The Gamer of the Sea (PJO x DXD)

(If im gonna be honest this chapter is mostly just me saying the same shit that happened in the last two and I don't feel like rewriting it. If you see me repeating like the exact same shit just worded differently, yeah, I'll fix it sometime in the future just comment under it)

The training hall was silent, save for the soft sound of chalk dust crumbling under Percy's boots.

He stood within a ritual circle carved into the stone—an intricate web of glyphs and rings that shimmered faintly, like threads of moonlight embedded in the floor. The air inside the diagram felt different. Not heavier, but clearer, like standing at the center of a storm's eye.

Hekate moved around the edge of the circle, her robes trailing behind her like smoke. She raised one hand, and the runes flared to life.

"You're not here to cast a spell today," she said. "You're here to discover how you cast spells. And why."

Percy gave her a skeptical look. "Isn't that kind of… backwards?"

She tilted her head. "Most magi know their Element and Origin before they ever cast their first spell. You've already done both. This is just catching up."

"Okay, but what does that actually mean?" he asked. "Origin, Element—I keep hearing those words. Nobody ever explains them."

Hekate's fingers trailed through the air, conjuring a mirrored diagram: a circular mandala split into two halves. Each half branched into symbols and colors, ever-shifting like a kaleidoscope.

"Every magus," she said, "is defined by two core truths: their Element, and their Origin."

She pointed to the left side of the diagram. "Your Element is your magical alignment—your natural affinity. Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, or Ether. It governs how mana flows through you, and what types of magecraft you can wield with ease."

Then she tapped the right side. "Your Origin runs deeper. It's not learned. It's what you are. The foundational truth your soul was built on. A compulsion, a drive—something that shapes every decision you make, whether you realize it or not."

Percy frowned. "Sounds… intense."

"It is," she said simply. "For some, it's something clear. 'Justice.' 'Survival.' 'Ruin.' For others, it's more abstract. But once awakened, it becomes instinct. Most magi have one. Some obsess over it. A few are consumed by it."

He hesitated. "Can people have… more than one?"

Hekate raised an eyebrow. "Not for Origin. Not truly. A dual Elemental alignment is rare—but documented. But a soul cannot be forged from two conflicting cores. At least… not under normal circumstances."

"…That sounds like a disclaimer."

Her lips twitched. "We'll see."

She gestured to the circle.

"Stand in the center. Let the ritual work."

Percy stepped forward.

The instant his foot crossed the boundary, the circle flared to life.

Lines glowed under his boots. Mana twisted into spirals, then columns of faint light. A pulse rang out—soft and resonant, like a distant bell underwater.

Percy stiffened as the air grew cold and quiet. Like the entire world was holding its breath.

Then came the color.

Two streaks of light surged up from the floor—one deep blue, fluid and rippling; the other violet-black, ethereal and flickering like smoke.

Hekate inhaled, her gaze sharp.

"…Water. And Ether."

She circled him slowly. "A dual-elemental alignment. One grounded, one imaginary. That's… rare. But manageable."

Then the circle pulsed again.

A new wave of mana erupted, deeper and heavier—like the ocean exhaling.

Percy stumbled slightly as the lights twisted.

From behind the elements, two new cores emerged.

One was sharp, defiant, burning with the fire of resistance. The other rolled with impossible depth—tidal, formless, ancient. Not rage. Not calm. Simply vast.

Hekate stopped.

Completely.

Her eyes narrowed. Her lips parted.

"…No."

The circle didn't stop. The runes surged, flickering in overlapping patterns, struggling to stabilize around what they were reading.

Percy looked around. "Uh… is that supposed to happen?"

Hekate didn't answer immediately.

She stepped forward slowly, kneeling just outside the circle's reach.

"You…" she whispered, more to herself than to him. "You have two Origins."

Percy blinked. "I thought you said that wasn't possible?"

"It isn't," she snapped, eyes locked on the pattern. "A soul can't split like this. Not without tearing itself apart. And yet—"

She watched the lights pulse around him. The defiant red-white thread. The vast, dark-blue spiral. Separate. Coexistent. Balanced.

"—You're stable."

Percy rubbed the back of his neck. "…So is this bad? Like am I broken or something?"

"No," she said slowly. "You're not broken. You're… impossible."

She stood, her expression unreadable. For once, even her goddess-mask cracked slightly—replaced with something that looked like fascination.

"Dual Element and dual Origin. One human. One divine."

She looked him in the eye.

"You're not just walking between two worlds. You are both world."

————————————

The floating glyphs cast long shadows across the stone floor.

