That one attack should have been enough.
That's what Dulio was thinking as he blasted through the sky in the direction in which he flung their new friend turned unfortunate enemy.
He should have known, of course he should have known.
Noriaki Kusangi may be, from all indications he's gotten about the young man so far, a good guy, a good deity, even.
But in the land of over eight million gods, what does one mean in comparison to the whole?
Even now, as the winds ripple across his body, sending his clothes and hair lashing out all around him and atop his head respectively within the gale, such minor things aren't what's twisting his face into a forlorn frown of discomfort.
He wanted it to end in a single attack, not only to minimize the risk of damage to the country around them but also so he wouldn't have to fight a new friend over such…stupid things.
Call him selfish, or whatever, but he'd rather not hurt someone undeserving more than need be.
If at all.
He left the damn spear back in the barrier and strengthened said barrier for good measure before making a quick dash toward his intended…target.
The frown across his face strained at the thought.
Only for all his thoughts to come to a sudden stop, his face twisting into a grimace, as he feels the sea far beneath him begins to boil.
He halted midair, at his back, the storms and wind he gathered seized the same as him, and he looked out, and marveled at the sight that seemed to crest the watery horizon.
Within the water, a golden glow began to erupt, growing brighter and brighter, matching the intensity of the sun, nearly mirroring it in intensity and brightness.
Dulio had to hold an arm up, in front of his eye, to partially block out the light. That's how bright it is.
He didn't need to be a top-tier sensor to feel what was going on here either.
This was his true and unbridled power, wasn't it? If he had used this within the city, he'd have lit the entire metropolitan area on fire, but out here, so far from even the coast…
A wave of golden fire erupted from the 'distant' golden star wrapped around Noriaki, and although it does look distant, the wave of fire shows otherwise.
It passed underneath him in a mere moment, almost like a shockwave.
He felt it through the power of his gear, earlier than his eyes saw it pass, mostly because that single wave of fire instantly vaporized the water into steam, causing a heavy boiling mist to begin rising from the sea.
Then, that golden star began to rise, almost as though it was finally taking its rightful place in the sky.
Like a cocoon falling apart, the fire and light that wrapped around the young man he had just tried to knock out with a blast of several layers of condensed wind to the noggin fell off, until only the aura of his radiance outlined his figure, making him visible.
Noriaki, no, the Fire God, floated there, his normally obsidian black hair a deep velvety purple, his face was covered in golden marks that looked like flames, rising from his neck and up his face, and his eyes burned like two separate stars all their own, his strange triple comma like pupils spinning as he beheld the world, almost as though for the first time.
Despite the look, despite the raw divine power this young man is exuding…
Dulio is not afraid.
Even though every moment, every second, the heat rose, the golden flames and light became a touch brighter, and the pressure of his divine aura grew and grew.
Dulio instead gave him a sad, small smile.
And intoned with a grieving utterance.
"...Balance Break."
As soon as those baleful words were uttered, it began.
The air around Dulio abruptly became charged to the extreme, as a whirlwind that could tear apart city blocks with ease suddenly burst from his form, churning the sea far beneath him, with lightning bolts viciously forking off his form and down into the waters.
But, more importantly, as if to challenge his light, the sky answered by bringing further darkness.
Clouds came into sudden existence, they curled and swirled into each other, and as they did so the clouds grew darker, and darker still, so dark that the day had seemingly turned to night, and the only light left was that which wrapped around the Fire God.
Who looked around, seemingly unbothered by the dark, instead focused purely on him, and the massive storm that had formed above his head.
Unfortunately…said storm is not his balance breaker, merely a byproduct of the increased power entering his balance breaker state grants.
No…
The Fire God began reaching for his sword.
This is.
A bubble, a fairly large bubble, all things considered, looking like your standard soapy bubble, yet easily surpassing the size of a bus, came up seemingly from the sea…and ate the Fire God whole.
That, by itself, didn't do anything, and indeed he just sort of looked around from within the glassy-looking sphere, mildly confused.
Then, Dulio opened out his arms.
"Flagello di Colori del Arcobaleno, la Stella Splendente della Fine."
