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This was not heaven. This was, beyond all predictions to the contrary, the very deepest part of hell. Actually, Volo thought, maybe they were one and the same.
Shema Yisrael, Ad*nai elokeinu, Ad*nai echad.
All things were being revealed to him, past and present and future, and all at the same time, and all within the same infinitesimal mapping of neurons in what he now knew to be, relatively, the most primitive excuse for a supercomputer possible. Some very far away part of him knew that he was finally getting all of the answers to every question he had ever had about anything he had ever asked in this timeline and this universe and any other, but the human brain was so limited it was functionally a sieve, in this instance, anyway. The answer to his burning question, the only one he had ever wanted answered with this level of ferocity, was in his mind right now and he could not access it.
He did not know if he was still alive.
THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED, IS IT NOT?
Abruptly, he was aware of his own body. Before, it had felt like he had simply become part of the miasma of the world, floating among it without form, unsure if he had ever truly been human or if it had all been a long and tiresome dream. Now, he could feel the hard ground beneath the heels of his hands and pressing at the bones of his knees; he could discern that it was uncomfortably cold; he was hyperfocused on each and every part of his body that touched the platform he was kneeling on as if each contact point was lined in neon yellow. He was bent low to the ground — the position that the people back in Hisui adopted only when they were truly remorseful for their actions.
Hisui. He couldn't believe he remembered its name. The entirety of the universe's knowledge had been within him only a second before, and he could not have dredged that name up despite it.
No, wait — the knowledge was still inside him. It burned and burned and burned. He wanted to get sick and expel it from his body. Yet among that knowledge was the knowledge that such a thing wouldn't work even if he tried. There was no way to get rid of this horrible gift he had been given, no matter what parts of him he tried to cut away. Why had he ever wanted this?
He was heaving anyway. Unconscious of the fact that it would help nothing, his body was attempting to rid itself of the poison of the knowledge of good and evil.
He stayed bent over, rasping, trying desperately to breathe, for a thousand years.
It was too much. It was all too much.
The heaving subsided for just a moment. In that moment, Volo was finally able to grasp a rational thought.
The voice was Arceus. He knew this with certainty. The being he had been chasing for so long was finally here to meet him, and it was absolute hell.
He shouldn't have expected any different. He had been stupid, actually, if he had thought that the outcome would be anything other than this: him, lying prostrate on the ground, aggrieved by the omniscience of everything that had happened in the universe and everything that ever would, and Arceus had not even materialized itself yet. His entire life had been a travesty from which he could not escape — why would the being responsible for it be any different? Why had he thought that meeting the creature who sat back and watched as he was trampled underfoot like meaningless debris would do anything other than reiterate how little God cared about its creation?
God was not dead. Humans had not killed it. God was right here, and through its indirect action it had a higher kill count than any being on Earth.
Volo forced himself to lift his head. Teeth gritted so hard he thought they might crack under the pressure, he turned his gaze skyward, or what passed for a sky in the inky blue near-nothingness of the void he now inhabited.
Arceus floated there — or a fragment of it, anyway. Though the endless knowledge he had been assailed mercilessly with had mostly left him now — and surely not because of anything he had done, but because mighty Arceus had willed it finally leave him — he retained enough of it to know that this was nothing even close to Arceus's full power and form. This was simply a proxy that it had sent to give his human mind something to be able to converse with, something comprehensible that he could fathom. Though he knew he would not survive the meeting, Volo was furious that he was not even being given the respect of speaking to Arceus face to face. He deserved eternal peace, at least, if nothing else.
The proxy touched down onto the disc that had been summoned to hold them. From where Arceus's hooves touched, soft white concentric circles expanded outwards. It would have been beautiful, if Volo had not been so blind with rage.
SO THAT WAS NOT YOUR WISH, AFTER ALL, DESPITE YOUR INSISTENCE TO THE CONTRARY.
Volo's white-knuckled fingers clenched on the immaterial surface of the disc. "You know that's not what I meant!"
IT IS WHAT YOU ASKED FOR. AM I TO DENY ONE SO DEVOTED TO THE WORSHIP OF ME THEIR DESIRES?
