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Remarks
Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (デジタル・デビル・ストーリー 女神転生 Digital Devil Story: Reincarnation of the Goddess ) is the first book in the Digital Devil Story trilogy written by Aya Nishitani. It was written in the late 1980s, and is the original source material that would eventually spawn the entire Megami Tensei franchise. The novel was soon adapted in anime form and billed under the same title.
Jusho High School's student body is divided: the gifted versus the normal. Akemi Nakajima, one of the gifted, is assaulted by one of the normal students, Kondo Hiroyuki. Battered and bloody, Nakajima decides to finish his Demon Summoning Program to exact his own revenge. What follows are the consequences of playing with demons...
-Zehava
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part 1: Night of Demons
Part 2: Transfer
Part 3: Possession
Part 4: Down the Road
Part 5: Sword of Flame
Epilogue
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Showing posts with label Reincarnation of the Goddess. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reincarnation of the Goddess. Show all posts
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Epilogue - Megami Tensei
Thump, Thump.
Something was throbbing. It was a slight rhythm, but was definitely there.
Nakajima had awoken earlier. He had felt warmth, and felt as if he wanted to remain immersed in sleep for just a little longer. Struck by a wave of sentimentality, Nakajima slowly opened his eyelids. He found that his arms were wrapped around Yumiko. A bittersweet fragrance drifted from her body.
Hesitantly, Nakajima spoke."Yumiko..."
She showed no response to his breath, but she had definitely returned to life. Her formerly torn mouth had returned to its lovely original shape, and her slightly opened lips shivered slightly as she breathed. Her eye sockets were now covered with well-formed eyelids, and her cheeks had a slight pink hue to them.
Nakajima's impatience was enveloped by an untainted presence.
"Don't worry. She will awaken soon enough."
Turning around, Nakajima saw Izanami standing above him. Though her hair was matted with green blood, her shining, beautiful expression, full of kindness, calmed his soul.
The goddess opened her lips. "I will take care of her for a while."
Nakajima was perplexed by her statement.
"It will not be long; only until I strengthen her enough so that she can fight demons."
"Fight demons? But Loki's dead!"
The goddess approached, took Nakajima's hands and looked into his eyes. White light shone throughout the space in front of his eyes, and all color vanished from his field of vision.
"Look at this scene, Akemi." Her voice full of worry, Izanami's voice hinted at the gravity of the situation.
As Izanami's fingers grabbed Nakajima's hands, an image clearly formed amongst the white space.
In the Jusho High CAI room that Nakajima was so familiar with, Ohara was sitting at a terminal, talking desperately.
"Loki, why won't you answer?"
Gripping the microphone as she faced the silent computer, the image of Ohara trembled. Turning the power on and off again and again, she tried to run the demon summoning program. But the host computer's magnetic tapes remained motionless. Only the fans of the air conditioner disturbed the silence of the CAI room.
"Ooh..." Ohara stooped over and grabbed her lower belly. All the blood drained from her face. As if a sign that she was carrying the child of a demon within her, scales had started growing on the white nape of her neck.
"Don't kick!" Ohara whispered, scolding the new life growing within her.
As Ohara continued typing on the keyboard with a hopeful look on her face, the magnetic tapes started spinning as if mocking her on a whim.
"Loki, is that you!?" Ohara's eyes glimmered with joy. She tightly gripped the microphone.
"I've been worried about you, Loki!"
At Ohara's words, the magnetic tape slowed its spinning, almost as if it were hesitating. As Ohara cocked her head in suspicion, a low, hoarse voice sounded from the speakers.
"I am Set. Are you the one that calls me?"
"Set? I'm looking for Loki. Loki, please respond. Where are you?" Ohara's hysterical voice echoed throughout the CAI room.
"My name is Set. You are insolent to call the name of another..."
As Izanami let go of Nakajima's hands, the image dispersed, and in its place a gloomy space spread out before his eyes. Sweat from his temples trickled down his neck.
"Set!? That's the most powerful evil god from Egyptian legend!" Nakajima's voice was shaking.
"It's not just Set. Many demons have sensed the pathway you opened to their world, kindling their ambition to conquer the human world. More than just a handful of demons are looking to make an alliance with you...."
