From Mortal To Divinity

It has been about a year since the ritual. With us having acclimated ourselves to the changes brought about by the ritual, Scathach and I plan on leaving the Land of Shadows to travel, and perhaps witness what will become famous legends first hand. Before we can do that however, we must wait for Azula to fake her death so that she may escape from her duties as a queen to join us.

By the gods, If one ever told me that I would one day say that sentence with a straight face and believe it, then I would laugh in that person's face before calling them a liar. Yet, here I am thinking about Azula faking her death to give up a queen's power. Then again, if I had lords and knights under me as problematic as hers, I would also wish to escape by faking my death. They are constantly causing trouble with neighboring kingdoms and almost cause wars when there are no benefits to be gained from it. Not land, money, or resources.

Shaking the idle thoughts from my head, I turn my attention to Scathach who is currently reading a letter. We are currently in the courtyard and have just finished our morning training. I am sitting on the ground with my back to one of the walls of the courtyard while she stands next to me leaning on said wall.

"What does the letter say?" I ask as Scathach reads a letter delivered to her by one of Azula's messengers.

He had arrived in the woods outside of the Land of Shadows early in the morning while Scathach was out hunting, there he stumbled upon her and delivered the letter.

"Apparently your speculations were correct. He had placed her as Aife to cause drama. However since that did not happen, he believes that her presence here is moot. So he is taking her from this time and placing her sometime after the third holy grail war. He was kind enough to allow her to write this letter and have a servant deliver it." explains Scathach as she burns the letter with firebending after reading it.

That is what I missed when we did the ritual. I did not take our abilities outside of the PJO universe into account, nor did I think that the ritual would give more than one power. Now Scathach can firebend, charmspeak, can summon storms like a child of Neptune, and is empathic. From what we were able to gather through experimenting, The ritual imparted one ability, skill, or piece of knowledge from each jump other than Mass Effect and A Song of Ice and Fire. From my Arkhamverse jump she received part of my hand-to-hand combat skills. Enough for her to go toe-to-toe with D.i.c.k as Robin before he left and went on to become Nightwing.

"Then we no longer have to wait for her to leave." I say as I get up.

"Indeed. We can even leave today to visit Setanta, then Ferdiad. It has been a while since we have heard anything from them." she answers as we make our way inside the castle.

"Yes it has. Do you think that Setanta was able to marry that lord's daughter he had his eye on?" I ask

"Please" answers Scathach with a laugh. "That boy probably charmed her even before the father even set training under me as a condition."

Hearing her words I can't help but smile since that is exactly the type of thing he would do.

Once inside the castle we make our way to our shared bedroom and begin to pack everything we will need. Although we never plan on returning here, there is not much to pack. For clothes we both have our rune suits that are self cleaning. In terms of hygiene, we do everything through magic, whether it's with runes or summoning water to clean ourselves it is all done with magic. As for traveling equipment, we have none. As such the only things we have to pack are our research notes on magic, our rune suits, which we wear, and our spears which we keep inside our bodies through a runic array along with our notes. It is similar to how Shirou keeps Avalon inside his body.

I call it Repository of the Hoarder, and it is made with ᚨᚠ /ᚱᛉ ᛏᛗ ᛖᛁ. The eight runes that are used are divided into four pairs, together forming a rough square while leaving out the corners. Each of these pairs define a single, essential function of the rune. At the top you have the Ansuz and the Fehu rune, standing for communication/naming and possession/abundance. These define what objects can be stored and also what amount and how much variety the rune can take. This is decided by the amount of magical energy that is used in setting up and maintaining the rune, although there is an upper limit.

Only items where a rune sequence consisting of Fehu and Mannaz has been applied by the caster can be stored. If this is applied on an item that already has this sequence from another caster (in other words, stealing), the conflicting runes will either destroy the object harmlessly or explosively. The object will explode if there is enough magical energy in the vicinity, with 'enough' again differing, depending on the mass and volume of the object. The magical energy requirements for this can be met by either the surrounding mana and/or magical energy present in the object if it has been enchanted.

Opposite of it is the rune pair of Mannaz and Tiwaz. This grants the Authority of the rune solely to the wielder, making it so that only I can use it. It works in direct conjunction with the upper pair. On the left you have the Isa and Ehwaz rune, that do the actual transporting. What happens is that, when an item is placed in the center of the rune, it dissolves and is stored directly in the body similar to Avalon in Shirou. With the meaning of the Isa rune of time of turning inwards and waiting for what is to come the object can be retrieved at any time.

Finally there is the sequence of Raidho Merkstave and Algiz on the right. These are included to ensure the safety of the objects. The reverse Raidho keeps the objects from degrading or being damaged otherwise. The Algiz rune is more for the protection of the caster, making sure that he is not possessed by a cursed object or harmed by pieces reconfiguring themselves inside the body.

The rune is placed on my stomach similar to how naruto has the fuinjutsu seal on his. After applying it and storing objects, they can be summoned anywhere on the human body afterwards, so it is not as if the item's burst out of the stomach.

After our things are packed, we put on our rune suits. Normally the rune suits look like tight full body suits, however once we wear them they automatically take whatever form we prefer and stays that way unless we make them change. Mine transforms into a perfect replica of the atlantean armor I wore during the second titanomachy. Scathach's meanwhile takes the form of her default fate grand order outfit.