Percy sat cross-legged in the circle's center, eyes half-closed. He could feel the magic humming in the air, drawn into the framework Hekate had activated—not hostile, but inquisitive. It slid across his skin like cool mist, then sank deeper, brushing against something beneath his bones.

It didn't hurt.

It felt like… being read.

The spell completed with a soft pulse of light.

Hekate stood across from him, silent and still as the glyphs took shape.

Four symbols. Four truths.

They hovered in the air like constellations:

Defiance. Ether. Ocean. Water.

Percy frowned. "Okay… So what am I looking at?"

Hekate's expression was unreadable. Not cold—but focused. Cautious. Even she took a moment before answering.

"Your soul," she said simply. "Reflected in structure. Interpreted through the lens of magecraft."

He blinked. "You mean… that's me?"

"In part," she said. "These four glyphs represent your Origin and your Element—the two defining forces that shape how your soul interacts with the world."

She lifted a hand and pointed to the first glyph.

Defiance.

"This," she said, "is your human Origin. The fundamental drive that forms the core of your mortal self."

Percy tilted his head. "And what does that mean? Defiance?"

"It means," she said slowly, "you were born with an instinct to rebel. To resist. To oppose anything that tries to claim authority over you—fate, rule, structure, even expectation."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "So I'm just… stubborn?"

"No," Hekate replied. "You're resilient. Reflexively. This Origin isn't a conscious belief—it's the axis around which your nature turns. Even as a child, even before you knew what magic was, this shaped you. You reject domination. You reject control."

Her voice softened, growing thoughtful.

"It's rare," she said. "More common in those who challenge the gods or rulers, but almost never in those born from them."

Percy looked away, jaw tightening.

"It's also the reason," she added, "that your mortal soul wasn't consumed by divine inheritance. Most demigods receive their Origin from their godly parent. It eclipses the mortal self like how moon out shines near by stars."

"But mine didn't," he murmured.

"No. Yours held its shape. It resisted. And that… shouldn't be possible."

Silence settled between them.

Then she turned to the second glyph.

Ether. Or: Void.

She didn't immediately speak.

Percy watched her closely. "What is it?"

"This is your human Element," she said at last. "Your natural alignment within the framework of magecraft. Most people have Earth, Fire, Water, or Wind. You have something… rarer."

"Void," he echoed. "That sounds comforting."

"Void is not emptiness," Hekate corrected. "It is potential. The unshaped. The unrealized. In the terminology of the Association, it is Ether—the Fifth Imaginary Factor. The unseen framework behind every spell. Every phenomenon."

She stepped closer to the glyph, her voice more reverent now.

"Ether doesn't just support magic—it enables it. It's the reason any mystery can take form. And for someone with this affinity…" Her eyes flicked to Percy. "It allows you to interfere with the very fabric of magic itself."

Percy's breath caught. "Wait—you mean I can disrupt other spells?"

"In theory," she said. "With training. Understanding. Control. But more importantly—Ether isn't aggressive. It's subtle. It unravels. Dissolves. Allows you to rewrite."

His throat felt dry.

"I didn't ask for that."

"No one chooses their Element," she said. "But yours matches your Origin frighteningly well. You defy structure, and your magecraft does too."

She let that sit.

Then, with deliberate slowness, she raised her hand to the third glyph.

Ocean.

Percy blinked. The shift was subtle—but he felt something change.

"This," Hekate said softly, "is your divine Origin."

"It feels…" He hesitated. "Deep."

She nodded. "Because it is. The Ocean is not simply water. It is motion. Sea life. Tides. Pressure. Abyss. Calm and storm. It is change and permanence, life and death. It contains contradiction."

Percy stared at the glyph.

"It's what you inherited from your father," she said. "Not just Poseidon the god—but the Ocean itself. The ancient force he embodies."

He closed his eyes. The sea. The way it answered him. The way it knew him.

"You said the divine usually overwrites the mortal."

"It tried," Hekate said. "But it didn't succeed. Your mortal Origin—Defiance—held. It didn't erase the Ocean. It made room for it."

She stepped back, her tone almost unsure now. Uneasy.

"No soul should be able to sustain this. A dual Origin would normally break the spirit. Tear it apart. But yours didn't fracture. It… adapted."

Percy frowned. "Why?"

She met his eyes.

"Because your Origin is Defiance," she said simply. "And even in the face of the laws of soulcraft… it refused."

Percy looked again to the final glyph.

Water.