Izanami's voice was solemn and full of gravity.
Trying to push indecision out of his mind, Nakajima closed his eyes and spoke.
"This is all my doing and I have to reap the seeds that I have sown. My mission now is to find a way to close the passageway to the demon world and do so."
"Well spoken." Izanami's expression softened slightly. "It will be difficult, but I am confident your efforts will eventually pay off. I cannot descend to the material world myself so I cannot fight alongside you. However, I will give you Hi-no-Kagutsuchi instead. He is a god that will lend you great power as a sword of flame when you are in danger. Hi-no-Kagutsuchi's power is a force to be reckoned with even amongst the gods of Yamato, and will surely help you."
As he listened to Izanami, Nakajima could not help but feel anxious about the still-sleeping Yumiko. Perhaps she knew what he was feeling since the goddess gently put her hand on his shoulder.
"I will give this girl my power. And when she has gotten strong enough to defend herself on her own, I will return her to you. You'll wait that long, won’t you?" Not waiting for an answer to her question, Izanami turned away from Nakajima.
"Soon a messenger from Yomi will come to pick up your friend. Until then, enjoy your brief reunion." With a smile, Izanami quietly lay on top of the dais. She vanished as if dissolving into the very air; ashes in the form of a human figure remained behind on the stone slab.
"Izanami..." Nakajima reflexively started toward the disappearing vision of the goddess; a familiar voice called him to a stop.
"Nakajima-kun, you kept your promise to me!"
Turning around, he saw Yumiko looking back at him, her chocolate eyes filled with kindness. Delicate and pure, she leapt into Nakajima's waiting arms.
Sword of Flame –Chapter 5
Though he had made it all the way to Izanami's burial chamber, Nakajima had no idea how to make contact with her. He was at a loss for what to do. A cold chill ran down his spine; he looked around and found himself staring at Loki. The demon was looking in through the entrance to the chamber. Unable to make a sound, Nakajima froze, rooted in place.
"It's nice to see you are doing well." Loki calmly folded his arms as he spoke, intimidating.
Shielding Yumiko's body, Nakajima carefully watched Loki to see what the demon would do. If he had half a mind to, Loki could easily demolish him in his current defenseless state. So why wasn't he trying to come inside the burial chamber?
Before long, Nakajima's eyes were drawn to the silver relief carved into the floor of the chamber’s entrance. The Hexagram was preventing Loki from entering. That was the only possible explanation. As if maybe he had realized what Nakajima had been thinking, Loki started talking to him in a coaxing tone.
"Nakajima, there is no reason to fear me. If you join forces with me again, you can rule the human world!"
"Hah! You think that will work after you tried to kill me? To start with, I didn't run away from you in the first place. I've got to bring Yumiko back to life, whatever it takes. Now go away and don't bother me."
"You want to revive the woman? Then why don't you ask me to? It would be only too simple for me to teach you the art of Soul-Returning."
The art of Soul-Returning was a spell to revive the dead. However, even if the spell could completely restore a person's body, it could not restore their soul as well.
"The art of Soul-Returning? Are you seriously asking me to replace Yumiko's pure soul with that of a demon?"
"Pure, you say?" Snickering, Loki opened his jet-black eyes wide. "That seems like an unlikely choice of words for a human who willfully joined forces with demons. Look at my eyes!"
Loki's voice was full of power difficult to defy. Nakajima reflexively looked into the demon's eyes and gulped at the horrific vision he saw deep within.
Countless people with heads wrenched off or severed by demon tentacles. Eyes rotting and oozing out of their sockets. Flowing rivers of fresh blood. Kondo Hiroyuki, Takamizawa Kyoko, and a host of women he had never seen before glared at Nakajima, hatred and curses in their eyes. He could almost hear their anguished cries.
"Take a good look, Nakajima. This is all what you wanted. It was none other than you that called me here to the Assiah World."
Loki's hearty laughter ripped deep into Nakajima's soul. But the faint smell of flowers kept Nakajima from breaking down completely.
"The very least I can do now is bring Yumiko back to life."
"Without using the art of Soul-Returning, what can a mere human do to revive the dead?"