Once ready, we make our way out of the Land of Shadows and Scathach closes the entrance to it and we make our way to Ulster with Scathach leading the way in a sprint. While our trip to Ulster is uneventful, I cannot help the foreboding feeling that makes itself known to me. I know that sometime in legend Setanta kills Ferdiad due to the war Medb causes against Ulster. However, I took precautions to make sure that he survives.

Before Setanta and Ferdiad left, I gifted each one of them a rune suit. While it is nowhere near as powerful defensively as Scathach and my rune suit, it is still good enough to make it extremely hard to kill them. Other than giving them around B rank magic resistance, protection from ranged attacks and elemental magic, they also each have a function that is designed to counteract whatever it is that killed them in their legends.

For Ferdiad, it was Gae Bolg that killed him, it was an "undodgeable" attack. Setanta's spear is "undodgeable" because it manipulates fate. More specifically, it bears a curse that reverses causality, when he activates the spear, the fixed future of "the spear pierces the enemy's heart" is created, and then events in the present are warped to comply with that predetermined future. For example, if the thrust's aim is inaccurate, the spear extends or changes direction to pierce the heart. Even when the enemy tries to dodge it it will alter its course to pierce the heart. Instead of "the heart was pierced because the spear was thrust", it becomes "the heart was pierced, therefore the spear must have been thrust". At the time that I made the suit, I was not confident in giving the suit a function that cancels out Gae Bolg's effect. Even now I am not confident that I can create a runic array to alter fate to such an extent.

However, that did not mean that there was no way for me to make a suit that helps him survive. Instead of trying to make a runic array that will alter fate, I made one that will keep him out of its range. While Gae Bolg is undodgeable, it does have a flaw one can capitalise on before the attack is initiated. Once the user is ready to initiate the attack, the spear releases a considerable amount of bloodl.u.s.t.

Ferdiad's rune suit is designed to keep him outside of Gae Bolg's range once it releases a certain amount of bloodl.u.s.t. Similar to Doctor Strange's cape of levitation, this suit has a certain amount of sentience and intelligence to it. It is nothing special as the sentience is used to recognize the level of bloodl.u.s.t coming from Gae Bolg, and the intelligence is used to move the wielder outside of the spear's range of four meters by releasing a mana burst from the bottom of the suit's feet and launching the wearer away from Gae Bolg.

Before I can sink deeper into my thoughts, the sound of battle reaches our ears. Scathach looks towards me, a question on whether to investigate or not clear on her face and I know why. Ever since we started to make our way to Ulster, I have felt a strong premonition permeating the air, and I know that she feels it too. With a nod I answer her question and we begin to make our way towards the sounds.

Soon we come across a chaotic and bloody battlefield, and immediately I know why I felt like this. There on the battlefield, Setanta stands proudly there without his rune suit surrounded by many dead enemies, and even more living enemies. He is bloody, injured, exhausted, and one can easily tell that he is on his last leg by how he sluggishly moves as a spear is thrust towards his heart. He makes to dodge but I can easily tell that he will not be able to completely dodge it. Not wasting a second, I increase my speed and race towards him.

As I almost reach the battlefield however, Scathach races after me and grabs my arm to intercept me.

"He will not survive this battle." I calmly tell her.

Even if the spear pierces him, I know for a fact that I can reach him fat enough to stop him from dying using only my physical speed with no enhancements.

"He knows." she answers me, the pain in her voice is made more obvious to me through our parabatai bond. "But this is his choice and we must respect it. He chose to not wear his rune suit even though he broke every single one of his geas."

I cannot help but frown in disgust hearing that term. I will never understand why that custom exists. Warriors place restrictions on themselves through a geas, and by doing so it strengthens them. If you break them however, it will leave you extremely weak and vulnerable. It is honestly a custom that I will never subscribe to no matter how close to a home this land feels like.

"Fine." I say with resignation. "However, I will speak to him before he dies."

Scathach simply nods, and together we watch as Setanta continues to fight and kill no matter how many times his body is pierced. For three hours, Setanta moves his body to fight back and kill countless enemies through willpower alone. Eventually however, I can see his body start to give out no matter how much he wills it not to.

Without saying a word to each other we race towards Setanta and immediately arrive in time to stop five spears from piercing his body.

"Huh, I must be hallucinating because my beautiful teacher came to see me in my final hour." says Setanta with his trademark smirk.

"I would worry if I started to hallucinate men in my final hour, Setanta." I answer him with a smirk of my own.

"I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the vision of beauty that currently fills my vision." he answers me with a glare.

Not bothering to answer him, I release my domain over the battlefield and increase the air pressure to suffocate all of them. Eventually they all fall unconscious and I turn to Setanta who is being held up by Scathach.

"You are an idiot. Why did you not wear your rune suit?" I ask him.

"Ferdiad didn't wear it." he simply answers with a shrug.

I had a hunch that he would not wear it in his duel against Setanta, but I still had to try. These two idiots wish to die as warriors, not as old men. No matter how much I do not agree with them, I respect them for the choice.

"I'm glad I got to see you both before I died, teach." he says with a smile on his face as he closes his eyes and takes his last breath.