Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 103: Interlude: A’Bel

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 103: Interlude: A’Bel

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2500

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The sky burned and immortals died before me before I even drew my blades.

Long ago, when I came into being, I was told that I was part of the past. That I had no place in a world remade by unalienable sorcery. I was told that none would ever summon me, that I would never battle against powerful mortal and immortals, and that I would forever languish uncalled, unsummoned, and unwanted in the depths of hell.

My own sisters eschewed our heritage and lowered themselves, abandoning power, and accepting the role of corrupters and temptresses. Some of them mocked me only to find the strength they lost bearing down upon them, while most gently told me that they would assist me if I wished to follow them.

I shamed them in battle, but let them live.

I trained for countless years, believing that I would be called for who I was by a worthy master, and ignored all others. In the abandoned workshops and mines that once supplied Hell’s armies, I toiled to create armor and weapons worthy of my form. I sought out the wisdom of those who came before us, braving their challenges, and enduring their punishing presence, so that I could grow stronger.

Even as the cost for my summoning grew greater and greater with my growth in power and reputation, I kept true to myself.

I was born as a Demon of that rules over other Demons.

I existed as a Demon of war and destruction, even if I had a form befitting that of a succubus.

As I worked and toiled, I internalized and adhered to that facet of myself, until I sat in a fortress with vaults filled with weapons, armaments, and trinkets that I could call upon, but without an army nor generals to call my own.

I waited for many years, until one day I was granted succor, and found myself embroiled in war.

The world was softer, weaker, and less capable. The champions of humanity were a faded remnant of their pinnacle, even if a handful remained truly strong and capable of holding their last realm together. The “Demon Lord” on the mortal plains was powerful, but her bloodline needed centuries still to grow strong enough to force one such as myself to kneel.

But I was offered the full requirements for my summoning, so I contented myself with overseeing the coming, petty conflict through beside my dear summoner.

Then, we stepped into the lands of the truly powerful.

Mortals who clawed their way to immortality. Mortals who fought against Hell for the right to rule over their souls and claimed victory. Mortals who took the strength of the world itself into themselves after countless years of breeding, study, and training… and who did not weaken even after countless years of peace.

Hikigaya Hachiman brought me to them with the intention of brokering an alliance with the budding Demon Lord, but fate provided for me and half of their number opposed their ways… and the ways of my master.

Finally, after waiting for hundreds of years, I was to fight against a worthy opponent in a battlefield never seen before. A flaming fleet struggled to stay aloft in a firestorm above a sea of golden sands. Immortals burned and screamed, falling from the sky into the uncaring sands below, while flames surged across the flying fleet. The sands below burned and turned to glass, while the blue skies of an immortal paradise became tinged with scarlet hues, while black flames spread with malevolence through pure, blue skies.

It reminded me of home, as I looked upon it beside my master.

Hikigaya Hachiman felt fear at the sight as all mortals do, but unlike all other mortals, he summoned the courage to make it even more terrible.

“Tell all the Harpies to start adding winds to fan the flames. The Wyverns are going to fly high and use the smoke as cover to drop more satchels. Ur seal off the area and pick off anything that looks like it could still fly. Reiser, you and the Kunoichi are staying with me as reserves.” He took hold of the situation after hardening his heart and mind against the terror that he created. His fear and loathing arose as the scene brought to his mind memories of the past, but in the face of that fear he merely summoned greater courage and willpower to see the job done. “If any of you die, I’ll bring your corpse back to Ylstu and bring you back to life just to call you a moron, so don’t even think about it.”

His orders were carried out. Not only was the fragment of hell that he created going to expand, but he was ensuring that all those trapped within it could not flee.

Those were his true intentions.

Despite all his care for his people, and how much he valued life, he was going to make sure that the Apophis and her entire fleet burned and perished. The terror and bloodshed that he was committing was something that he understood and loathed. Even though parts of him attempted to rationalize his actions, his own humanity telling him that this savagery could be used to cow others of the Apophis into compliance with his future allies, he looked upon his works and was determined to condemn his actions and not condone them.