"You're right that I can't do anything myself. But the spirit of Izanami, resting in this burial chamber, will grant my wish."
"Such foolishness!" Loki grinned and laughed, but his lips were twisted somewhat unnaturally. Even with the protection of his thick bronze skin, the crimson paint was starting to consume the demon's body little by little.
"Very well, then. If that corpse is so important to you, then proceed." Loki's laugh turned into a roar of anger. His pitch-black eyes, full of hatred, turned to Yumiko's corpse. White vapor suddenly began to rise out of her body; a horrible rotting smell assaulted Nakajima's nostrils.
"Stop it!"
Trying to shield her from Loki's gaze, Nakajima ran over to Yumiko. He put his hand to the nape of her neck, but it came back covered in rotten flesh and wet with meaty juices. Unable to control himself, Nakajima vomited into the blackened hand covered in fleshy liquids. Yumiko's neck seemed to droop into an unnatural position; her eyeballs rolled out of her head and onto the floor, trailing blood behind them. Where her nose had been, nothing but a hole with a few scraps of flesh remained. Her hair separated from her rotting scalp and fell to the floor. Yumiko's white teeth became visible where her lips rotted away and dropped off. Nakajima stared, dumbfounded, becoming more terrified by the moment. Yumiko's hand slowly began to move on its own. His whole body drenched in cold sweat, Nakajima stepped away from her.
"Why are you doing this to me? Please let me die!" Yumiko finally stood up on her own.
"Please, kill me..." Speaking indistinctively, Yumiko approached Nakajima. Each step she took, a pot shattered, and the pomade inside flowed out onto the floor. Her fingers, merely bone now that their flesh had rotted off, grasped at the air, trying to grab onto Nakajima's hand.
Having completely lost all capacity for reason, Nakajima shook his hand wildly, as if to keep Yumiko away, and retreated further into the burial chamber. Slowly and steadily, as if being pulled in on an invisible line, she came closer and closer to him. No matter how hideous she became, Nakajima could never harm Yumiko. As he was pressed further and further back into the burial chamber, he placed his hand down onto the granite dais, picked up a handful of ash, and threw it at Yumiko.
Ancient magicians had used ash as a ward against evil spirits, and perhaps memories of this had lodged somewhere deep in Nakajima's subconscious. As the ash landed on the pomade spilling from the broken pots, it flew back up into the air despite there being no hint of a breeze; it began to assemble into an image highlighted like a hologram. The instant Yumiko's extended hand was about to grab onto Nakajima's throat, her body was enveloped in a flash of crimson.
The spell controlling her cadaver like a puppet was broken. The power flooded out of Yumiko's corpse, and it crumpled to the ground.
"I'm glad you made it, Akemi."
Nakajima returned to his senses as a gentle voice called to him. A woman that looked exactly like Yumiko was gazing at him with eyes full of kindness. No, only her silhouette matched Yumiko's. Her milky-white skin, concealing the divinity within, shone with a slight phosphorescent glow, and her chocolate-brown eyes glimmered with a light that suggested a wisdom clearly different than that of a human.
"Izanami..." Nakajima found himself kneeling all of a sudden. The goddess nodded before she turned toward Loki.
"Demon, return to your world!" Her voice was cold and harsh.
Loki smiled sarcastically, but his expression could not hide his uneasiness.
"You appear to be one of the Kunitsukami of Yamato--why do you go to such lengths to support these humans?"
"Because this girl is my reincarnation."
"Your reincarnation?" Loki spread his arms in an exaggerated motion. "Very well. You can have the girl. In exchange, I will take the boy. It surely will benefit him to join forces with me. I still wish to avoid any unnecessary confrontation."
Holding his breath, Nakajima watched the two talk. A shiver ran down his spine.
"You're simply afraid that some other demon will get a hold of Akemi and his knowledge." Izanami strained her eyes and glared at Loki's chest. Red light exploded on his breast, and Loki stumbled back from the blow. The spontaneous combustion power she used was many times more powerful than when she had possessed Yumiko.
