the peaceful and free world my former subjects now have. Yes; I can be happy for them and wish them well! That is what a true Goddess would do" spoke Ilias sounding as though she was bargaining with herself, or more likely, her conscience as her body up to her waist faded into nothing
Ilias never acted like this. It was too out of character but with her death fast approaching she was willing to try anything to make it more bearable.
'I want to die happy. I don't want to die scared and angry! I want to try and make up for what I did even if it's only a little'
Ilias braced herself against her imminent death by forming her hands into the same prayer pose many had used to worship her for eons. By this point her unraveling had reached her lower chest meaning she did not have much time left but still she wanted to do one last thing.
"Please everyone, I'm sorry. I made a mistake and that can't be taken back but please, for your sake and my own, fix the world I nearly broke and make it into a place of peace and happiness!"
As her undoing reached her heart she gave a quick "Amen!" and held her pose; not daring to look down at what she knew was coming. Already her home of light and clouds had faded into nothing but an abyss of pure black with only a single spot of light illuminating what was left of her body
'That works right?
I tried to be good in my last moments so I can rest in peace now?
Right?
RIGHT?!
I was good so I can...I can...I just...I'm...I...I'm scared!'
Ilias' brave face and calm demeanor was slowly starting to crack as the inevitable march of her death continued on claiming her elbows and upper chest. Tears began to well up within her eyes and she began to let out a few pathetic whimpers of fear as her face contorted into a painful expression. She wanted to die with some dignity instead of bawling on the ground like a child who had been spooked by a thunderstorm but as her life came to its end she couldn't stop the fear from trying to break her down!
Despite her best attempts to force her lips into a faux peaceful smile her fear caused it to turn into an awkward grimace while tears continued to flow down her cheeks freely from her large blue eyes.
'How many times have I watched others die over the millennium? All those people who prayed to me to watch over their souls and guide them to the next life, all those millions who looked up to me to guide them through death over the years and yet here I am terrified of my own! Me, dammit!'
Ilias thought back briefly to all those funerals she had glanced over with nary a second thought through the years. All those grieving families, the elderly couples who lost their partner and were well aware they were soon to join them, friends fallen in battle, children who lost parents to sickness or even monsters. She had been the one they had all prayed to and yet she had not cared, often she would mock them if the death was funny enough! But now; now she understood all those tears at the end of her own road.
"I was (sob) I was horrible. I'm sorry (sob) I'm so sorry" said Ilias barely able to form words through her tears as her neck became consumed by the darkness along with the rest of her arms
With nothing left but her head Ilias prepared for the final plunge by closing her eyes and holding her breath. As her world turned to nothingness and her existence faded the last thing she heard was the faint sound of clapping coming from behind her followed by the following words
"Now this...This shall be fun"
In Another Time and Place
"W-Wha?" muttered a confused and weak Ilias as she slowly woke up after her "Death" faintly aware she was laying face first on something hard yet smooth to the touch.
'I died and yet I feel?' thought Ilas finding these new sensations confusing for someone who by all counts should have had no physical body.
"Where am I?" she asked as opened her eyes and was met with a blinding light coming from beneath her causing her to recoil slightly.
'Pain? This isn't right. The dead feel nothing let alone pain!'
When she could look without pain she clearly saw she appeared to be on some sort of circular glass platform emitting a gentle white light making it stand out against the endless dark void it seemed to be floating in. The platform had an intricate design of some type forged into the glass giving the impression it was something holy or important although despite Ilias begin a (former) Goddess and the (former) leader of all angels she could not recognize any of the glyphs or runes beneath her.
Stranger was the fact that although she could sense the aura of the bizarre place it was completely alien to her; great power was here to be sure but it was unlike anything she had ever felt in her nearly billion year long life.
Ilias staggered to her feet feeling weak and sore but certainly still alive. Her gaze shifted back and forth around the platform looking for some clue to where she was but nothing stood out to her, she was on a mysterious white platform surrounded by infinite darkness that held some power as of yet unknown to her.
Suddenly as terrifying thought crossed her mind.
"Is this my punishment? I don't die, I just get trapped in this strange place all alone?" wondered Ilias aloud.
"Reminds you of the bad old days huh Ilias?" came a voice from behind her.
Ilias let out a sharp gasp at the sudden outburst which surprised her to the point she tripped backwards while trying to turn around and back away at the same time too quickly.
Ignoring the unflattering fall onto her butt; Ilias looked up to see the one standing above her wore nothing but a giant black hooded robe that somehow concealed even their face.