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking fair. God knew everything, and by extension, it should know Volo's heart's desire, and not however his awkward human mouth ended up wording it. God was toying with him, once again, and it was compounded onto all the other times that God had sat by and done nothing while he was hurt and suffering and in pain, and now it finally had a chance to answer for its crimes, and all it was doing was committing more of them. Was nothing sacred? Was even the raw wound of his heart a battlefield from which he could never hope to emerge victorious?
"You never cared!" he exploded, his vision blurring with tears. "I begged you to deliver me so many times, and you stood by and watched as my blood was spilled! I begged to see you, to at least receive answers for why you ignored the cries of someone so clearly in pain, and you refused to appear before me! I didn't even want anything from you except an explanation! You know what I meant, Arceus!"
Arceus's eyes remained coolly fixed on him. It was impossible to tell what it was thinking. This infuriated Volo even more; he was fuming that there was nothing within this void to throw or break. He wanted to hear the sound of splintering glass so badly, but all he could hear was the splintering of his own heart, which was so fragile by now that he hadn't thought it could break any more.
Finally, it spoke: AND WHO ARE YOU TO COMMAND GOD?
Volo spat, "His victim."
For a very long time, Arceus did not speak. Then: PERCEIVED.
For a very long time, Volo did not speak. Then, disbelieving, stunned, astonished: "Perceived?!"
NOTHING WAS DONE TO HARM YOU.
Low and dangerous, Volo growled, "Nothing was done at all."
DO YOU WIELD GOD AS YOUR SWORD? HAVE YOU PROCURED THE FAVOR OF GOD, THAT YOU MAY CALL IT DOWN WHENEVER YOU LIKE TO DELIVER YOU FROM EVIL? WHAT HAVE YOU ACCOMPLISHED TO GAIN THE USE OF GOD AS YOUR TOOL?
At this, Volo got to his knees and thrust his arms out in front of him. The sharp golden points of his wrist braces poked into the pale skin, at first, and then with a little more pressure they dug into them, sending dark red blood trickling down both arms. He didn't even flinch. Upon trailing off of Volo's arms and hitting the disc below him, the blood dissipated into nothingness, except for a tiny curl of black vapor that rose an inch or two off the floor and then vanished. Despite himself, Volo could feel his expression once more turning into that of a pleading man — some part of him wanted Arceus to understand its wrongs and promise to right them. "Does not the ancient blood of Sinnoh flow within me?" he asked, voice cracking in the most humiliating way possible.
Arceus regarded him. It did not seem impressed.
AND WHAT MEANS THAT TO GOD? WHAT MEANS ANY OF WHAT YOU HAVE JUST SAID TO GOD?
Volo continued, brokenly, "Do you have no heart at all?"
Arceus said, NONE.
This was altogether too far. Volo remained there, arms outward, bleeding on the disc only because he was at such a loss he was not sure what to do. He couldn't formulate a response to what he had just heard God say; he couldn't believe that God had just admitted — no, not even admitted, because admission would denote some form of guilt, and Arceus had said it merely as a fact of life the same way it might have said any other equally demonstrable facts of life — that God had just told him that it had no sense of compassion; he was completely and thoroughly without precedent for what had just happened. There was no falling action, nor resolution — only Volo, sitting there with a blank face and an even blanker mind.
Until the pins and needles started.
At first he mistook them simply for the brain fog that often came with this sort of feeling. That continued for a few moments until the pins and needles became painful, and then seemed to transition into a physical sensation, and Volo doubled over, heels of his hands pressing against his temples. His breath was coming in wracking sobs now; his shoulders shook with the agony of it.
THIS WAS YOUR OTHER WISH, Arceus said, and the sound of its voice amplified the feeling by approximately seven billion. THIS I WILL GRANT YOU WITHOUT FOLDEROL OR RECITAL. YOU NEED ONLY LIE THERE FOR A MOMENT, AND YOUR ETERNAL REPRIEVE WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU.
But this wasn't what he had wanted. Not now — not like this — not here and not by this creature that dared to assume the title of God. Once upon a time, he may have wanted it, when his being had been consumed by despair and misery. Not now, when the anger inside of him burned his blood so hot it bordered on white. He felt the most alive he ever had. If anything, his wish was now to live innumerable centuries, so that he might find a way to tear down Arceus and replace it with himself. If he was God, he would listen to people when they were calling out to him; if he was God, he could make it so that no one was miserable ever again; if he was God, nothing he loved could ever be taken away from him.