Knowing that, even though my entire purpose for existence was to be validated, I knelt before him in my armor forged from Hell to receive orders instead of throwing myself at what I craved for millennia.

All those years of waiting was worth it to have such a wonderful contractor.

Therefore, I had to address him properly.

“I can kill them all, my dear master. My hands alone can tear through their forms with ease. My weapons ready to hew through their very souls. My magics can have allies turn upon one another in maddened rage.” I learned, trained, and made so much for this moment. But if I acted of my own volition, if I seized this opportunity by my own will, I would be nothing more than a maddened beast devoid of purpose. My contract with Hikigaya Hachiman and his orders for me in this mortal realm was the only thing that could allow me to be who I truly wished to be. A true Archdemon of War and Destruction in the mortal realm was and always will be an unmatched, peerless retainer in conflict. “I can destroy them all with everything that I have, but you must swing the sword, Hikigaya Hachiman. So, bless me with your orders!”

I felt hate in his heart for a split second at my request. A part of him wished that I would act on my own and disobey him, so that my hands would be bloodied instead of his. But he knew better than that. He crushed his wanton emotions and replaced them with cool rationality, as he opened his mouth to take responsibility for the actions of Archdemon of War and Destruction as a mere mortal.

His voice did not waver, as his lips curled into a snarl.

His eyes were steady, while he levelled a glare upon me.

His form undaunted and unbroken as he pointed at the piece of hell he manifested into the mortal world and ash began to fall around him.

“My orders haven’t changed, A’Bel. You’re going in there and killing the Apophis and every single living person under her command.” Hikigaya Hachiman bore down upon me with conviction and determination in his eyes and snarl. “You’re going in there and making it clear to the Apophis that they’re not just fighting Pharaohs, but that they’ve lost one of their own and they can’t get her source of power back. And, you’re either going to do and die trying, or I’m sending you back to Hell.”

My path was set as the same as my beloved ancestors and all my kin.

Victory or Hell in the service of a worthy contractor.

I bowed my head before rising and towering over Hikigaya Hachiman as my heart felt as though it would rip through my chest.

The words I wished to say for so many years finally lips.

“Your will shall be done, my dear contractor.”

With those words, I was truly, completely unleashed upon the world with purpose and freedom I could never give to myself.

There is no greater joy for me feel.

…

Charred sand broke beneath my armored feet, while flaming wreckages surrounded me. The sky was black, gray, and tinted with the hue of flames as a storm composed of flame sustained itself in the sky. Blazing ashen wrecks in my path broke before me without slowing my stride. The flames that turned so many immortals into corpses with screaming faces contorted with pain sputtered and died against my Hell-forged plate.

There were survivors amongst the wreckages.

Powerful survivors who cut their own flesh to save themselves from the flame and sought one another out amidst the wreckage of the two fleets. They used their magic to create shelter from the falling motes of flame, to breathe in the smoke, and desperately save their own, while I strode towards them unimpeded and mighty.

They saw me.

Some’s spirits broke at the sight of me.

I crushed them with the back of my fist and turned their upper halves into nothing but pulped bone and muscle.

A few ran from me out of fear.

I swung my sword and they were halved and cursed to suffer slow deaths with their backs to their foes.

Most, however, gloriously stood their ground after summoning the courage to face me.

I honored them.

A Sphinx charged at me with claws covered in fierce power. I met her charge with my shield and cut her from temple to tail with a sword I had quenched with my own blood. I discarded both in my wake for her as a grave markers.

An Anubis was came forth with a curse upon her lips and flames at her hands. She called upon the flames that claimed her friends with tears of rage in her eyes into a spear that burned her hands to ash, but she cast it upon me.

