If you desire something, just take it.

A rather simple philosophy. Whether it was rebelling against existing authorities, assassinating Kings for their crown jewels, or thumbing her way into a God’s authority as a mortal, it suited Inanna just fine. Even after her True form had been trapped away within the Seven Gates, she hadn’t stopped trying— even as a mere reflection —to find a way back.

Thus, it was only natural that her Host, randomly chosen or not, would share that particular attribute. Like begets like, and no better example was needed.

Lukas Aguilar. A mortal. A beguilingly naive human at first glance, but one whose spirit was surrounded by a steel wall. One that would break, but not bend. A defiance so refreshing that Inanna couldn’t help but indulge herself in it, if only slightly.

Still more than she had anticipated.

Most importantly, he was a mortal that the Omphalos of the shattered Lostbelt had merged with. A true miracle, even for those with divine comprehension. It was not completely novel— warriors and Emperors had consumed Omphaloi of minor anomalies to increase their soul capacities, though that came with its own host of issues.

But for the Omphalos of a Lostbelt to successfully merge with a mortal human and leave his mind intact?

It was unheard of.

And now, the mortal had gone ahead and performed something equally fascinating. He had Created life, very much like the anomaly his schema suggested he was. Of course, he was in her constant presence ever since his arrival upon this subastra. As such, it was only natural for some of her own brilliance to seep into him. A side effect of residing in his mindscape, no doubt.

Inanna shifted her attention to the thing in front of him.

It was a blob. A blob that could extend itself to several meters and thin itself into a serpent, but a blob nonetheless. One with a dark purple tongue of all things that meowed.

There was, of course, the question of whether this thing was capable of accepting monster prototypes like its creator intended. She also wondered if the basic anti-spiritual nature of aqāru was what served as its newfound aspiration to behave like a cat. Or aqāru-cat. Or slime-cat.

It was a walking, breathing, meowing mass of contradictions. Though it was oddly fitting, seeing as how its creator was much of the same himself, apart from the meowing. Poetic, but it made none of it any less confusing.

“Why the fuck is this thing meowing?”

The thing in question was currently rubbing its makeshift head against the mortal’s legs and purring innocently. At this point, was she even surprised? The mortal’s existence was a fluke in and of itself. It was only natural his creations would follow suite rather rapidly.

“I must say,” she dryly replied, “it is a rare instance that manages to confound even me. I cannot judge whether to laugh at your attempt or wonder at your sheer dumb luck.”

The mortal merely scowled. “It was the Omphalos in me. I could feel it perusing through my mind, looking for memories of… something, I guess. I’ve only ever had one thing I could really call a pet.”

A wretched cat.

It was beneath her dignity as a goddess, but Inanna found it excruciatingly difficult to keep herself from loudly sighing at the revelation.

"… I see."

Infernal creature it may have been, but it was a mortal animal that was born and perished on a Lostbelt without any schema. Without a spiritual constitution of any sort. If anything, all information about the cat was limited to the mortal’s own personal experiences and memories of it.

Why something like that was chosen by the Omphalos over a complete monster prototype was beyond even her.

Giving up, Inanna instead considered the area they were in. No doubt the anomaly they were in marked their surroundings as a monster-less zone, to keep the information crystals undamaged. It would not surprise her in the slightest were there hordes of monsters waiting just on the border of the zone, anxious to rip the mortal’s head from his shoulders. Of course, if the mortal were to start breaking crystals, it would be enjoyable to see how the same monsters would react. Either way, he would have to outfight the best this Crypt of Worms had to offer to walk away alive.

She paused.

Outfight the best.

The best, of course, was the guardian itself. The genius loci of the anomaly.

“I have changed my mind, mortal.”

“…I feel like I’m not going to like this.”

A maniacal grin spread across her rosy lips. Say what you would about the mortal, but he truly had marvelous instincts.

“I may know a way to get you a… what do humans call it? A ticket out of this anomaly. Are you perchance interested?”

“So what you’re really asking,” the mortal clarified, “is whether I’m willing to follow your instructions while wondering what the hell is going on because you won’t tell me everything, before getting into a fight with something that will probably beat me to a pulp?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “That sounds rather accurate.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah. Okay.”

We’re going to die.

Tanya had had her fair share of anomaly expeditions over the years.

From the lowest Class-1 that was little more than an overgrown garden, to a Class-3 underwater anomaly spread across the ocean floor, Tanya had seen it all. Shedding sweat and blood, killing monsters left and right, tearing down defenses, gaining Experience, leveling up over the years— she had done it all and lived to tell the tale.

Some would even call her rise meteoric.

Still, in her extensive experience, she had yet to experience… well, this.

The four of them, three accomplished spiritists and a changeling, were stuck in a fucked up situation with absolutely no way out. She had no clue what had shifted within the anomaly, but sometime after those rock-rats it stopped behaving normally and began to come down on them with extreme prejudice.

“SARCOPHAGUS!” Zuken snarled, pumping more mana into his spells than Tanya had ever seen him do. The floor before him cracked open and slabs of stone raised up in all four directions like tombstones in a graveyard, entrapping several monsters inside their makeshift cage before burying them back into the ground.

It didn’t matter.

Tanya watched as Olfric conjured a mandala of revolving water, striking down enemies with torrents shaped into sharp whips. They tore through the ever-increasing horde of monsters, snapping their backs and decapitating them and even bursting them from inside-out.

It didn’t matter.

Her very own spell, a variant of Wind Shear, was currently tearing through several layers of slimy monster, one with shiny metallic tails, and failing to come out on top. Admittedly, she was far from pristine condition and Ezzeron was nearly functioning on fumes, but even so, they should have been making some kind of progress.

Instead, they were fleeing.