He slammed his forehead to the disc in an effort to make the pins and needles hurt less, but they only got stronger. It was as if they were coming from inside his mind, stabbing like an ice pick at the inner parts of his skull, trying desperately to get out. It was maddening. A person would go insane from only a minute of this, let alone anything past. He was oscillating between a wail and a moan — a sound that would turn the stomach of anyone with even half an ounce of sympathy in their soul.
Arceus stared down at him, though he did not see it.
Volo opened his eyes for the briefest of seconds. On the other side of the disc, something was forming, too murky to make out, but enormous, like the shadow of a Gyarados, or something even bigger, something that could easily dwarf even a sea serpent like that — and then without warning it was visible and brighter than anything.
On the left side, Dialga. On the right side, Palkia. And in the middle—
Volo came to with a gasp and a start.
It took a few moments for the agony in his mind to subside. His body had been dying, and it was difficult to convince itself it was not still doing so. He took several deep, appreciative breaths, filling his lungs with clean air and taking stock of each part of his body, making sure everything still functioned correctly. Once the pain inside his head had mostly faded, he turned his focus outwards to the world around him: the bright blue sky, with its puffy white clouds sailing overhead; the jagged points of the columns that had used to comprise the Temple of Sinnoh, ivory and reverential, spiking up above him; the occasional Staraptor or Braviary high overhead, wings outstretched, unaware of and unconcerned with the human beings down below.
He waited another few moments and then pushed himself up off the aged limestone he had been lying on. Everything hurt — this was not surprising, considering the material, but it was leagues more tolerable than what he had just endured. His vision swam, but quickly righted itself. His hair had fallen back down around his shoulders, and he had to push some of it out of his face in order to see anything. As he tucked one side behind his ear, something came into view that quelled the remnants of the hatred that lingered like poison inside his skin. He cocked his head to one side. A soft smile graced his expression without his meaning it to, the way it always did when he was around—
"Tioga," he said, quiet as the breeze.
They were nearly fifty yards away, and their back was to him, but he saw them stiffen. It was impossible not to. They were no longer in a form that could be even slightly mistaken for human. While they had kept the humanoid base, enormous white wings spread outwards from their back, tipped with several golden spikes that looked far too heavy for the thin material they were attached to. Wrapped around their midsection were similarly golden half-rings, as if to mimic a ribcage. A halo whiter than white slowly rotated above their masses of dark curls, with one outward spike on either side of the circle. There was also the not-exactly-human trait of them being about fifty feet tall.
They pulled their knees to their chest and hid their face within them. "Don't look at me."
Volo wiped frenetically at the points where the braces had broken the skin on his forearms, but there was nothing there. Whatever blood he had spilled, it had only been in the strange dimension that Arceus had met him inside of. "Why?" he asked at a normal volume — they would be able to hear it. "Is something wrong?"
"Everything," Tioga said morosely. "I'm hideous."
Volo was baffled. Tioga had always been exceptionally pretty. Now, like this, in all their divine glory, they were the most beautiful thing he could imagine. He pressed his hands to the limestone and used them as leverage to stand; the world swam once again, but only for the briefest of seconds. He made his way across the expanse of the temple, one hand out for balance, and stopped just beside them. This close, he could feel a sort of humming in the background, like a low droning or the constant sound of far-off thunder. Without a doubt, this was an effect of their transformation — he took an experimental step towards them, and the sound grew louder, while the opposite proved the reverse true. It was a comforting sound. It was tinnitus's pleasant cousin, and he could listen to it forever.
From this angle, he could see much more of them. They wore a white dress — he had never seen them in white, and now he was beginning to understand why — that started with a cowl neck and a hood pulled loosely over their dark hair, the volume of which meant it was doomed to tumble out of any hood they could ever attempt to wear. Their arms were bare, leaving their rich brown skin on display, and attached to their wrists were four-pointed star braces incredibly similar to the ones that Volo now wore. Their forehead was pressed to their knees in an attempt to hide themselves, but they were so enormous it was a futile attempt, as Volo could see their eyes, shut tight, and the crystalline tears that gathered at the corners of them. His heart sank into the stone below him; he could see the way that their lips were pressed tight together, desperately trying to keep from breaking out into the same sobs he'd displayed only moments earlier in Arceus's realm.
