Vol 2. Chapter 2: Luxuriant Virago Wrapped in Scarred Gold! Enter Isharnnat! (2)

With the first thing Isharnnat used this ‘canvas’ for in front of me, I find myself unable to hold back my irritation, my annoyance, so much so that both my right eye and my smile are twitching as I ask, “so let me get this straight, according to the floating sand diagram you have here, you were the one behind the abnormal sleepiness I’ve been experiencing this whole week? Is that right?”

Of course, at first it seems as if my question has fallen into deaf ears as I appear to be the only one inside this gold dust-filled space, but I assure you that she’s here. You only need to look a bit deeper to find her popping in and out of view everywhere, sometimes she is made of gold dust itself, other times she is like an invisible woman revealed by gold dust falling on her in ways that are… very form fitting, and then there’s times she is nothing but a void in the shape of a woman. The only constant is her shrewdly giggling every time I catch a glimpse of her. And when I say she is everywhere, I mean it. She’s to my right caressing my face, to my left stroking my hair, below me tracing her fingers up my leg from the ankle to the knee… but most importantly, above me.

“Kaka, that is correct! And yes, it was all me!” She exclaimed as she popped out of the gold dust floating above me with nothing but a VERY proud smile on her face, which pushes me over the edge because…

“Come on! Do you have any idea just how annoying it was?! I had to attend so many meetings and do so much paperwork while feeling like a sleep-deprived zombie!! And hey, if it was just that, I wouldn’t be this annoyed! Heck, that’s so normal for someone who’s gone through an overtime death-march at work that I just trudged through it and endured! But that’s just it, the consequences of your little trick didn’t just stop there! Oh no! YOU STOPPED ME FROM FULLY ENJOYING MY FIRST POST-ANIME DISCUSSION WITH MY DAUGHTERS! THE VERY FIRST! THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN AGAIN!! AND WE HAD TO CUT IT SHORT BECAUSE OF ME GETTING TOO SLEEPY!!”

AGHHHH! I’M SO MAD THAT EVEN AFTER SAYING THIS I’M HISSING AT ISHARNNAT LIKE AN ANGRY CAT! YOU COULD HAVE WAITED UNTIL WE ACTUALLY WENT ASLEEP, YOU KNOW?! AND OF COURSE YOU FLOAT AWAY INTO THE DUST NOW!

“Oh my, but none of that was truly mine intent. My focus was solely on not being caught by Nerinne and that skill of yours… your ‘instinct’ as you call it.”

“Wait, what?” I said, pulled out of my anger by Isharnnat’s words, which were carried by the wind before she rose from the floor in front of me with a body made of gold dust. “Are you saying that the extremely faint tug I felt every now and then was really my instinct trying to warn me?”

“Indeed, it was” she nodded, “which shouldn’t have been the case, really. I would even dare call the fact that it reacted to me at all an abnormality, but things are bound to get weird when two gods’ powers are involved in the creation of such a thing, so do not worry about it and just consider it a nice little accidental bonus. Especially since a mortal is usually completely incapable of noticing when a god is messing with their soul.” She said that… to a mortal who’s nothing but a soul right now… and with no hint of malice at all WHILE smiling warmly like she’s doing right now… To be honest, that doesn’t just make me worry, it outright scares me.

“Now, now. I did not mess with your soul; I just pulled it to my realm by using our already established connection. Those are two very different things, Auros Argento.” Uh-huh, right, you say that. I’ll totally believe you. Also, nice little gold dust animation of chibi you fishing my soul from the heavens through a gold line that was already coming out of it. “Thank you, but we are getting sidetracked. As I was saying, mine focus was solely on avoiding detection, so I was unable to pay attention to anything else. Although, for what is worth, I did try to limit my attempts to bring you here to times when it was night. Mostly.”