"So that's your answer, eh?" Angry, Loki's hair stood on end, and he glared at Izanami from the entrance of the burial chamber. No matter what he did, he could not cross that silver relief. On the other hand, Izanami's power had not dealt him any serious damage either. As the two glared at each other, the goddess' expression clouded. Right at that moment, Nakajima noticed the form of a white silhouette in Loki's dark eyes.
I've seen that before...!
Loki's eyes reflected not the Izanami standing before him, but her form as a hideous cadaver, chasing after the man she loved.
"Take a good look, Izanami." Loki's low voice shook the goddess' resolve.
“Like a mirror, my eyes reflect whatever your deepest fears are. The more you look into them, the more your own fears will make you tremble. I must say that you're quite hideous--I have trouble believing this is your true form." As if to add fuel to the fire Loki was kindling, the image of a single person appeared, that of the young Izanagi, running in terror from the hideous Izanami chasing him.
"Your mate abandoned you because of your ugliness? How pathetic. Heh, heh, heh."
"You dirty..." Forgetting herself in her humiliation, Izanami started walking towards Loki, pulled in.
"No, Izanami! If you leave the burial chamber, you'll be at Loki's mercy!"
At Nakajima's words, Izanami painfully stopped in her tracks. Someone’s dark shadow darted behind her.
Loki's left hand was moving in a rhythmical motion. By the time Izanami realized it was a spell to control the dead, it was already too late. Yumiko's corpse had stood up and shoved Izanami from behind. Surprised, the goddess stumbled outside of the burial chamber.
Making sure to stay out of her deadly line of sight, Loki kicked out Izanami's legs out from under her, and twisted her arm behind her back, pinning her to the ground.
"That was all too easy! It was foolish for a mere woman like you to try to resist me." The parts of Loki's body making contact with Izanami started to change from bronze skin into pink protoplasm.
"Kunitsukami of Yamato, I will impregnate you with the child of a demon."
With a stench seemingly capable of polluting the purest of substances, the repulsive blob started to spread over Izanami's body. Izanami looked at Nakajima, asking for help. But what could the unarmed Nakajima do against a demon that was capable of effortlessly restraining even a goddess? In a last-ditch effort, Nakajima entered a command into his handheld computer. Though trying to summon the electronic beast failed in the crimson burial pathway, the powerful aura in the burial chamber might act as a catalyst to bring its power back. In answer to Nakajima's prayers, Kerberos appeared in the chamber and let out a roar that shook its very walls, then stood ready for any orders.
"Kerberos, rescue Izanami!"
The outcome of the battle was clear from the outset. Even if Kerberos was at peak health, Loki was on an entirely different level of power. Nakajima already knew what the result of such a match would be. Add to that the fact that the demon beast was already hurt and tired, and it became all the more obvious. Even so, Kerberos resolutely leapt at Loki. His beast's instinct had most likely already told it that this terrible enemy's one weak point was the protoplasmic area on his forehead. Dodging Loki's swipes, Kerberos clawed at Loki's forehead with his burly front paws, leapt away, and lunged at him again, repeating the attack pattern without let. Trying to fend off these attacks while using another hand to keep Izanami down, Loki was having more trouble fighting Kerberos than might have been expected.
Loki was not paying any attention to Nakajima at all.
If he was able to seize this chance and hit him in the wound in his forehead, he might be able to rescue Izanami. If only he had some sort of weapon...Nakajima desperately looked around the chamber, praying to find something he could use.
Izanami cried out. Turning around in surprise, Nakajima saw her writhing in agony, still under Loki's restraint. But her eyes were not displaying any pain. It almost seemed as if she was secretly trying to communicate something to him.
What is it you want to say?
Instinctively Nakajima started to step outside of the chamber. As if to warn him, the goddess glared at him, and cried out, "Hurry! The fire!"
For an instant, Loki was distracted by Izanami's words and looked in Nakajima's direction; Kerberos seized the opportunity and slashed Loki’s forehead, once again drawing the demon’s attention.
Fire? What do you mean by fire?
In a moment of epiphany, Nakajima remembered the two spheres that Yomotsu-Shikome had given him. Praying that they would do something, he knocked them together. Twice, three times, pale fireworks shot out, but other than that, nothing happened.