Hekate nodded toward it. "Your divine Element. Fluid. Alive. Adaptive. It makes sense—it mirrors the Ocean."

He felt that one in his bones.

"Together," she said, "these four make you whole. Mortal and divine. Subtle and overwhelming. And still—somehow—coherent."

Percy didn't speak for a long time.

Then, finally, Hekate murmured:

"Your origin defied its own rewriting."

—————————————

The chamber had grown quiet again. No tests. No glyphs. No feedback pulses ringing through stone. Just the faint hiss of torchlight and the stillness that followed revelation.

Percy sat with his back against the far wall, legs stretched out, fingers idly tracing patterns in the chalk dust on the floor.

He'd learned a lot. Too much. And not enough.

Dual Origins. Dual Elements. It was absurd. Impossible. A paradox wrapped in myth and magecraft. And yet, it was him. Defiance. Ocean. Ether. Water.

Two halves that shouldn't coexist—except that they did. Because he did.

Across the room, the remains of a spell circle lay faint and fading. Perfectly constructed. Carefully calculated. Everything it should've been.

But it hadn't worked for him.

Not like it should've.

He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

"…I'm not meant to follow this path," he muttered.

Not the path of circles and rituals. Not the diagrams and equations Hekate had spent centuries refining. They weren't wrong—but they weren't his.

The sea didn't move in straight lines.

It spiraled. It surged. It receded and returned.

So did he.

He pushed himself to his feet.

In the center of the chamber, he raised a hand—not to draw, not to write—but to move.

His fingers curled slightly. He closed his eyes. Inhaled. Focused.

Mana.

Not just as energy, but current. Flow.

It gathered, hesitant, like water testing the shore.

This time, he didn't force it into a container. He called it. Invited it.

His arm moved in a slow arc—like the swing of a tide. His other hand followed. A rhythm. A cycle. The start of something.

He opened his mouth. Not to recite a formal chant, but to speak.

"Formless in the deep, take shape in the shallows. Flow to my hand—and answer the call."

A faint shimmer answered.

Not bright. Not structured. A mist-like swirl of mana curved along his arm like fog hugging the sea.

Percy adjusted his stance. Slid one foot back. Brought both hands forward, palms open.

The mana spiraled between them—thin, unstable, but obedient.

It pulsed once. Water coalesced. No circle. No glyphs.

Just him.

His will. His rhythm. His motion.

The water hovered in a delicate, flickering sphere. Shaky—but whole.

Percy blinked. His breath hitched.

It had worked.

Not perfectly. Not powerfully.

But honestly.

From the shadows, a voice spoke.

"…You're not meant to walk anyone else's path, are you?"

Hekate emerged without sound, her gaze sharper than the torchlight.

Percy straightened slowly, keeping the sphere aloft with gentle focus.

"I tried your way," he said, voice low. "And I learned a lot. But it's not how I think. It's not how I move."

The goddess studied him for a long moment. Then, quietly:

"No. It isn't."

She stepped closer, eyes locked on the trembling orb of water.

"What you just did shouldn't be possible—not with your control level. Not without structure. Not without failure."

He gave a faint, crooked grin. "Guess I'm not big on 'should be.'"

She didn't smile. But she didn't argue.

"You'll never be a traditional caster," she said at last. "No lecture hall will keep you. No academy can tame you. You'll never master magecraft in the way scholars define it."

Percy let the water fall gently to the floor. It splashed, harmless and quiet.

"Good," he said. "Because I don't want their magecraft."

There was a silence between them—quiet, but not empty.

Then, Hekate spoke again.

"Even so," she said softly, "you don't walk entirely alone."

He looked at her, brows raised.

"I know the paths I've walked won't fit your feet," she continued. "But that doesn't mean I can't help you clear the underbrush on your own trail. My hands may not guide your magic—but they can steady you when you stumble."

Percy didn't respond right away.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

"…Thanks."

She turned slightly, glancing back once more.

"Forge your own magic, Perseus Jackson," she said. "But don't be ashamed to learn from those who came before."

——————————————

The circle was perfect.

Flawless curvature. Precise glyphs. Five nested rings, each pulsing faintly with balanced mana flow. It was a complex construct—one Percy had spent the last two hours composing, layer by layer, under Hekate's watchful eye.

It was his final test.

Hekate said nothing at first. She simply walked a slow arc around the spell array, her robes whispering across the stone floor like wind in the rafters. The silence stretched until it threatened to crack under its own weight.

"…Acceptable," she said.

Percy blinked. "Seriously?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You expect applause? You built the structure properly. That is what the minimum looks like."