“You—”

“Come now, do not get angry again. I was really trying, you know? After all, that way, the symptoms would be thought as natural, given that for one, a body without a soul falls into a deep sleep, and for two, it is easier to take a mortal’s soul while they are sleeping,” said Isharnnat, interrupting me just to say even scarier stuff with an ‘it’s a win-win’ kind of smile, making me go all the way past scared to just… shocked at how casually she’s saying all this, and again, with no hint of malice at all. Then again, she IS a goddess, so this is probably not a big deal for her… “Exactly.”

“Ugh… you agreeing with me doesn’t make it better for me,” I sigh, “but ok, that explains the exhaustion. It also explains the part in the diagram that says that I’m in stasis and not dead from overworking.” Phew, I’m at least relieved about that.

“Kaka, indeed! And you do not need to worry about your family either. While they are all peacefully asleep right now, when they wake up, they shall only think that you are too tired and are sleeping in. Nothing more, nothing less. As for Nerinne, she will be none the wiser to your soul’s absence. In fact, she will think that your soul is still there and totally not taken to the divine realm,” said Isharnnat while making a thumbs-up in some sort of reassurance, which I’ll just take because thinking about it too much will do my common sense no favors. And yes, once again, the irony is not lost on me… I’ll apologize to the maids for messing with theirs when I return…

Having said that, there’s something I still find hard to believe, so I gotta ask, “how is it that Nerinne didn’t notice you at all? I mean, I get that you focused on exactly that, but… is it really that simple for a god to just yoink someone’s soul while in the presence of another god?”

“Kakaka! You misunderstand, Auros Argento! It is not that simple at all! Mine self could only do it because I am god of a higher rank than her, yet it still took me several days of trying to be successful. Even now I find myself exerting such power to keep you here without her noticing your absence. She is just that protective of you,” said Isharnnat as she—rather than vanishing again—booped me on the nose before turning around and walking towards the still-floating diagram of my kidnapping, her gold dust body slowly turning into her true one with every step, and once she arrived in front of it, she erased it completely with a flick of her hand and replaced it with something else, something larger yet unreadable for the moment.

Meanwhile, I was so moved by the lengths to which Nerinne was going to protect me that it took me a moment to latch on to a certain tidbit of info Isharnnat mentioned, but when I did, it made me jump from smiling happily to slightly reeling back on my seat, confusion quickly turning into inquisitiveness as I asked, “higher rank than Nerinne? What do you mean by that?”

Hearing that, Isharnnat stopped drawing, laughed, turned around as her clothes changed into those of a sexy glasses-wearing teacher, and said, “that, Auros Argento, is the key question.”

“As in the question you wanted me to ask?” I shot back with no hesitation, for I am very much aware of your subtle railroading, Isharnnat. Though, that pleased smile of yours sure isn’t doing you any favors right now.

“Kaka, that is because I never assumed otherwise, mortal. As such, I saw no point in hiding it. Besides, it is all in the good interest of keeping the conversation moving along. Who cares if the destination is already predetermined? You are here with me, might as well enjoy the ride.” Said Isharnnat, shrewdly, shamelessly, threateningly, all as the world around us briefly turned into a moving train with us seated back to back, but she wasn’t done yet. No. Instead, she appeared in the seat in front of mine as soon as I blinked, leaning towards me ever so slowly as she went on. “Of course, while this is indeed the question I desired, it is also the one that will lead to all the answers you wanted out of this. So, what will it be? Do you still want me to tell you?”

“Heh, if you put it like that, then there’s little for me to say other than… I’ll face whatever it is that you have planned for the end of this road. That’s why, yes. Tell me,” I firmly declared despite my wariness still being very much there and tugging at me. I wouldn’t even be surprised if this feeling is my instinct somehow working here in the same way it did when Isharnnat was doing her thing.

“Very well! Then, it is time for you to learn about us!” She exclaimed, her demeanor instantly becoming as jolly as someone who was about to play their favorite game, completely unfazed by my determination. Heck, she even hopped out of her seat as she brought us back to the gold dust space and made what she had drawn behind her readable. It was a massive, fully illustrated and animated gold dust diagram titled ‘let’s learn about gods!’ And err… what’s with her and diagrams? “What was that, Miss ‘I narrate everything’?”