"Is this really what Izanami wants...?" Nakajima's palms started sweating with worry.
His last-ditch attempt at doing anything by knocking the spheres together produced fireworks that lit the pomade in the room. With a large roar, the flames leapt up and formed a circle in the air. In the center of the pale orange flames, the shape of a human's face formed, and flickered with purpose.
Hi-no-Kagutsuchi...
It was the god of fire, Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, whom Izanami gave birth to right before she first died. Even though he had not been taught that name by anyone, Nakajima somehow knew it. Instinctively, Nakajima extended his right hand into the flames hovering into the air. Air swirling like a whirlwind, Hi-no-Kagutsuchi's flames painted a spiral shape in the air as they coiled around Nakajima's outstretched hand.
Nakajima bit down on his lip and tried to withstand the heat. His skin did not feel like it was being scorched by flames. Instead, it felt as if the flesh and bone making contact with the flame was somehow boiling, giving off heat from within. His flame-enveloped arm gave off a great flash of light so blinding that even the battling Loki and Kerberos stopped for a moment.
Rubbing his dazzled eyes, Nakajima realized that his hand, stretched upward toward the ceiling, gripped a sword that emitted a phosphorescent, crimson glow. An overwhelming power the likes of which he had never experienced flowed throughout his body.
Without hesitation, Nakajima leapt out of the burial chamber. As his sword emanated its unimaginable aura, Loki's movements faltered for a moment. Not missing a beat, Kerberos bared his fangs and attacked; the instant Loki tried to brush him aside with his hand, he left his face wide open.
Nakajima thrust the blade forward with all his might. Reflexively, Loki let go of Izanami and tried to cover his forehead with his right hand, but Nakajima's sword clove it in two. With a feeling of heavy resistance, Nakajima’s sword sank deep into Loki's forehead.
"GYAAAH!"
Loki's cry shook the very walls of the burial pathway. Clutching his wound with his left hand, Loki staggered to his feet, the sword still embedded in his forehead. Starting from the protoplasmic mass of his lower body, the demon's bronze torso underwent a rapid transformation. With an unpleasant slimy sound, his bronze skin crumbled away. The impaled sword clattered to the ground. Loki's entire body transformed into an undefined, undulating lump.
Astonished at his own unexpected power, Nakajima watched as one section of the unstable mass of flesh before him started throbbing. Suddenly, as if it was a separate life of its own, a green heart broke through the protoplasmic mass and tumbled onto the floor. It started to draw a strange figure on the floor with the stream of green blood flowing behind it. As it did so, the air seemed to slightly twist in on itself, centered on the figure the heart was drawing.
"That is Loki! Nakajima, do not let the demon escape!"
Pulled back to his senses by Izanami's voice, Nakajima swiftly picked the Hi-no-Kagutsuchi sword off the floor and thrust it into the heart of Loki as it tried to escape into the warped space.
After an instant of silence, the heart burst like a popped balloon. The undefined mass of flesh stopped writhing.
Within a heartbeat, the silence was broken as Nakajima was assaulted by a rumbling roar from deep under the floor of the underground valley. Crimson stones started falling from the high, darkness-blanketed ceiling.
Still holding the sword, Nakajima tumbled into the burial chamber. He crawled through the rumbling underground space. The pots shattered one after another, spilling their pomade on the floor. Out of place amongst the chaos, the gentle smell of flowers wafted throughout the room.
"Yumiko..." As Nakajima tried to make out the glowing white form by the entrance of the burial chamber, his consciousness drifted far away.
Sword of Flame –Chapter 4
After leading Nakajima to the burial chamber, Yomotsu-Shikome had sensed a new presence and hurried to confront it. As she rarely displayed any sort of emotion outwardly, it was unclear whether or not she was pondering the large number of intruders today; in the thousands of years she had protected the sanctity of the Kofun tomb, there had never been a time when it had seen two visitors on the same day. Presently, she came upon Loki running down the burial corridor. She stretched her slimy arms out as far as they could go to block his passage.
"RAUIERE!"
Yomotsu-Shikome tried to tell him something in her foreign tongue. She could sense that this intruder possessed a power much different and far greater than any foolish human tomb robber that had previously wandered in. If possible, she wanted to expel him without a fight.