He almost rolled his eyes, but didn't. He was too tired.

Still—he couldn't help but glance back at the circle. It shimmered with quiet power, a ritual glyph meant to simulate localized time dilation—slowing everything within the central field by a fraction of a second. Not battlefield-useful. But technically difficult.

And he'd done it.

Without instinct.

Without hydrokinesis.

Without flinching.

Just knowledge, discipline… and effort.

"I'm not going to fight like this," Percy said after a moment, almost to himself.

Hekate looked up. "No. You aren't."

Her tone was unsurprised, almost amused.

"You've never been the sort to stand still behind a circle and chant incantations," she continued. "You learn because you must. Not because it suits you."

Percy stepped away from the array. "I respect what it takes. But it's not me."

"No," Hekate said again, walking to the far end of the chamber. She gestured—and a rack of wooden blades shimmered into view, glowing faintly with embedded runes. "Then show me what is you."

Percy hesitated. "Wait, you want to spar?"

"I want you to cast," she said coolly. "While moving. While defending. While attacking. While being you. You've learned the rules of magic. Now, defy them."

He constructed a practice sword, rolled his shoulders, and stepped onto the field.

The first strike came fast—Hekate didn't wait.

A blast of compressed wind slammed toward him, sharper than a blade.

Percy twisted aside, breath catching, and raised a hand. Mana surged—but not into a full circle. Just into a snap-formed rune, drawn by instinct across his palm.

Barrier.

A shimmer of force absorbed the next strike.

He charged.

Hekate didn't move—but the ground did. Sigils flashed under her feet, setting off a wide-area binding spell. Glyphs rose like vines around his ankles.

But Percy had already seen the trick.

"Too slow," he muttered—and slashed through the circle mid-activation, flooding it with his own mana.

The spell fizzled.

She raised her chin. "You disrupted the circle's anchor with free-form output."

Percy grinned. "Didn't think that would work."

"It shouldn't," she admitted. "Unless you understood exactly where the magical balance point was."

He did.

He felt it—where the lines were weakest, where the logic of the ritual could be unspooled.

They fought on—spell against spell, blade against glyph. Percy cast with movement, with half-chants, with sigils sketched in light. Every defense came from his memory of formal ritual—but reshaped, stripped down, customized.

Not beautiful.

But functional.

Powerful.

His body moved like the sea: constant motion, never predictable. He wove water into his sword strokes, summoned brief vapor screens, accelerated strikes with compressed pressure jets. Ether laced through his attacks—subtle destabilizations, unraveling enemy magic the moment it touched him.

Hekate finally stepped back.

The duel paused.

Her eyes, unreadable, lingered on him longer than usual.

"You're no traditional magus," she said quietly.

Percy let out a breath. "Yeah. I know."

She nodded slowly. "Good. Because magic doesn't belong to tradition. It belongs to those who understand it."

There was no disappointment in her voice. Only recognition.

She raised her hand—and a circle formed between them. A classic pattern: universal spell signature, used for channeling reinforcement.

"Here," she said. "Take it."

Percy frowned. "This is your casting method."

"Yes. But you won't use it like I do."

He stared a moment longer… then reached forward.

The glyph shimmered—and reshaped.

The symbols twisted into his version. Shorter. Sharper. With motion baked into the pattern, like a tide curled into a wave.

A ritual reimagined.

His own.

Hekate didn't flinch. If anything, she smiled faintly.

"You won't follow my path, Percy Jackson. Not truly. But I can still help you walk yours."

She turned, and the field's light dimmed.

———————————

Later, Percy stood alone beneath the vaulted ceiling of the training chamber.

The silence that followed their duel was not heavy—but contemplative, like the air after a storm. The circle on the floor still glowed faintly where he had absorbed Hekate's spell and rewritten it. The sigils were his now—rougher, asymmetrical, reactive. Not elegant.

But alive.

He flexed his fingers, still tingling with ether. The sensation was different from his usual power. With water, there was always motion—fluid certainty, like he was channeling something ancient and endless. But ether? That was something stranger. Weightless. Infinite. Untouched by the surface of things.

Like he was pulling on the strings of reality itself.

And it didn't come easily.

Not like water.

He crouched beside one of the practice blades, its runes still dim from overuse, and traced a circle in the dust—an unconscious habit by now. But he didn't complete it.

Instead, he whispered:

"Is this… what I'm supposed to be?"

Not as a demigod. Not as a hero. But as something in-between.

Too mortal to walk Olympus.

Too divine to stay normal.