“Ha! Touché!” You got me there.

“Thought so. Anyways, I shall start this class with a question for you, Auros Argento. What is a god?” Asked Isharnnat as she pointed at me and transformed my immediate surroundings into those of a classroom, all while also changing my white robe into a uniform from a school I didn’t recognize, a uniform with gyaru-levels of exposure along with a complementing hairstyle, which… all in all is… hnnghhh… pretty hot… Dammit, you win some points for this, but you’re still not winning me over!! “Kaka! Such was not mine intent, it was but a whim I saw amusing enough to pursue! Now, answer my question. What is a god, Auros Argento?”

“Alright, alright, I’ll answer. Gods are all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present beings capable of creating worlds and the people in it. Some think of them as perfect, while others think of them as imperfect as us. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.”

“Kakaka, so more perfect than mortals yet still flawed, huh? Interesting. It even has some truth to it, but it’s not the right answer, as you have mistaken the traits for the whole. You see, a god is a being of pure ontological self with a metaphysical domain that reflects that self, yet it does not limit it. Simply put… We are. We are at a greater scale than mortals. It is through that self, that being, that we are capable of everything you said, but only within our sphere of influence, for that which is under us can be affected by us.”

The moment she said that, Isharnnat brought forward the main circle of the mind diagram, which only had the word ‘gods’ written on it, and turned it into… a crystal globe holding chibi versions of us doing the exact same thing inside it. Then, she tapped it once with her finger, and not only did the style change, but also our roles in the scene. She tapped it again and this time neither of us were there, it was a completely different scene with completely different actors. The perfect place for an easter-egg if this was an anime. She tapped it for a third time after that, and things went back to normal, the chibi versions of us completely unaware of what had transpired. It was then that Isharnnat glanced back at me, smiled in a way between devilish and angelic, and continued. “See? Just like that. To put it simply, they are within our reach, our self. That is not to say that all of us are equal though, for the self of some of us gods can be greater than that of others.”

“Then for a higher a rank god we’d…” I trail off as a familiar chill pierces my soul, making me look up, and there she was once again, the Isharnnat of an unfathomable size, watching us like we were watching those inside in the crystal ball. She was even holding this space the same way. And that’s despite the ‘teacher’ Isharnnat not having moved a centimeter from where she was. Of course, neither of them was just a copy. No. They both were Isharnnat.

“We would be the ones within the crystal ball, yes. Perfectly within reach of their influence, their self.” Said both of them in sync as the giant one changed our outfits three times by tapping on ‘our’ crystal ball with her finger, further illustrating their point . “That is the power afforded to those who are above those below them. Mind you, it is rare for a god to do such thing to another god, as it is prohibited by the Divine Law in most cases.”

“Wait, does that mean you broke the law by bringing me here?” I ask because… are you for real? I can’t imagine just what kind of punishment one would get for breaking the Divine Law, but it mustn’t be pretty, right?

“I am no fool, mortal. Do not look at me as if I am one,” said Isharnnat, annoyed. “I explicitly mentioned ‘in most cases’, did I not? You, Auros Argento, are not one of those. Your connection with me makes you a sort of… loophole. After all, I was the first to actively bless you. Not Yawue. Not Nerinne. Me. And precedence holds power when it comes to the Divine Law. It lets me do things that would otherwise be out of the question. For example, bringing you here. Now, may I continue with the lesson?”

“Fine, but stop being so smug about you being the one who blessed me first.” I said, annoyed. Very annoyed.

“No, I do not think I will.” She said… even more smugly than before… which is somehow possible... much to my chagrin… “What I will do is tell you about the ranks of the gods. To preface, there are many ranks between the ones you see in this diagram, but these are the most important ones, starting with the Demigods.”

