Yuichi paused. “Are you the one who made Takeuchi a serial killer?” He felt a wave of rage surge up inside of him. If Natsuki’s urge to kill had been given to her by the evil god, that meant she was being forced to kill against her will. Yuichi couldn’t allow that to pass.
“Hmm? I think you might be under some misunderstanding... she always wanted to kill people. I didn’t force that on her. It’s easy to talk about killing people, you see, but it’s harder than you’d think to actually do it. People aren’t made to kill other people. There’s a high psychological hurdle they need to clear. So the people I choose as servants must have the basic potential to surpass that hurdle.”
“What are you trying to accomplish?!” Yuichi yelled.
“Murder, of course.”
Yuichi was struck dumb by his totally straightforward answer.
“Well, I am a god of death,” the man said. “Not accidents and suicides, of course... I’m a god of killing. All kinds of killing, from intimate murders to wide-spread wars. Plagues and viruses also fall under my domain.”
“A god of death? Like Hades or Thanatos?” Mutsuko asked cheerily despite the tension hanging over the room.
“Hmm, I’m not directly connected to myths like that. I call myself Nergal, actually.”
“From Babylonian myth! But don’t you have a sun god version, too?”
“Listen, I get a lot of mythology freaks coming to me with these questions, so let me tell you in advance that the myths have nothing to do with anything.”
“If you are a god of death, what are you trying to do? Create serial killers and send them around to kill people?”
“My endgame is the extinction of humanity,” the man said. “But that’s hard to accomplish all in one fell swoop, so I’m generally forced to resort to pettier measures. I would much prefer an enormous pandemic — that or a nuclear war — but that’s too much for me to handle alone. I’m limited in my scope until my main body reawakens.”
“Then why don’t you just go around killing people yourself, without skulking around in the shadows with serial killers?” Yuichi demanded.
“I can’t afford to stand out. If I do, it will trigger the appearance of powerful allies of good. So the most efficient way to do things is to chip away little by little. Grassroots action, you know?”
The extinction of humanity. Pandemics. Nuclear war. The words he was throwing around seemed so outside the scope of reality that Yuichi’s mind could barely find footing.
“Yes,” the man said. “Incidentally, you don’t have any Divine Vessels hosted inside you, but since you are a participant in the war, I suppose I can tell you this... If you gather them all, you’ll have a wish granted, but I’m going to destroy all of humanity.”
“Huh?” Yuichi asked, startled.
“Well, what were you expecting? You’ll be reviving an evil god who craves the slaughter of all humanity. The minute I’m awakened, I’m going to spring right into action.”
“That makes no sense! You make it sound like you’re the god itself!”
“I’m its incarnation. In Hinduism, they’d call me an avatar. My real body was split into many parts and sealed, and I go here and there working my schemes in its place. The war is one of those schemes.”
“By the way, did you know the term ‘avatar’ to describe your character in a video game refers to the same thing?!” Mutsuko asked excitedly.
“Nobody cares!” Yuichi shouted.
“Now... I’ve indulged you a little while, but what now? I’ve got a lot of time on my hands, but that doesn’t mean I can just hang around here forever...” the man said.
“We’re taking Takeuchi back,” Yuichi said again, hardening his resolve. “No matter what it takes.”
Yuichi handed Natsuki to Mutsuko.
“Don’t worry about us, Yu! We can handle ourselves!” his big sister informed him.
He decided to trust her on that. He couldn’t completely put the others out of his mind, but he also couldn’t afford to divert too much attention to them.
He was worried about the serial god killer woman, too, collapsed there on the ground as she was... but he had to put her lower down on his list of priorities.
“I can see you’re really raring to go... so I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s not going to be much of a match,” said the evil god casually. “The power gap between a god and a human not making use of a Divine Vessel’s power is a little too wide, I think.”
“So what?” Yuichi glared at Nergal. He knew his opponent was strong, but that was no reason he couldn’t fight him.
“Hmm, you’ve got me in a bind,” Nergal said. “I’m not fond of picking on the weak, you see... Oh, I know. Why don’t we play a game? If you win, I’ll let you go. I’ll allow for you to leave this place unharmed, and for Natsuki to remain as she is. I’ll even throw in a promise to never come after her again.”
“How very generous of you,” Yuichi snapped. “Fine, whatever. Name the game.”
Yuichi was happy to get out of the fight, but he’d be in trouble if the rules were something he couldn’t handle.
“Let’s see... we’ll make it simple. If you touch me, you win.”
“That’s it?” Yuichi was stunned, for a moment, by how simple it was. But then he quickly reconsidered. It was too simple; there had to be some trick behind it.
“The boundaries of the game will be limited to this altar, as high as five meters in a dome shape,” Nergal said. “And just so that it doesn’t go on forever, let’s set the time limit at ten minutes. If you lose, I kill you all. How does that sound?”
“Sounds great.” It didn’t sound too different from an actual fight, Yuichi thought. He had never been so naive as to think that he could lose and still escape with his life anyway.
“Still, even then, you probably won’t stand a chance, so I’ll throw in a handicap,” said Nergal. “I won’t use either of my hands. How does that sound?”
Nergal folded his arms, suggesting that he wasn’t going to use those, either. Of course, that also meant he intended to attack somehow.
“Do whatever you want,” Yuichi said.
“Let’s start the game now, then.”
With that, Yuichi slowly began to walk towards the evil god.