Caught off guard, Loki stood still and narrowed his jet-black eyes as he sized up the power of this new arrival. He then started to calmly walk forward, an arrogant smirk on his face.
Traveling faster than the eye could see, Loki's fist slammed into Yomotsu-Shikome's still-extended shoulder. Without even a chance to cry out, the monster woman was slammed against the rock wall, her flailing purple-flecked legs kicking at the cold stone floor.
"Did you really think you would be able to stop me?" Loki mocked Yomotsu-Shikome as she finally managed to stand back up.
Having fully regained her senses, Yomotsu-Shikome charged at Loki, bellowing threats at him. But Loki did not even attempt to dodge. He merely grabbed the fearsome monster woman’s arm as she charged and twisted it hard. Yomotsu-Shikome's arm was torn off below the elbow; fresh blood gushed out of the wound. Realizing that she didn’t stand a chance of defeating Loki by sheer strength, the monster woman made a suicidal charge at the demon, attempting to pin him with her overwhelming weight. Surprised, Loki fell over as she crashed into him. Though her attack succeeded, Yomotsu-Shikome's fangs could not penetrate his bronze skin. Even as she attempted to tear out his throat, she only succeeded in making harmless scraping sounds against his neck.
Loki plunged his sharp talons into Yomotsu-Shikome's chest and tore out her heart. He nonchalantly threw the monster woman aside as she let out a horrible death cry, before proceeding down the path as if nothing had happened.
"Izanami, Izanami...."
Yomotsu-Shikome's sorrowful cries soon became quieter than the gentle breeze flowing through the corridor.
Sword of Flame –Chapter 3
Led by Yomotsu-Shikome, Nakajima had reached the end of the burial pathway. Before him, a burial chamber stood; it had to be the spot where Izanami lay.
I've finally made it here...
The chamber itself had no door, but a silvery, fluorescent relief in the entryway’s floor emitted an aura, as if it were guarding the chamber within. It strongly resembled a Solomon Hexagram.
Yomotsu-Shikome gestured with her chin as if to urge him inside. As Nakajima started to enter, she gently placed Yumiko on his back so that he could carry her.
"Aren't you coming in?"
At his question, the monster woman looked struck by fear and awe and shook her head. All of a sudden, Yomotsu-Shikome thrust her long arm down her throat, all the way down to her elbow. Her green neck expanded, and she vomited fiercely. An awful stench wafted up from the bile; Nakajima reflexively turned away. Yomotsu-Shikome, on the other hand, retrieved two glowing blue spheres from amongst the vomit and presented them to Nakajima. While he didn't particularly want to take them, he didn't want to ignore the beast woman's kindness, and grimaced as he accepted the gift.
The phlegm-covered spheres felt very light and fit perfectly into his hands.
"What are these?"
In response to Nakajima's question, the giant woman made a motion of striking her slimy hands together.
"Am I supposed to knock these together?"
Yomotsu-Shikome nodded over and over again, narrowed her eyes, and opened her mouth halfway.
Was that just a smile? Nakajima started to feel fondness for the monster.
The sound of someone's cry from the far end of the burial pathway echoed throughout the area. Yomotsu-Shikome shuddered with surprise. She started back along the path, regretfully looking behind several times. Stooping over so that Yumiko would not slide off his back, Nakajima wiped off the spheres the monster woman had given him on his slacks and knocked them together forcefully. Bright orange fireworks flew in all directions, but aside from that, nothing seemed to happen.
Are these supposed to be used in some sort of ceremony or something?
Unable to find an answer, Nakajima dropped the two spheres into his pocket and, Yumiko's weight on his back, waddled over to the relief.
The burial chamber itself smelled slightly of flowers. It was about four meters long in every direction. Dozens of pots as high as Nakajima's waist were stacked up all around the room. He looked inside them and saw oil gathered at their bottoms. They appeared to be what was giving off the smell of flowers. It was most likely a pomade offered to Izanami. In front of him, a white granite dais stood. On top of it lay ashes in the form of a cross.
No, it was the form of a person lying on their back.
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