With that, Isharnnat made the crystal ball in her hand vanish and replaced it with the uppermost circle in the mind diagram, which had ‘Demigods’ written on it. Then, she… turned it into a puppet stage? That’s… cool! Like, the background is masterfully painted, the props are incredibly well done, and the puppets she just finished setting up look incredibly detailed while not compromising mobility. One is the typical fantasy hero, while the other two look like gods. Although, one looks like an adult and the other one looks like a child, implying some things. Again, that’s so cool!! As someone who makes figures as a hobby I have nothing but praise. Even if that makes Isharnnat smugger, which of course it does.

“Kaka! What can I say? I am a goddess; I like to be praised. As for the roles of these little ones, you guessed correctly. And why is that? Because a Demigod can be a mortal whose deeds make it worthy of ascension. Maybe they saved the world after a long journey filled with trials and tribulations? Maybe they sacrificed themselves to breathe new life into a land long thought dead and dry? Or maybe… they saved the life of a foolish goddess that had decided to briefly live as a mortal in the world they created?” Said Isharnnat as she acted out all three scenarios with two of the three puppets she prepared, her voice becoming tinged with a hint of melancholy when she reached the third one, a melancholy that escaped all her attempts to keep it deep within her. And rather than vanishing as quickly as it appeared, it only grew as she moved on to the last one with the smaller puppet. “Yet, a demigod can also be the… child of a mortal and a god. A source of joy. A source of… grief.”

She pauses and meets my gaze. She isn’t saying anything and yet… she doesn’t need to. Her eyes tell me everything. And I understand. I understand very well, so much so that when she, for an instant, changed the puppets’ appearances into mine, Nerinne’s, and… Ilya’s, I couldn’t help but feel the same emotions she was clearly feeling ever more intensely. Of all the things to make me think about… This fear, this worry… You really didn’t have to… Still, things have gone back to normal now, so let’s just… move on as if this moment didn’t happen. For both our sakes. She nods in response.

“All in all, the concept is not that different from the one you already know from Earth’s legends. And barring some very rare cases, demigods lack a godly domain. That is… until they reach the next rank, the rank of New God.” Immediately after she uttered that, the corresponding circle in the mind diagram flew towards the puppet stage and enveloped it, bringing about a transformation not just in shape, but in medium too. The hero puppet, free of its strings, was now the protagonist of an old anime film that portrayed his 12 labors before other gods and the subsequent deep meditation he found himself in after beating all of them, his being expanding through everything and everywhere at a slow but consistent pace.

“As you can see, new gods can be demigods who have gone through a certain ritual that consists of gathering a number of achievements. This does not mean, however, that they are mature enough as gods. No. This is but another stop in a god’s developing journey, because while they do have a godly domain, it is not fully defined yet. For that they have to go through a great amount of introspection and self-actualization, cementing their being and through it, defining their godly domain, which in turn raises their rank.” Said Isharnnat as she pointed at the still meditating hero turned demigod.

“But not all new gods come from demigods, right?”

“Of course, not. There are those who are born belonging to that rank. I speak, of course, of gods born from other gods and gods born from the Great Mother of All herself, Nada. Though, you may think of that last case as nature itself birthing gods, if that’s simpler to understand,” said Isharnnat as the movie reflected her words with both child gods being raised by their divine parents and gods simply… appearing in nature, within a flower, a star, a nebulae… and so much more. Still…

“Nada…? As in nothing?” I asked, confused as to why the mother of everything would have the opposite as a name.

“Simple. ‘In the beginning, there was Nothing…’ you mortals have no idea just how true that phrase is, so much so that it is carved deep within us all, gods and mortals alike. That is why we know her as such, despite her being much, much older than the very concept of names themselves. Right now you should be able to feel her. So, focus and you will see that it is true, Auros Argento.”

I do as she says and… I don’t know if it’s because I’m presently just a soul but… I can feel it, I can feel the weight behind that phrase, a weight I hadn’t noticed until now, the weight of something you just know to be true. And that’s because… she is. I don’t know how else to explain it, but she is ‘is’ itself.