I met her power with my own in my palm. The spear of starlight was caught by my raw, invisible magic. Though I could have redirected it, I endured it rightly, and let it sap at my power until it was completely expended.

A spear with a head composed from my most hated sister pierced the Anubis’s heart and spine, ending her pain, and I left it to be her legacy.

A Mummy confronted me with a blade larger than her body over her shoulder. She met my gaze with one blue eye with wounds that would’ve felled any other Undead. With sheer will alone, her spirit continued to inhabit her mortal flesh, and she charged me with a roar, committing everything to my death and ready to endure any wound I sent her way.

Her sword struck my armored shoulder. I felt the weight of her strike, while my armor screeched against the power of the enchanted greatsword and gave way… and allowed itself to be scratched before breaking the blade.

A maul I fashioned from a chunk of a dead Archdemon’s throne disintegrated the Mummy’s body in its passing and served as a glorious tombstone for the fearsome warrior.

Many more came forth like those three.

They answered the call of their ruler from the vast structures where they slept and waited for war to come. They trained all their lives, then submitted themselves to their leader’s will, and slept until they were called upon. One and all, they choice lives as warriors, and so I honored each and every single one that I faced as I made my way to their cherished leader.

My first armory, which contained seventy-two weapons I forged with my own hands, lay empty as I reached the Apophis that my dear master told me to kill. My armor was scratched and dented by claws, weapons held in desperate and dying grips, and even teeth. I gave to each of them a single attack for myself to endure, for my skills to be tested against, and for me to remember forever and not a single one disappointed me.

I waded into the flames with unbloodied hands, without any honorable kills, and armor which shone beneath the sun.

I reached the former Pharaoh with armor that endured blows born from lifetimes of training and talent, with hands covered in blood from worthy foes, and with firm memories of glorious opponents standing against me and the world that surrounded them.

Therefore, I bowed to the Apophis as our gazes met and spoke to her from the depths of my heart.

“Thank you. Your warriors and retainers were wonderful foes I shall never forget.” Courage, will, and generations of breeding stood before me. A body that overcame the limits of mortality and reached the realm of divinity through the struggles of countless mortals in the depths of the desert wished to fight against me. Magic cultivated over the course of centuries from the very world itself was being leveraged towards me and it was filled with cold rage. “My name is A’Bel, Archdemon of War and Destruction, and my master has demanded your destruction by my hand.”

“It is you and your master who shall die here, foul demon.” The Apophis’s lower half was an immense, armored snake tail and with a single swing with dizzying speed, she destroyed the flaming wreckages around us and created a battlefield in the hellish sands. “You will not return to master or even Hell. I will obliterate your very existence from reality, before destroying the one whom you serve for your crimes against me.”

At her words, I smiled.

Pure rage, bereft of lust and need, filled the Apophis as she loomed before me with immense power cultivated from the beginning of her existence.

I was facing a true foe who would kill me and those I served. Not a slattern who would see me merely broken and who would force me to watch my master become hers.

After facing one honorable foe after another, I faced their leader who swore to avenge them all with all her might.

Wonderful.

Perfect.

Amazing.

This is what living truly was.

“Then, oh proud ruler of this land, strike me down with all your righteous fury and anger! Come, come! Kill me or be killed!” With joy that made me tremble, I approached the Apophis while calling forth weapons from my armories. My power surged as, since I was acting under my master’s orders, the souls he offered to me empowered me in his name. All those who died by his hand since my summoning and all those he offered for my services… the power was so vast and potent that my body struggled to take a fraction of it. “Let us see if you can even hope to think of harming my glorious master!”

The Apophis felt terror for the first time upon realizing the extent of my strength, of what I had whenever I truly acted in accordance to my master’s wishes, but she did not disappoint me.

That first feeling of terror was swiftly overcome by her first summoning of courage.

She charged at me with a roar and I met her in battle with a smile.

A/N: No I'm not skipping the Pharaoh fight.