"Who are you?" demanded Ilias getting back onto her feet
"All those millenium all alone in the darkness-"
The stranger was ignoring her, straining Ilias' already frayed nerves past the breaking point
"Who the hell are you!?" screamed Ilias in frustration with her more natural self breaking through
All of the events of today were taking their toll on her and in all honesty the brief outburst of anger actually felt quite refreshing for a second after all of the fear and sorrow.
"-No one to talk to, nothing to distract you, not even anyone to hate. Countless eons of nothing but darkness all the while knowing your other half was out there; always just out of reach-"
"S-Shut up" said Ilias not liking where this conversation (if you could call it that) was going.
"-There was someone else out there! Someone besides the speck of light that was your consciousness floating in void! But they were the one thing you couldn't talk to!"
He sounded happy as he recounted all the countless millennium of hell Ilias had endured before she finally created new life and effectively started human history.
"At long last; out of sheer frustration; you created life! You broke tiny fragments off of yourself and created two daughters, the Seraphs Micaela and Lucifina. Later you created the (slightly more insane) Eden followed by countless other (increasingly badly designed) angels."
"Will you shut up?!" hissed Ilias who was quickly getting sick of this painful history lesson
"Not satisfied with that you found a world to set down upon and create yet more life. You feared being alone again so greatly you wanted to make a race that would never leave you, that were far weaker than you or your angels so they would have no choice but to idolize you for all eternity."
"Yes I know my own fucking history you jackass! I don't need to be reminded!"
"Fine, the abridged version then. Your dark counterpart was better at her job and made monsters to populate the world as well. The idea of anything existing on YOUR world and distracting YOUR worshipers was enough to get you to wage war on your darker half and her monsters with your angels and humans. You were willing to kill everything in order to win so you sister tried to reach a peaceful agreement which you fucked her over on allowing you to win but placing a spell in place that ensured her monsters would live through your wrath. After an absurdly complex plan you tried to wipe out humanity and your monster enemies in mass genocide but failed thanks to the usual "chosen one" and "warrior princess" trope showing up. You take a ultimate attack to the chest while in final boss mode and end up dying while the hero goes off to have hours and hours of sex with the monster lord. I miss anything?"
"That you're an asshole?"
"Charming, anyway I'm here to help you out...or at least give you the chance to make a dent in your debt"
"My debt? Who the fuck are you!?"
What the hell was this stranger getting on about? Illias had no debts!
"You can call me a god of salvage. I take the discarded, the broken, the worthless refuse of worlds and try to place them where they might do some good. The right person in the wrong place at the right time can make a world of difference! I despise waste, something is only useless if it is in a place where it is not needed, when placed where it is needed it has value"
"A god besides me? You lie!"
"Never mind that, for now I will explain was is about to occur. You know as well as I that there is no redeeming what you did; all that can be done is to try and offset the damage-"
The stranger tossed Illias a small silver flask with the etching "Holy Spirits" on the side.
"-I offer you a chance at everything you dreamed of, a new word, a fresh start, a chance to not get fucked over by fate. Everything that happens from here on out is up to you"
"What the fuck does that mea? *Click* What? Oh you motherfuckeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"
Ilias was cut off as the floor seemed to give way leaving her plummeting towards the world below her…
Earth, Japan
"What the hell is this damn place and what is with all these damn Ugk! metal plates on these fucking grey pieces of shit!? Ow! Where is everyone?"
With a hand to her ribs Ilias continued to trudge through the maze of giant stone and metal buildings she had crashed down in. Her wings were useless thanks to the water they absorbed through the biblical (and she would know) rainstorm that continued to dump buckets of freezing cold water on the broken Goddess with each passing second. The architecture was foreign, the signs written in some unknown language, and each opening was covered by a metal brace to keep intruders out.
There wasn't a soul in sight and by this point Ilias wouldn't of been surprised if that jackass she had met dumped her in some post apocalyptic world devoid of life.
'Salvage that asshole had the nerve to call me! I'll break his legs the next time I meet him!'
Sadly her rage was not enough to sustain her and Ilias began to bow to exposure. With her eyelids getting heavy she laid down on the ground next to some strange metal bins and waited for her second death that day.
'I hear horses?'
The last thing that reached Ilias' ears before she fainted was the sound of heavy galloping and a gallant voice ringing throughout the area.
"Master! Join me quickly! A fellow extra-species person appears to be in mortal danger!"
Author Note: This is very much an experimental fanfic. If you want to see it continued please review.