Having reached that conclusion, I open my eyes and Isharnnat nods before saying, “told you so. Nevertheless, the next rank awaits, which is the rank of God or… Young God if you ask Yawue of all people, but they are no fun, so they do not count, kaka!” Hmm, I don’t know if just immediately moving on after introducing someone known as the Mother of All is the right move… “What else is there to learn, Auros Argento? Nada is. Everything else is within her. And before you ask, yes, I know Yawue. No, I shall not speak about them until we are done with this lesson."

Welp, with all of that shot down by Isharnnat, I guess I’ll just… slowly close my mouth—as I was indeed about to ask that—and focus on narrating yet another change in the medium of the lesson, all while not pouting over it at all. Anyhow, this time things went from an old anime movie to… an expansive renaissance mural painting, similar in magnitude to those found in a certain basilica back on Earth. It’s breathtaking… and I say that as an anime art-worshipping weeb! There’s just no other words to describe it.

As for the story it has to tell, it picks up right after the movie, with the former hero awakening from their meditation as a god. In his eyes there’s a sense of totality, of everything-ness, somehow, which I found similar to Isharnnat’s, yet… very different to Nerinne’s. I wonder why. But that’s not all, for the hero turned god now had a world in the palm of his hand, a world that glowed with the same steel blue light as him, his world. The world of this hypothetical God of Valor, as said by the burning letters above his halo. And it is only as I finish describing all of this that Isharnnat continued with her lesson, as if she was making sure I had taken everything in.

“Not as if. That is what I wanted. Now, as pictured in this mural, those holding the rank of ‘God’ are new gods who have successfully cemented their selves and fully defined their godly domain. In mortal terms, they are gods who have come of age, an adult, if you will. Yes, they might have some flaws, but they are still capable of creating their worlds, watching over them, and most importantly, administering them. With all the duties and responsibilities that entails. Of course, this is not the end of the line either.”

Just as Isharnnat finished speaking, the mural began to crack all over, with what laid beneath becoming more and more visible as pieces of it began to fall off. Below, a massive work of stained-glass portrayed the once solemn Hero turned god as someone with cracks covering their being. Yet, that wasn’t all, as half of his body was falling apart, while the other was barely whole…

“What happens when a god goes through a great ordeal that shakes them to their very core? What happens when a god is shattered like this?” Asked Isharnnat as she put her hand over her scar and looked at the stained-glass, eyes filled with an old yet still painful sadness, one that she reigned in as she turned to me with the answer. “They either fall into a denial that eats away at their very being… or they hold themselves together long enough to rise again, accepting whatever truths, whatever failures, whatever misconceptions, every single thing that led to such shattering happening, and reforge themselves into something greater than a mature god.”

“An Old God,” I said as I had seen its corresponding circle in the diagram vanish when the mural began to break down.

“Exactly,” Isharnnat nodded. “And an old god can do everything that a god can do, but in a much, much larger scale. Simply put, it is a difference not unlike night and day, or heaven and earth. Although, I want you to understand that we both change and remain the same when we reforge ourselves, for this process serves to reaffirm our self, making it denser as a result. I know all of this may sound complicated, even contradictory, but that is how things are for beings of pure self.”

“To be honest, you’ve done a good job of explaining things so far, so I’m not that lost. Still, there’s something I’ve wanted to know since the start… Just what rank is Nerinne?” I asked, unable to keep myself from doing so until she finished her lesson, as the more I learned about these ranks, the more I wanted to know. Thankfully, this time I wasn’t preemptively shot down.

“Because that is a question worth answering in the now, Auros Argento. In any case, she should be an Old God at the very least,” she replied, happily.

“Should be? So, she isn’t one, huh. But that doesn’t make sense. Especially with what you just said about Old Gods,” I said as I raised a quizzical eyebrow and pointed at the mural.