Scourge of Rainbow Colors, the Blazing Star of the End
The Fire God widened his eyes, but far too late, if he even saw it coming at all before the inside of his bubble mirrored the climate of a frozen wasteland.
Ice-cold winds blew, freezing all things, and the Fire God suddenly found his fires turning into popsicles, his body contained within his aura blasted by all manner of snow, slush, ice, and hail.
In an instant, a small iceberg had formed, wrapping around his body, trapping him in a rapidly increasingly dense shelf of ice.
At the same time, more and more of those bubbles rose from the sea, converging on top of the building trapping him, letting the bubble grow larger and larger, so he could pile more and more ice and snow on top of him.
Ultimately, the big threatening-looking storm up above them was merely a divergence from the true threat posed by his balance breaker.
Bubbles, within which, he has absolute control over the climate and weather within.
A simple, yet terrifyingly effective power.
After all, the bubble trapping him had now grown to the size of a small home, and the ice was packed in so thickly and densely that he could barely see the glow produced by his aura anymore.
Although…Dulio cringed internally as he found himself adding yet more words to the already ridiculously long name of his balance breaker, but, seeing Noriaki there, looking like a blazing star…inspired him a little.
Never mind that though.
Dulio looked up at the storm above them.
Zenith Tempest, his Sacred Gear, his Longinus Class Sacred Gear.
War in his home country took his original parents away, and it had almost taken his newly found family away too once it caught up to the Church-owned orphanage he was living in.
But God had been gracious that day and had given him a gift. A power said to be second only to that which pierced His side.
With it, he kept his family safe. He'd always keep his family safe.
But the Church? They had a much more…grandiose ideas.
The Church took him in, fully, and began training him to be a warrior. A soldier.
A weapon for a war, a war which although very much supernatural, still broke apart families and friends, separated parents from their children, and so much worse.
At the time, Dulio could say confidently he didn't want any of that.
And it's at times like this when he's reminded of that again.
Forced to fight a potential friend because their two sides must conflict over something stupid.
As is the way of most wars throughout history.
But throughout it all, if there's one thing he can count on, it's the power with which his Longinus brings, enabling him some measure of control over this situation.
This can all be ended in a short amount of time, with minimal injuries, and minimal damage, because he's one of the strongest people in the world.
At least, that's what the Archangel told him after seeing his balance breaker for the first time.
…Before he then promptly barred Dulio from using the state within certain places, like the Vatican, for fear of the destruction the state could deal out just naturally.
Normally, Dulio would be offended, but it's understandable considering what his Longinus base power is.
It's why he specifically trained so hard to control his powers, enabling him to even use them indoors if need be safely, eventually pushing himself to the point where he achieved a subspecies balance breaker that contains much of the destruction within sealed-off spaces, the bubbles.
Yet still…
Dulio focused ahead once more.
The bubble before him had grown to the size of a good-sized family home, and within contained an equally large chunk of ice.
By this point, with the amount of cold and compact ice contained within, he should have suppressed Noriaki's powers down to the point he could be safely knocked out.
So why is it then, that the light contained within the ice hasn't shrunk? It's been keeping pace as it grows…
In fact, now it's expanding…faster…
Dulio blinked, as the ice within began to hiss, something he usually couldn't hear, before beginning to violently crack.
He gritted his teeth as he held out his arms, and pushed back harder.
Dozens, no, hundreds of smaller bubbles began converging upon the bubble containing Noriaki, explosively growing its size and the frozen wasteland climate within.
At the same time, he amped up the storm from a pretty bad winter storm to an outright frigid city-destroying blizzard.
For a moment, that seemed to push back down his escape attempt, his light abated, and the cracks within his icy prison were repaired.
But almost like clockwork, another surge.
Of golden light, pure unbridled golden power.
The cracks came again and spread across his prison like a horde of spider webs, each one's appearance accompanied by a sound like fireworks.
Dulio bit back an unflattering curse directed toward himself and tried to focus.
Yet, as his power grew, and Dulio's stayed the same, it quickly became too much.
The block of ice split, straight down the center.
And then he drew his sword.
It was like an angelic halo, burning and blazing, had made manifest within the bubble, but Dulio knew exactly what that spiraling golden ring was.
A single slash of his sword, bursting with golden flames.