Too instinctive for structured magic…

Too aware to reject it entirely.

Hekate's voice echoed faintly in his head:

"Magic doesn't belong to tradition. It belongs to those who understand it."

He stood, gaze steady.

Maybe it wasn't about choosing one world over the other.

Maybe it was about walking the border between both—and making something new.

——————————-

The chalk circle lay dormant.

Percy crouched near the edge, one palm on the stone, the other hovering just above the central glyph. No mana surged. No spell pulsed. And yet, something felt… unsettled. Like a tide waiting to turn.

He stared at the lines he'd drawn—measured, balanced, etched with care. Everything was correct. Everything was in place. But when he cast the spell—

Nothing.

No surge of water. No shift in temperature. The mana didn't even stir.

He sat back, frustrated, dragging a hand through his hair. "Why won't it respond?"

"It isn't the circle," Hekate said from behind him.

Percy turned his head. She stood at the edge of the chamber, arms folded, her expression unreadable.

"It's you," she said.

"Great," Percy muttered. "That's helpful."

Hekate didn't rise to the bait. Instead, she approached slowly, her steps silent over the stone.

"You've understood heory. You understand ritual structures, sigil logic, even spell layering. But you sometimes fail to cast outside the lab." She looked down at him. "Do you know why?

"

He frowned. "Because I'm doing it wrong?"

"No." She crouched beside him, meeting his eyes. "Because you're doing it right. Just not for you."

That caught him off guard.

She reached out and touched the edge of the chalk circle. "This method—the way the Mage's Association teaches it—was forged over centuries. Thousands of minds refining structure, optimizing stability. It works. But it wasn't made for someone like you."

"Someone like me?"

"Someone with an Origin that resists confinement. Someone who doesn't accept power unless it feels like his. Your mind rebels against rigidity. Your mana doesn't obey ritual passively—it needs motion, rhythm, defiance."

He looked at his hand. "So what, I'm supposed to just freestyle spells?"

"No," Hekate said. "But you need a bridge between instinct and ritual. A casting form that mirrors how you move, how you fight."

She stood, gesturing at the space around them. "Try again. But not with symbols. Not with chalk. Move."

"…What?"

"Move. Let your body speak where glyphs cannot. Channel your mana through motion. Shape it with will."

Percy hesitated. But then he stood.

The room fell silent.

He raised his hand, slowly at first—then flicked his wrist in a half-circle. His other hand swept across his chest, carving invisible lines through the air. He focused—not on the spell—but on the feel of the flow. The twist. The spiral.

Mana stirred.

He slashed downward. Turned his body with it.

Heat sparked against his fingers.

Not much. Not enough for a spell.

But enough to feel real.

He tried again—slower this time. A downward stroke. A pivot. A breath pulled through clenched teeth. He imagined the motion not as decoration, but as structure—a ritual etched into muscle and bone.

Mana surged. Flickered.

A soft ripple of warmth shimmered against his palm.

Not from brute force—but from movement born of meaning. Intention braided with rhythm.

A pulse shimmered in the air around him.

[New Spell Casting Forming: Flowcasting (F)]

[Type: Adaptive Ritual | Status: Instinctual Unrefined]

[Effect: Allows casting through motion-driven mana pathways. Efficiency: 29%]

The ripple faded. His hands fell to his sides, trembling slightly.

But Percy's breath was steady.

He didn't feel triumphant. He felt—anchored.

Hekate watched him closely. Then, after a long silence:

"It's unrefined," she said softly. "Instinctive. Raw. But it's real."

She tilted her head, studying him as if seeing something new.

"…It's yours."

Percy didn't smile. But he nodded, quietly.

"I think I found the first thread."

"No," she corrected. "You found your flow. The thread comes next."

She turned to leave, her robes trailing shadows behind her.

Then paused.

Her voice came quiet, almost fond:

"Magic, for you, won't be lines on parchment. It'll be a ripple across the world."

"I still don't really know what that means," he admitted.

"You don't need to. Not yet." Her voice dropped to something near a whisper. "But you're already chasing it. And when the time comes, you'll recognize the shape of it—not in my teachings, but in your defiance. In the rhythm of your own spellwork. That's what makes a real caster."

He stared at the circle one last time, then closed the notebook.

"Then I'll keep carving."

Hekate stood, a small, satisfied exhale escaping her.

"Good."

No more praise than that.

And just like that, she was gone.

Percy remained where he stood, the echo of her words lingering.

He raised one hand again, fingers curled.

No chalk. No sigils. Just breath and motion.

He moved—and mana followed.