Kata felt the intoxicating power of her unleashed might pushing against the ball, and then something felt…off. There was fear: her fear? Jay-Jay’s? Fenrir’s even? It was all of the above, but why?

[i]The first time the Ifrit flickered into the world, it felt like agony. Every sense, suddenly created into consciousness out of nothing at all, was overloaded with stimuli. Her eyes burned white with the oppression of the sun, while her ears rang with the bedlum of her some other being’s shallow breath. Creation was confusing, and she had no one telling her what to do. She’d simply…blinked into existence.[/i]

Katagogi looked at the ball of death, and the falling of the End-bringer, and she knew that tragedy was coming. Everyone was going to die: The Vampire, the Werewolf, the Angel, The Siren…None would live through it all and then even she would die.

…No, worse than that. She would survive, and simply return to that demonic underscape. The world underneath human existence that Demon’s called home. She wouldn’t die, but Jay-Jay would. She’d be the last to die as well: forced to watch everything she cared for burn to ash by Fenrir’s final blight on the world.

[i]The tiny Ifrit looked up at the Titan. “Prometheus.” She knew the name without ever having heard it. It was etched onto her thoughts because it was him that had wrought her. She was his accidental child, the biproduct of his gift to humanity; an Ifrit created from the first flame. It made her a freak amongst her own kind and humanity. To humans, she was a demon, pure and simple. To demons, she was a mistake created wrongly. Ifrit were created from flames that killed people, and destroyed buildings. She had been born from the flame of life…What was she?[/i]

Unacceptable. There was no other thought in the demon’s mind. She refused to let such a tragic reward be the gift of those who managed to bring down a god. She had lived through enough Greek tragedies in her life. This time, the heroes would be given a chance to revel in their victory.

[i]Watching Prometheus simply glare at her, the unwanted demon-daughter, was painful. She followed him as he tampered with the flame, in front of the humans he so obviously adored. He knew their names, and cared for them. She wanted to hate them for it, but couldn’t find it in herself to do so. She asked Prometheus what her own name was. His reply was simple: ‘mistakes don’t get names.’[/i]

Something clung to her and Jay-Jay. The notes of the Siren’s music were sweet, and Katagogi felt a smirk creep onto her face, despite the situation. All of the heroes of the day were scrabbling to push at the Doom-sphere, all of them desperately clinging on to life. They wanted to live, they were the all Titans, bearing the world on their shoulders. Katagogi knew what she must do, and as soon as the thought entered her mind: she felt her host’s complaints. The fear, the fury, the sadness of Jay-Jay all likely fed through the link to the Siren: but none more so than the loss.

[i]When the gods chained Prometheus to the rock: the being that had made her and discarded her like the unwanted offspring that she was, she felt like she should have been happy. The gods had ignored her because she seemed so inconsequential. What could she do? An Ifrit with no urge to kill? What would she manage to even accomplish? What was her purpose? Time rained past her as she pondered the answer.[/i]

To the Siren though, Kata knew that she could not let him bare what was to come, if only because Jay-Jay liked him. She reached out and severed the magic connecting Siren to Demon, leaving the link to Jay-Jay: They might need it later to find her; Jay-Jay would need it for what was to follow.

[i]The Ifrit was fully formed now. A most human-looking ifrit, no one had ever seen: but she was unmistakably an Ifrit. Her skin was dancing flame and her head bore a crown of ebony horns, like charcoal. She stood before Prometheus, having scared off the tormenting buzzards for the time being, so that she might ask a question of him. She had grown to accept the contempt from the Titan, and from man, that he loved so much. She knew the gods would always reject her, and she knew that demons would always scorn her. She needed one thing from her progenitor though. One truth to guide her. “Why did you give the humans fire?”[/i]

The Ifrit felt a conviction inside herself. She had the resolve and she had the will, so now it was simply a matter of action. She had only one thing left to do, and that was to ensure her host’s safety. Inside the mind of the body the Ifrit and the Fire-girl shared, Jay-Jay was irate. She was furious at the demon and of what she was planning to do. She thrashed against the demon, trying to regain control of her own body, despite the futility of it. The spell Jay-Jay cast was absolute. It gave Katagogi complete control of the body, for a time. A final flash of Katagogi’s most tender smile was all she could give, before closing off the part of Jay-Jay’s mind that could be affected by what was to come.

Katagogi faced the deathball, thankful for the time brought for her by the heroes. They would fail soon, so that meant there was no time now for any more diversions. She gave the Siren a little look, passing on her duty to him, almost. It was his job to look after her now.

With no more reservation, Katagogi plunged into the heart of Fenrir’s death ball. She plunged past the agony and past the hatred, past the fury of a dead god or the promise of the end times. All of that was ignored as the Ifrit surged forward, into the heart of Ragnarock itself. Then, she did the only thing she could.

She devoured it.

[i]Prometheus had shrived under the constant cycle of death and rebirth. He looked a pathetic being now, certainly no ‘titan.’ He didn’t seem to have the energy for contempt any more. “The fire represents many things: Death, destruction, endings and all. Yet it represents something more: it is warmth, and safety also. For the humans, it would represent my final gift to them: the gift of potential. It would be the beginning of their growth as a people, and my love would be the spark that ignites that potential.” [/i]

Taking it all in was so much worse than the entrance into the ball itself: Agony unexplainable, hatred indescribable, the raw desire to end all things clawed at her skin, as if Fenrir himself still guided them. She recalled Prometheus’ words. The purpose she’d made her own. She was a being of potential: of warmth and the beginning of human growth. 

The beginning, and the end. Prometheus’ fire and Fenrir’s hate. Katagogi’s origin and Katagogi’s dirge. 

She felt herself start to weaken as the ball of destruction did. She was smothering herself as well as the ball. She had made her choice already, she would end herself to save Jay-Jay’s world. Her thoughts drifted to Prometheus again, a smug satisfaction on her face. “I outdo you.”

And then, the demon felt cold.