The ring slammed into the bubble, and soon enough, the bubble began cracking.
Dulio flinched as he saw his bubble give around the ring, the golden light pushing out and spreading fractures across the entire orb.
Never, not once, had anyone been able to break out of his bubbles before.
He was so momentarily stunned that he didn't even think to dial back and annul the climate contained within, yet it burst free and froze a chunk of the Pacific Ocean.
Luckily, Noriaki seemed to take care of that for him.
The bubble broke apart, and rather than releasing a climate comparable to Cocytus right onto the Pacific, all the ice, the snow, and the frigid winds were consumed by an outpour of heat and light.
In its place? A column of golden light, fire, and divine power, roars like an angry cannon as it streaks through the sky, and the storm clouds above.
Dulio tensed, his skin starting to prickle as though he was standing in front of an open and max strength oven, that little warning giving him just enough time to summon the frozen and arctic winds around himself now, shielding him from the heat right as a shockwave of it rolls past.
"I…" Dulio perked, as a voice, definitely not his, but yet not quite Noriaki radiated across the sea toward him, "Refuse to be…contained!"
Now that…that sounded like the gods the old men up top wouldn't stop harping on and on about.
Full of arrogance, full of rage, and indignation.
He didn't realize it until now, but he did notice something off about Noriaki earlier when he entered…whatever it is this state is.
He started calling him Fire God in his head, even!
Out of nowhere, said god looked up at the sky, and roared.
Fire, so much pure golden fire it looked almost like molten metal, bellowed off his form, and shot straight up into the sky.
Dulio held his arms up, picking up the arctic winds around him to keep him from being baked alive, not able to stop what his true objective was.
The storm above is under Dulio's absolute control. It contains the potential to encompass the entirety of Japan, the southwestern islands, and the coasts of the countries nearby and then some.
So he could feel it, as his pillar of fire and rage shot into the sky like a lance of divine wrath, and broke the storm in the sky.
Bit by bit, the clouds began to splinter and pull apart, vaporizing at points even, disappearing into nothingness, and letting in the clear blue sky, and beams of light from the true son.
Once parts began to break, much like the bubble, the entire storm fell apart shortly thereafter.
It was only when the storm clouds were dispelled, and the darkness they made completely vanquished that he simmered down…figuratively.
He pulled back his flames, settled his voice, and leveled his head, his gaze, upon Dulio.
Above him now, sat the sun…and something in Dulio told him it was at nearly its highest point.
"You…" Noriaki begins to utter, and he's almost sure it is him, as he sounds much calmer now, yet there's still this deep, haughty undertone, "Do not own the sky."
Dulio blinks, a moment passes, and then another…
Something seems to slot, or click, into place within his mind, and at right that moment, Noriaki's body twitches.
He lets out a sharp groan, his breath no longer even air, just motes of pure golden flame, before he stretches, standing at attention, and gazing straight ahead.
His velvety purple hair shifts, becoming bright, and more flame or plasma-like, lifting and wafting in the air. At his back, his halos seemed to melt into his aura, the entire thing bellowing like a cloak of fire, made out of molten burning bright honey.
On top of that, the markings across his face started to glow brightly, turning themselves into streaks of burning molten metal across his skin.
The sword in his hand, the blade glowed with a similar molten shine to its edge.
"There can only be…One."
Noriaki grounded out, gravely yet simply, as he stared directly at Dulio.
Dulio couldn't help the nervous smile that broke across his face, but he did stop himself from opening his mouth.
There were so many questions he wanted to ask, so much he wanted to say.
Yet there's probably only one that truly mattered to him at this moment.
Why do you have to make this more difficult than it needs to be?
~ A New Sun ~
I felt like I was on the top of the world.
Both literally and figuratively.
Everything was so bright, so colorful. Almost like I was in the Shinkai, but not.
I felt lightheaded, yet my mind had never been sharper.
I was outside my body, looking down at a radiance to match, no, surpass the sun so completely and utterly it's not even a joke, yet I could feel the coiling the power within, the sheer amount of divine power and fire I could throw around with but a wave of my hand.
I felt ethereal…yet I knew this state was ephemeral.
There was no time to float here and take in the sights, marvel at my majesty.
I am complete. But only for such a short fleeting time, I need to make the most of it.