He said, softly, "You're not hideous. How could you think that? You're resplendent. You're so beautiful that everyone we meet attempts to buy you something and you needn't even ask."
"Yeah, I know," said Tioga miserably, "because I'm a legit snack."
Volo, bewildered, as was often the case with Tioga, didn't respond, so they continued, "But not to you, not like this. You must find me so repulsive."
"Wh-Why on Earth would I find you repulsive?"
"Because you have a hard-on for my dad," they sniffed. "And, like, you spent all this time really wanting me to be Arceus. So, like, sorry I'm not my dad."
They were trying very much to sound flippant, and it was not at all going well. In fact, the pain in their voice was so raw and real that Volo found himself walking over to where their right hand met the concrete and wrapping his arms around their forearm, which was as big around to him as a tree trunk. They stiffened again — this time, however, it was out of surprise rather than fear. He felt them turn their head just slightly to watch him as he stood there, transferring all of his feelings into the strength of his hug, or at least attempting to. They had said before that their heart and his were the same, so surely they would understand what he was trying to communicate. Their size made it difficult not to turn around and look at them. Some inner instinct labeled Tioga as a predator, and keeping his eyes off of them set off alarm bells in the primitive part of his brain, but one by one he shut them down.
Of course, they blared immediately back to life when Tioga's hand lifted off the ground. Volo gave an unbecoming yelp, but he needn't have worried — Tioga's other hand came up beneath him as he flailed to help him up onto the back of their hand, where he sorted himself out, adopting a cross-legged stance, looking up in wonder at a face he had kissed a thousand times before, though never at this colossal size. He was acutely aware of the height they were holding him at and the way there wasn't much space between himself and the edge of Tioga's hand, but it was impossible not to trust them by this point. They had found a way to come to Arceus's realm to save his life. Their promise that night, all those months ago, had come true. No matter where he was, they would always find a way to come collect him and keep him safe from anyone who dared to try and hurt him.
He loved them fiercely.
He caught the index finger of their other hand as it began to move away and held it close. No doubt Tioga had the strength to take it back, but they remained still, eyes shining with emotion, watching him — a pathetic human, he realized, who had nothing to offer, a being so much weaker than them that they could crush him without a second thought. They had always been capable of that, and yet they had never done it, not even when he had upset them or gotten angry with them or any number of situations where he had acted less than ideally towards them. Instead, they had continued to make sure that he was unharmed. They had defended him from the world; they had stayed by his side; he felt a rush of shame for how cruelly he had often treated them.
He closed his eyes and laid his head against the ridge of their finger. "Tioga. I'm so sorry."
The astonishment from them was palpable. "You ... you are? Wait ... what?"
That they didn't know why he was apologizing just cemented that his actions had been more detrimental to them than he had thought. Had they come to expect this sort of behavior from him? Had they avoided the question he kept asking them because they were terrified that he was going to react poorly and that they would have deserved it? If so, he now knew why he had been seen as unworthy to meet Arceus for so long. Even if Arceus had been able to understand human love and compassion, it would never have come to him. Not when he had put Tioga through the same hell that he had been searching for reprieve from all his life.
He nodded. "I am. My entire life has been nothing but a travesty. I thought that meeting Arceus and demanding answers would give me the peace of mind that I sought, but ..." He took a deep, shaking breath. He could still feel that ice pick sensation in the back of his mind if he concentrated. "... it turns out that Arceus wasn't the being that I expected it to be."
Tioga snorted and looked aside. "I could've told you that. My dad SUCKS, dude."
But they hadn't, because it would have hurt him, to hear that God did not care about its creation. They had guarded his heart and he hadn't even known it. His heart swelled with love for them. He had to take a moment before he continued, and then he said, choosing every word carefully yet inundated by his feelings: "But you, Tioga — you've done nothing but wish for my well-being as long as you've known me. No matter how I treated you — no matter how I spoke to you — no matter what I've done — your only concern was that I was safe. Why is that?"
