The screams of the ritual chamber were quickly drowned beneath the sound of shattered marble and twisted steel.
The outer wall collapsed under a single forceful kick, debris raining down like the herald of death.
In the dim red hue of ceremonial torches and magical circles, Toji Fushiguro stood at the threshold, no announcement, no flourish.
Just the sudden, suffocating presence of someone who didn't belong in this world.
He was already moving.
"Nue"
A flick of his hand summoned a massive Nue, lightning crackling across the chamber ceiling, burning out the candles and warding circles as it descended in a violent arc.
Thunder exploded within the enclosed ritual sanctum, sending robed cultists scattering like insects.
Divine Dogs, larger than carriages and composed of coarse black fur and white flame, pounced in next, their jaws snapping limbs and tearing through enchanted armor with ease.
Toji didn't run. He walked. Step by step.
Straight through the chaos, a sheathed blade in one hand, the Inverted Spear of Heaven in the other, its tip humming with invisible nullification.
The ritual's focus, Haruhime, lay bound on an ornate slab of stone, her eyes wide with terror.
A collar shimmered around her throat, pulsing with enchanted chains that bound not just her body, but her soul.
The caster attempted to channel more energy, chanting louder in desperation.
Thunk.
A Soul-Splitting Katana flew, embedded clean through the mage's head, splitting their consciousness before the spell could complete.
Toji reached Haruhime, knelt, and without a word, pressed the tip of the Inverted Spear against the collar.
Magic warped, rejected, fizzled out of existence in a single moment. The collar vanished. Haruhime gasped.
"You're free," he muttered. No smile. Just facts.
"But—who are—?" Her voice trembled, a faint whisper of hope laced with horror as she looked around the ruin.
"Wrong question." His voice was cold steel. "Ask who sent me."
But she couldn't. The chamber was shaking. Survivors of the Ishtar Familia's elite ritual guards had arrived, robed spellcasters, elite swordsmen, cursed tamers. They hesitated only for a second when they saw him.
A mistake.
Toji dropped a talisman. Black ink writhed on the paper, then erupted.
Escape Rabbits.
A dozen black-furred shikigami bunnies burst from the smoke, scattering and zigzagging like shadows given form, kicking and distracting every warrior as they sliced through ankles and gouged through armored faces.
While they panicked, Toji leapt, into the center of them.
He didn't fight like an assassin.
He fought like a monster.
Fists reinforced with cursed energy crushed ribs. Blades flickered with ethereal speed, slicing through metal like it was paper.
One man screamed as Toji's katana split him from collarbone to hip in a single horizontal slash, the sound of wet muscle parting echoing off the ruined walls.
A caster tried to flee. Toji appeared before them in a blur. No words. Just a reverse grip stab, straight through the solar plexus. He withdrew the blade with a twist.
Toji looked down at his cursed tool, bloodied, and sighed.
"Boring~"
When the room was silent, he turned to Haruhime again. Her eyes were frozen in disbelief. "Why... why would you do this? You're not... Bell wouldn't...."
"No." He sheathed the blade. "I don't do 'hero.' I do jobs. Yours was to not die. Done."
Haruhime shivered. "You killed them. All of them. Without hesitation..."
Toji knelt, meeting her eyes. "And they'd have done worse to you. Don't paint over evil with fairy tales."
She bit her lip, confused. She felt grateful. But also terrified.
Before she could sort through it, he stood and began walking, toward the inner sanctum.
Toward Ishtar herself.
The goddess sat upon her throne, bathing in illusions of fire and silk, still protected by the divine boundary. She laughed, mocking, rising to her feet.
"You dare enter my temple? Mortal filth. You will—"
He threw the Inverted Spear.
It pierced her divine boundary.
Then her heart.
The laughter died.
The scream came next, divine and human all at once, a sound that shattered mirrors and minds alike. The Spear activated, unraveling not just her body, but her existence.
She began to vanish, consumed from the core, her divinity rejected from the very fabric of the Lower World and unable to return to Heaven.
"NO—! YOU CAN'T—!"
She never finished.