My gaze narrows upon my opponent, I feel the growing itch within the back of my eyes, and push down the irritation it causes as my power boils beneath the surface of my skin.
Something is about to break there, I can feel it. It's been growing ever since the bubble trap, getting worse and worse, but now…
Whatever.
There is no time.
My opponent refuses to speak, and I've already said what needs to be stated.
So let us begin.
I no longer need breath, for I am the sun.
So I simply move.
My form is light when I do, I practically appear before him, my blade already held aloft.
I bring it down, a simple arc, down and to the right, like a brush stroke across a canvas.
The Exorcist, however, is not idle, he manages to perceive me and holds out his hands.
As my sword comes down, the space between him and I becomes ice, as several streams and folds of arctic winds and frost converge upon a single point, forming a length of wall.
Which my blade promptly cuts through like its water, which it is, the ice screaming as it crackles and boils around my blade, before slicing clear through and straight for its maker.
Unfortunately, the ice gave my sword some resistance, buying the exorcist time to avoid my slashing golden arc, the winds grabbing and pulling him down closer to the sea, and away from me.
For the moment, I come upon him in just a moment more.
This time, my sword jabs out with me, and I catch the wide-eyed grimace from the Exorcist as I'm upon him and so near to running him through.
The winds, however, have something else to say about that, course correcting at a moment's notice to drag him once more away from my blade point.
My blade misses flesh, hitting air, and then into the water below.
Said part of the sea then promptly explodes.
Erupting from the force of my jab and the heat of my blade alone, sending up a geyser of boiling water that by my quick estimations could cover a fleet of navy battleships with ease.
I huff in annoyance and almost casually swing my sword out in an arc around me.
The geyser is severed in half before promptly being blown apart into nothing.
I look up, my eyes locking onto the several incoming attacks all aimed at me.
Several massive spouts or tornados of water, whipped up by several whirlwinds and infused with frigid arctic winds judging by them partly slush and ice.
I promptly ignore them all, my eyes seeing through it all, and finding my opponent once more up in the sky. Despite that damn itch!
Coward!
I blast toward him like a burning comet just entering the atmosphere.
One twister attempts to blindside me immediately, yet with a twist, I drag and cleave my sword through its side, evaporating the water and ice into nothingness.
Another comes straight from above, but I simply move faster than it, and it soars over my head.
Three more come in, one from the top, and one for either side, attempting to box me in.
Again.
No.
I stop, my aura focusing on one of my arms, turning my forearm just as bright as my blade, before I lash out with it as though I was slashing my sword.
Where my fingers go, a line of my divine power draws across the world, painting a canvas of golden fiery power.
The three slush twisters impact that line, and promptly explode, as though they struck an immovable unbreakable wall that was also as hot as the sun.
Beneath me, audibly popping sounds are heard by the dozens.
No, hundreds, and my gaze quickly turns to find the source.
Bubbles. Hundreds of the annoying things, rising from the boiling sea below, ascending rapidly towards my location.
I do not have time to slash every single one of those things apart, and even if I do, more will come to just replace them!
I look around, rapidly, to find the bubbles appearing all around me, with more slush twisters incoming on top of it all!
My eyes ache, and I let out a growl, as everything began to converge upon me, still attempting to box me in.
I feel it. The moment that itching ache finally bursts.
For the briefest of moments, I feel liquid splatter onto my face, but not from any attack of my foe.
No…
It's mine. My blood, as it spurts out of my eye, briefly touching my cheek before evaporating.
The words for what follows come naturally, inserted into my mind as if they always were there.
"Amano-Iwato."
All around where my left eye sees, space seems to darken, break, and burst open.
But these warped fractals of near pitch black glass bending inward are merely an entrance.
An entrance that greedily devours the twisters of water, the bubbles, everything. It doesn't pull anything in itself, it doesn't have a pull, that I can tell, it's merely a gateway.
A place with no sun. No light. A pitch black nowhere.
Such a place is inconceivable, but that is where it leads, I know it. And that is where I send every single attack too.
My gaze sweeps down, and around, scooping up everything around me, into that black nowhere cave. When each entrance takes its target, or my focus and gaze leaves it, it snaps shut, the broken black glass fractals snapping back into place with a shaded blink, before clearing, revealing free empty air and no warped entrance.