They ran, and monsters continued to come after them. No matter how many they killed, more would simply take their place. No matter how many died a gory death, the anomaly spawned more to make up for the seemingly insignificant loss. It was almost as if the anomaly halted all advances of growth and had come down on them with the sole intention of eradicating her and her team’s existence.

We’re going to die.

Her breathing was becoming more and more erratic. The use of that spell back then had taken nearly everything out of her. Despite how strong she was trying to act in front of her team, she was only hanging on by sheer determination and her unwavering reluctance to face certain death.

Who knew cowardice could be so useful?

Still, none of that changed the fact that they were going to die. All of them. There were no two ways about it.

“Anyone have any ideas?” Zuken yelled, hastily raising a wall. It prevented one of the nastier creatures from biting Elena’s head off.

“They’re working together!” Elena unhelpfully yelled.

“Yeah, no shit, Miss Obvious!” Olfric growled as he sent forth a water-blade to take out an oyster-rabbit hybrid. What sort of creatures did this anomaly base its monsters on anyways?

“No, they’re working together,” the changeling repeated. “Like a single mind. In multiple bodies. Together.”

“To do what?” Olfric demanded.

“I don't know!” she snapped back. Come to think of it, she was doing that a lot recently. It was a clear indication the anomaly mission went off the rails if it got under the skin of even their most cheerful team member. “They aren’t exactly rational, are they? They may not even think the way we normally do.”

In a frightening sort of way, that made sense. Before this, the monsters had behaved normally, no more than their usual wild monster attitudes. But now? Now, they seemed to be ignoring all senses of self-preservation, instead coming down at them with the intent to kill despite the cost to themselves. Almost like they were…

Fodder. Expendable. Utterly inconsequential if it meant wiping out the invaders.

“Great!” Olfric complained, firing off another water-blade. “First the cursed desert, then those yokai, and now all these monsters rampaging around for kicks.”

“Not just for kicks,” Zuken corrected, raising a slab to shield himself from an incoming barrage of slime.

“Oh yeah? How do you know?”

“Guys, focus!” Elena warned, literally punching a flying monster in the face. The girl had a mean right hook.

“Because,” Banksi tiredly replied, his voice belying how exhausted he was, “we’re running in a certain direction. And they’re letting us, almost like they’re leading us somewhere.”

“What do you—” Elena began, before her jaws clamped together. By the sudden paling of her face, she’d come to the same morbid realization that Tanya had. Had this been an ordinary situation, running would have been a perfect means of escape. But if the entire anomaly had it out for them and monsters shepherded them in a particular direction, it could only mean one of two things.

A— they were heading towards a dead end.

Or B— something worse was waiting for them there.

“Aha! So I was right!” Elena gloated after a moment of stupefied silence. “They’re all working together!”

Tanya felt her stomach do a nasty flip.

Somewhere in her mind, she knew running away like this wasn’t sustainable, especially not the way they were currently heading. As she was, she had already squeezed out everything she could to counter the rock-rats. Another Wind Shear, maybe two, and she would actually keel over. Unconscious, perhaps even dead.

Or she could embrace her other option. The one that was perpetually there on the proverbial table.

One she had chosen during the mission with the Blues.

One that had helped her destroy the anomaly and helped her survive.

Wasn’t that the most important thing for her? To survive? Sure, she had found associates in Zuken and Elena. Even Olfric, as much of a bastard as he was, was still a conditional ally at the moment.

Zuken and his casual genius. Elena with her inexplicable eccentricities.

It was almost like…

Tanya sighed, letting all images of what could have been bleed out of her mind. What did such things matter when life-and-death was the current problem?

“I have an idea,” she reluctantly whispered, using the remainder of her power to raise a wall of wind, twisting it around like a fan to decapitate two incoming projectile-creatures and smash two others against the walls of the cavern.

“Another spell?” Zuken asked, his eyes quickly roving over her form, as if scanning for something. “Not even you have that much left in you.”

“Not a spell, not this time. Not for something this…” she shivered, “this big. This violent.”

She leaned against a nearby pillar, allowing herself to breathe for a scarce second. Closing her eyes, she exhaled, casting away the ocean of fear that had begun roiling in her mind. The age-old worry she had always carried with her was coming, no matter what she did. And she would face it when it arrived.

But she had to compartmentalize and conquer.

For now.

“I’m gonna do something. When you see it, run like there’s no tomorrow.”

Flee. Dont’ be there. If you aren’t, I can’t kill you.

“And leave you behind?” Surprisingly, it was Elena who said it. “You’re a bitch, but I don’t hate you enough to let you die like that.”

How cute, Tanya smirked. Sheep expressing concern for the big bad wolf.

Idly, she wondered whether Elena’s power of ‘helplessness’ would protect her from what was to come. Though she wasn’t a believer of the Asukan Gods, Tanya prayed to whatever deity that was listening to keep the three of them off her tracks after she was done.

Done with this riff-raff.

“Tanya,” Zuken asked, his voice dripping with concern. “You alright?”

Tanya met his gaze. In that moment, there were a thousand things she could have said. But in the end, she chose to say nothing at all. As her knees weakened and her balance faltered, she turned her back to her team and faced the horde of monsters.

A choice to be made where there was no real choice at all… How pathetic. She had to let it out, or they would all die regardless, and— why were they still there?

“GET OUT!” she screamed as a monochromatic haze entered her vision. Olfric must have spotted something, as the water-type spiritist pulled Zuken back with him. That slippery bastard was always quick to notice such things.

Yeah, she deliriously thought. Good. Leave. Let me be. If you help, you’ll only be devoured.

Something exploded outwards, as what seemed like a dozen rock-rats flew forward, all aiming to claw out her face. But Tanya smiled.

It was too late.

She’d already let go.

Her entire world became blinded with red.