Just like that, Ishtar was gone.
Outside the compound, Haruhime followed slowly, stumbling, unable to look away from the man walking ahead of her, drenched in blood but calm as if he had just cleaned a house.
She whispered, "You saved me..."
He didn't turn.
"You're welcome," he muttered dryly. "Now don't get caught again."
"...Are you always like this?"
He paused. Glanced over his shoulder, the setting sun catching the glint of his eyes.
"No," he replied. "Sometimes I'm worse."
...
The door to the small home swung open.
Hestia, already pacing the floor in agitation, rushed to meet them, her twin tails bouncing behind her. "Bell! You're back! Thank the heavens!" she cried, flinging herself into Bell's arms. "Are you alright?! Did you stop the ritual? What happened to Haruhime?!"
Bell caught her instinctively, his arms tightening protectively—but there was a stiffness to his movement. His eyes weren't focused.
He looked... shaken.
Everyone did.
Welf was the last to step in, closing the door behind him. Haruhime followed slowly, like a shadow trailing behind the group. Silent. Distant.
Hestia pulled back, blinking. "What's wrong? Did something go wrong—?"
"Not wrong," Mikoto muttered.
"Just... different," Lili added, her voice strained.
Bell looked toward the goddess, searching for words.
But none came. He'd fought minotaurs, survived Dungeon ambushes, faced death and fear and darkness.
But nothing, not even the moment of his own near-death, had left him this adrift.
It was Haruhime who finally broke the silence.
"I'm free."
Her voice was soft, almost dreamlike.
Hestia blinked. "You're—?"
Haruhime nodded and reached up, offering the broken collar in her hand. "It's gone. He destroyed it. And the ritual was stopped."
"...He?" Hestia frowned.
"The man... from the War Game," Lili answered. "Toji Fushiguro."
Hestia's eyes widened. "He helped?"
"I think" Welf said. "You hired him right? He rarely do anything for free"
"What do you mean? We're basically broke, how can i hire someone like him?"
"...Maybe he just want to help... Or personal problem with Ishtar's familia"
Mikoto nodded grimly. "When we arrived, there was nothing left to fight. He had already killed them all. The Ishtar Familia, the guards, the mages, even their strongest warriors. And..."
They all hesitated.
Haruhime finished for them. "A-about Ishtar.... He killed her."
Hestia's expression went blank.
"...What?"
"She didn't return to Heaven," Bell said quietly. "Her body was still there. Cold. Unmoving. There was no pillar of light or anything visible happened."
"She's... gone," Mikoto whispered. "Not banished. Erased."
Hestia's breath caught in her throat.
"That's impossible!" she said, almost to herself. "Gods can't be killed. Not truly. Not here."
"He used a weapon," Lili explained. "A blade. It looked cursed... dark, ancient. It didn't just hurt her, it unmade her. We didn't even see the fight. It was over before we arrived."
Hestia collapsed into a chair, stunned.
"I invited him to the Banquet..." she murmured. "Hecate said he was technically a member of her Familia, but that he doesn't follow anyone's orders. She even joked that he wasn't mortal in the normal sense. I thought she was being dramatic."
Haruhime sat at the floor beside Hestia, folding her hands in her lap. "He looked at me like I was just another part of the scenery. He didn't say much. But when he saw what they were doing to me... he acted. Not for me. Just because he didn't like it."
Her voice trembled a bit.
"I thought heroes were supposed to save with hope, with light. But he... he saved me with blood."
Silence.
No one refuted her. Not even Bell.
Finally, Hestia leaned forward, placing a gentle hand on the fox's head.
"...You're safe now. That's what matters."
Haruhime nodded, burying her face in the goddess's lap, finally allowing the tears to fall.
Bell turned toward the window, watching the city beyond.
Toji Fushiguro.
A man who slaughtered a god without hesitation.
Not out of heroism.
Just because he was annoyed.
He knew he was dangerous, but this is far more than he expected, than any of them.
An absolute death of a god will not be pleasant.
Immortal beings, now knowing that a mortal can permanently eliminate them, what will be the reaction?