After a couple of moments of that, however, my gaze falls on my opponent himself.
He looked fairly confused himself, in fact, but that quickly turned to raw panic as the black fractal gateway began opening around him.
Unfortunately, he's not a mindless attack himself, and without any pull on the portal, he's able to pull himself away from it before I can open and snap it shut on him.
Oh well, no matter.
I close my left eye and focus my right on him instead.
This one though, feels like it'll do the trick.
Its name comes just as easily as the left's did.
"Akaruihiruotoko."
It is my name after all.
Blood burst from my right eye, and what followed was the opposite of my left eye's power.
A burst of pure, unadulterated, white light abruptly filled the space of my opponent and my sight.
It was so utterly bright, so pure, that it forced me to close my right as soon as it activated.
It was like a flashbang, or maybe the birth of a star would be more apt.
Its birth was short-lived, however, lasting for barely a heartbeat, before it flickered out of existence.
When I opened my eyes, it was like it was never even there, gone, but what it left in its place was proof of its existence.
My opponent floated there, blinking rapidly and mid-gasp, his entire form smoking and twitching with his outfit seared and charred around its edges.
His skin was noticeable far more a pinkish red than the pale he was before.
A chance!
"No more running…!"
I continue my original flight path, blasting straight toward him.
The exorcist barely manages to look my way, gritting his teeth as I soar toward him.
With trembling hands, he stretches them out, and a lightning storm bursts out from around him and his fingers.
It almost reminds me of Uncle's attack that one time…but on a much, much bigger scale, it looked like he was commanding the sky to drop upon me.
Wait…Uncle? No, Susanoo. Susan. That guy.
I blink, wearily, my body shuddering as my power begins to slip down a tiny ineffectual amount.
No…No not now!
I will not…be denied!
And if I can't have it, he won't either!
I meet the lightning head-on, I feel my entire body, my very being, sting as the aura around me begins to shift and harden at my will!
I barely catch a glimpse of what looks like a golden ribcage before the purple and blues of the lightning storm roll upon me like sheets and sheets of rain, obscuring all else from view.
I feel the pushback, the resistance, as the winds join the lightning, and my ascent begins to stall.
The half-formed golden ribcage around my body begins to crack, forking with fractures like the rain of lightning that bombards it.
At the same time, another drip of my power leaves me.
Then another.
And another, and another, and another…
I gasp.
And everything snaps back into place as though I had just woken up from a long, long dream where I was falling, bracing, for so long…
The last I remember was being in the sea, about to go all in, before…nothing.
Now? Now I'm looking up at a lot of blue and purple. Is that lightning?
Am I still fighting Dulio right now!?
I try to keep up the pressure, the pushback, my power is still massive right now, I don't think I've ever been this strong before!
I could fight Tobio in his abyss side balance breaker, my grandmother, Ama, hell, even like ten Susans or something! Probably all at the same time too!
Yet, it's slowly going down, and I don't even know what's-
Golden cracks form across my vision.
"...Fuck you other me…Seriously." I utter to myself, completely gobsmacked as more and more cracks form within my sight, "You petty bitch…!"
My aura, at least I'm pretty sure it's my aura, shatters, and all I see is enveloped in white.
I feel myself being seized by a storm as if a storm had hands, the pure lightning striking me from almost every angle, as it carries me away.
For that moment, then I feel myself slam into something hard, and my vision swims with blurry out-of-sync shadows and colors.
I feel as something wraps around my body that isn't plasma, and realize immediately where I am.
The sea.
Again.
Only for that to quickly change once more, as the water around me becomes much harder, and far more cold.
I'm locked in place so stiffly, I can't even shiver.
I…I could continue this fight, I know I could.
But I think I've done all I need to do, now…and I still don't know what I even did!
So, for now, I think I'll let him have this one.
It's a shame I don't think there'll be a next time after this, and that almost makes me want to milk this as much as I can…
But for once, I temper down that instinct, that inner Chuuni Dragon Emperor.
As the ice around my form presses me in harder and harder, and my vision gradually grows narrower and narrower, I offer no more resistance, and consider my plan finally complete.