“Kaka, indeed.” Isharnnat chuckled. “It is as you say. After all, you and I both know that she went through quite the… ordeal when she almost died at the hands of that old evil god who dared.”

“Yeah…” I said, tightening my fists as the image of a dying Nerinne makes me boil in anger, an anger not so dissimilar to the one that was shining through Isharnnat’s eyes, an anger pure and deep-seated, which, in a way, answered another of my questions, as that is anger reserved for those who hurt a loved one.

To this, Isharnnat made a conceding smile and said, “what was it that you said before? Ah, yes. ‘You got me there’, kaka. Nerinne is someone I hold dear, Auros Argento. A lovely, lovely friend whose survival brought great joy to me, let alone her victory. Yet, imagine my surprise when she did not become an Old God even when such an ordeal should have led to that.”

“Why?” I asked, confused by her answer, an emotion that even Isharnnat shares despite it being something that she’s probably thought about for a long time.

“Kakaka! Indeed, I have thought about it for quite some time. It is very confusing and very complicated, to say the least. But I did manage to figure out that it has to do with who she is and what she is.”

“Who she is? And what she is…? Is she secretly some goddess-shaped unknowable horror like in that one romcom novel? I’d still love her even if that’s the case though.” I say with a straight face full of honesty, because that is the truth. Eldritch or not, I love Nerinne, and that is never going to change.

“Good,” said Isharnnat, pleased with my answer before continuing. “But it is not like that, I assure you. She is a goddess just like me. What I meant to say is that it has to do with her lineage and how it links her to gods one step below Nada, gods whose rank is unreachable for any other than them who embody it. They are the first something in nothing, the first concepts, Nada’s firstborn. The Primordial Gods. And, once again, before you ask… she is not one. An example of them would actually be—no, on a second thought, I think we should stop here.”

Okeeey… that was sudden. “Why? And why do you look kind of spooked? Were you about to say something you shouldn’t? Did you get the chills as a sign from whoever is involved with that info?”

“H-How do you keep being this accurate?!” Exclaimed Isharnnat, shocked. Which is weird because she should be used to this by now. “No, no. You are the weird one! Not me! Nor my reaction!”

“Fine… as the very normal and mature adult that I am, I will drop the subject of whether my innocent narration is weird or not. But… was I right?”

“How gracious of you,” said Isharnnat oozing with sarcasm. “And yes, you were. I thought we would be alright if I kept things somewhat vague, but it seems I miscalculated just how vague I needed to be when explaining that. Anyways… let us change the scenery back to what it was.” With that, she clapped once and we were back to sitting across each other in her golden palace, the only thing between us being a high tea table.

Although, not all changes were reverted, as I still look as a gyaru student despite Isharnnat now being in her original outfit, making me raise an eyebrow because... Really? “What? It is certainly much better than the drab white robe you had before. And you look great in that outfit too! Did you not think as much before?”

“Hrmm… that I can’t deny…” I say while looking at myself and… hnng, still hot!!

“Kaka, right? So just enjoy the gift and let us continue our conversation,” said Isharnnat before she took a sip from the filled teacup she just created out of nowhere. “Now, with the explanations finally out of the way, I can be sure that you will be able to really understand what I’m about to say. Especially since it concerns your relationship with a goddess and… whether or not you’ll be able to continue being in one after this.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, sharpening my gaze as I felt the air around Isharnnat suddenly change. She was serious, so serious that it immediately tripped all my alarms. I even instinctually reached out for my spear despite knowing that it wasn’t here with me.

“Yes… you should be alarmed. Cautious. Worried. It also concerns your well-being after all.” The more she speaks, the more the bad feeling in me grows. And yet, there is nothing I can do but listen to her as she brings me face to face with whatever destination she had planned for me all along.  “Tell me, Auros Argento. Having learned everything that you have about the gods and their capabilities… Do you really think that your death was an accident?”

To be continued… (cue ad for the special edition GyAuros body pillow! Available for the low, low price of $999! Shipping not included!)