Some will fear, some will concern, some will try to side with him, some will try to hide from him...
And... some will try to kill him.
But that is more ridiculous than a fairy tail.
We're talking about an anomaly.
Sorcerer killer.
And now?
God killer.
...
The private chamber was nestled far beneath the Guild's main structure, cut from ancient stone, protected by wards so old they predated most who sat at the round obsidian table.
Only a dozen gods had been summoned. No more.
Ouranos sat at the head, his expression as unreadable as ever.
Beside him, Hermes, tapping his chin with a rare stillness.
Ganesha leaned forward, unusually serious. Loki, legs crossed and grin faded. Freya, beautiful and unnervingly quiet.
And Hecate, reclining with arms folded, as if bored by the entire affair.
A hologram-like image hovered above the center of the table, Ishtar's corpse.
The unmistakable scent of divinity permanently snuffed out.
The image flickered out as Ouranos raised his hand.
"Let us begin."
No one spoke for several seconds.
It was Hermes who finally broke the silence.
"So it's true, then. Not banishment. Not retreat. She's... gone. Utterly and completely."
Loki scoffed. "No pillar of light. No flashy return to heaven. Just a corpse left to rot in her own pleasure palace. Classy."
"She deserved it," muttered Ganesha, for once not loud or theatrical.
Freya's eyes narrowed slightly. "But that's not the issue, is it?"
"No" Ouranos replied. "I don't care if she dead or not. The issue is that a mortal, a so-called mortal, killed a god."
The air thickened instantly.
"Should the people find out," Hermes said slowly, "there would be chaos. Riots. A wave of terror across the city. The Dungeon would be flooded with desperate adventurers seeking power, revenge, or protection. Families would turn on each other. Mortals might begin to see us as... vulnerable."
"And that," Hecate added with a sly smile, "is the last thing we want."
Freya tilted her head, gaze flicking toward Hecate. "He is yours, isn't he?"
"Technically," Hecate replied. "But Toji doesn't follow orders. He made that clear from the start. I gave him Falna as a formality. Nothing more."
Loki leaned forward. "You unleashed a god-killer into our world, and now you want to play innocent?"
Hecate didn't flinch. "I didn't unleash him. I simply opened the door. He chose to walk through. Orario is the one who tried to fit him into their little games."
"You knew he was different," Freya said, her tone flat.
"Oh yes," Hecate said, smiling faintly. "I knew the moment I looked into his soul. He has no reverence for us. No awe. He sees gods the same way a hunter sees a beast that gets in his way."
Ouranos finally cut through the rising tension. "The public will be told that Ishtar was defeated in a dungeon outbreak and returned to heaven. Nothing more."
"And the body?" asked Hermes.
"Destroyed," Ouranos answered. "No trace will remain."
Ganesha grunted. "And Toji?"
"He will not be confronted," Ouranos said firmly. "He poses no threat to the city itself. He has not acted without cause. Ishtar overstepped with her action... and paid for it."
Loki snorted. "So we just let him wander around? Like some kind of walking executioner? Sooner or later, someone's going to provoke him."
"He is more than executioner," Freya murmured, eyes glinting. "He is the shadow cast by our arrogance."
Hecate raised a hand lazily. "If it helps, I can talk to him."
"You mean warn him?" Hermes asked.
"I mean remind him that discretion has its uses," she said, "and that if he keeps deleting gods from the world, eventually even the curious ones like me will start to feel nervous."
Silence returned to the table.
Until Freya's lips curled into the faintest smile. "You're all afraid of him."
"Not afraid," Loki replied, standing. "Just... respectful of someone who doesn't know how to stay in his lane."
Hecate chuckled. "He's never seen lanes."
Ouranos stood last. "Then it's agreed. The truth dies here. The people will know only what we tell them. As for Toji... he remains a wild card. Do not provoke him"
He turned to leave.
"May the gods guide us," he said.
Freya lingered a moment longer, gazing into the darkness where the image of Ishtar had been.
"Or may they learn," she whispered, "what it feels like to bleed."