At this, Tioga looked astonished, as if the answer was written in blazing neon in the sky and Volo just refused to see it. They met his eyes — now searching theirs — and said, "Because I love you. Because your heart and my heart are the same. Isn't that enough?"
Volo was quiet, and then he broke into a small smile, shaking his head in disbelief. "'Isn't that enough?' Of course it's enough, Tioga. I just didn't think that anyone was capable of caring about me the way that you do. It almost reaches back through time and space and overwrites the harm that was done to me. And yet for so long I forced my own desires on you, made you feel like you had to hide who you truly were." Here, his voice cracked once again, and he pressed the heel of one hand to one of his eyes, trying to stem the flow of tears but only succeeding in smearing them around the ridge of his eye. "And you didn't even say anything. I was so adamant that you fulfill my dream, and you could have broken me into pieces at any time—"
"I did break you into pieces," Tioga told him, mournfully. They had removed their finger from him and unconsciously moved closer and closer until their nose was nearly bumping earnestly right up against his midsection. "You said it all the time. You said I broke your heart ..."
"Oh, my piteous, lamentable heart," Volo managed bitterly through his tears. "Don't trouble yourself with that, Tioga. It was broken long before I met you. You are the only person in this whole wretched world that kept it from dissolving entirely." He blinked up at them — by now, they were a smudged blur of colors, but he could still see the wondrous awe in those eyes, looking at him — insignificant, derisory Volo, who had done nothing since meeting them but try to force them into a box they never could have fit in and shouldn't have been made to regardless. "I should be nothing to you," he continued. "Regardless of my heart, or how similar it is to yours. Arceus certainly cared nothing for it. I ... Tioga — no. Giratina."
"My name," Tioga whispered reverently.
"Giratina," Volo went on, and it was obviously taking what little he had out of him. "Giratina, I— I renounce God." The conviction he said it with was unlike any time before that he had pledged himself to Arceus and its study. Arceus had been his heart, but this was his soul. "I renounce God, and instead I devote everything to you. Your heart and my heart are the same. If God sees the error of its ways and begs my forgiveness, I won't accept it. I promise everything I am to you. That is ..." He was nervous now; he retained the certainty of his statement, but if you looked, you could see the way the fear of rejection colored the edges. Being rejected by two gods at once would surely break him beyond repair. "... if you'll have me."
For a very long moment, Tioga said nothing. Then, slowly, they let their hand descend to the stone floor, where Volo could do nothing but climb off of it. A spike of white-hot fear shot through his veins, and his blood felt frigid. He had been too much. Of course he had been too much. His passion must have been what drove Arceus off in the first place, and now he had done it again to its child. He prepared for the abyssal heartache that would inevitably have him spending the rest of his days alone here, on the grounds of the Temple of Sinnoh, too fractured to eat, drink, or even to talk, just wasting away until he was reclaimed by the earth. He could not go on when this heartbreak had happened twi—
Arms were flung around him from behind.
Tioga's grip was crushing, but he hardly noticed. He was staring, shell-shocked, at a fixed point on the horizon — he couldn't make himself do anything else. Behind him, Tioga had their head buried in the crook of his shoulder, and he could feel their tears that matched his own. Their shoulders heaved with the force of their emotions.
They cried, "Of course. Of course I'll have you, Volo. How could I do anything else? Oh, I love you, I love you."
If there was a glass ceiling above the sky, his heart surely would have broken it with the force at which it propelled upwards. He turned himself around in Tioga's arms — not easily, because their grip was about as forgiving as a steel trap — and held them as they cried. He stood there with his fingers buried in their masses of dark hair and, for the first time, he could see a future that stretched on forever. With Arceus, he had had no idea what to do after he had gained its favor. It had been his entire reason for living. But now ... now, as long as he was here with Tioga, the end result didn't matter. Whether the two of them had an ultimate purpose or not, he would still be with someone who loved him more than anything and would move heaven and earth to save him. Someone who had moved heaven and earth to save him.
"Thank you," he whispered into their hair, closing his eyes and feeling peace for the first time in many, many years. "For everything."
”Certainly, my Volo,” Tioga said, and their wicked smile curved against the side of his face. “As long as you don’t ever love anyone but me.”