The Ritual

"Once again, we return." This article contains spoilers for Issue 37. Read at your own risk.

The Ritual
Information
Type	Magical
Users	Ananke Minerva

"Once more, I return."

—Minerva

The Ritual, also known as the core sacrament, is a ritual conducted by Ananke at every Recurrence.

Overview

The Ritual is performed by Ananke for nearly six thousand years, since the times that pre-date the Recurrence. Given the discussion between her and her sister, it's purpose is to grant her some form of immortality, apparently by allowing her to reincarnate through the Maiden for another cycle, doing so continually for every Recurrence. However, it also seems to be used to ward off the Great Darkness. However as revealed by Ananke and Minerva the "Great Darkness" is nothing more than another name for Death and that Ananke had simply allowed the other Gods to develop their own individual misconception of it as a "Monster" by not clarifying what it was exactly.

Upon the beginning of the Ritual after the 90 year Saeculum, Ananke and Minerva's consciousness and mind is divided into two, with a newer younger incarnation known as "Minerva" appearing in the land or country where the new generation of 12 gifted children are born in. From there Minerva and Ananke would live separately as they locate, identify and Incarnate the 12 children and giving them new "Godly" identities that would take advantage of their "flaws" and worsen them for their schemes to complete the Ritual. In order to perform the Ritual, Ananke and Minerva need to take the heads of four gods. Although that isn't any apparent requirement to which gods have their heads removed for the Ritual, commentaries made by Minerva imply that the gods must be selected carefully. In order for the Ritual to work, all four heads must be in a perfect state. The living heads are self-susteining and conscious, and they must be sacrificed before the Recurrence ends.

It is also possible to finish the ritual with only three heads if the one performing it sacrifices their own head as the fourth. Albeit granting them the return in the next recurrence, they will spend the entire saeculum between the cycles in the Great Darkness, eventually being reborn at the beginning of the next recurrence and left with deep psychological effects as a result. This may have happened at least twice.

During 1923, Minerva collected the four heads and killed Ananke, finishing that cycle and performing the Ritual, in which she merely snapped her fingers counting to four, each number corresponding to a head. The heads were then burned into pink flames that enveloped Minerva, becoming an aura of bright energy around her body. Afterwards, her eyes became black with pink skulls, identical to the ones displayed by Persephone. She apparently grows into becoming the Ananke of the next cycle, implying that all Maidens of the Recurrence grow into Ananke eventually. Most of the Rituals used the head of a Persephone, since she is always fated to return by the end of the Recurrence and is apparently dangerous to her plans, with Ananke referring to her as "The Destroyer" due to her apparent substantial threat to "undoing" the Cycle of her Immortality.

In order to take the heads she uses, Ananke sets up situations in which she is required to finish off a god to keep the order, thereby giving her the perfect chance to get heir heads. She does so by exploiting the weaknesses of some gods, sometimes using these weakness as a mean on itself, as she did to Tara. She also exploits the conflicts within the Pantheon.

History

Original Recurrence 6,000 Years Ago

Prior to the discovery of Godhood, Ananke had apparently long since been searching for a way to overcome death and find immortality using her "Miracles" and during her twenty's her Sister had successfully revealed her new powers granted to her by her newly discovered divinity and one of their friends confirmed with her Divination that once all twelve of them were dead and gone, another 12 gifted children would appear. Ananke began to think that these new discovery's would assist her in creating a method to defeat death.

Upon researching the subject and analyzing its dangers, Ananke in her sixty's, had already successfully created the basic theory on the Ritual using her Sister's "Gods" as a basis. And with the confirmation of the future generation of 12 gifted, Ananke created a ritual where by sacrificing four of the 12, she could successfully create a "creature" that would inherit her mind and soul and continue to live beyond her and successfully gain a type of immortality by creating a Cycle of life, death and rebirth. And upon showing her sister of this Ritual, Ananke attempted to convince her to join her in using the Ritual to extend her life with her. But upon realizing that doing so would require them to sacrifice some of their own friends to start the cycle, Ananke's sister refused and initially thought that she had also dissuaded Ananke from doing so as well.

However unknown to her sister, Ananke had already long since set her mind to accomplish "immortality" and proceeded to gather her required sacrifices for her Ritual. With her ending up having to presumably kill her fellow friends in order to silence them. And upon her sister trying to flee and escape her and her eventually catching up, the final fundamental details of the Ritual and the ground rules of how it works was set up by Ananke and her sister right before she killed her.

1920s

The first head Ananke collected was Persephone's, as usual. She did this in 1922, which means that her head was taken more than an year before the events that finished the Recurrence in the next year.

When the murder mystery of Lucifer's mansion started, Ananke, well aware of the plan concocted by Set and Baal in order to get rid of the masses and save the art by sacrificing four gods, in a ritual similar to her own, Ananke decided to take advantage of this and took the Morrigan's head, blaming them so to give Susanoo, Amaterasu and Amon-Ra, who had just discovered of this through Minerva, enough reason to go after them.

After the battle at the lighthouse, Minerva, searching the water for survivors, noticed Set was still alive and quickly took her head before the other gods could see. After Ananke disposed of Woden and Mimir, they feigned a suicide pact in order to undo the damage the other gods did. After letting Amaterasu and Amon-Ra kill themselves, Minerva shielded herself, which subsequently allowed Susanoo to live. After deceiving him into coming closer, she took his head.

Later, when the time for the Ritual to be performed came, Ananke displayed doubts. Minerva, incapable of convincing her otherwise, swiftly kills her and then performs the Ritual herself.

2010s

In this Recurrence, Ananke, which is apparently Minerva from the last Recurrence, decided to work by chance and kill Judge Holmes at Lucifer's trial to have her convicted of murder and arrested, setting the perfect stage for her rebellion. Although Lucifer accepted initially, Laura's attempts to prove her innocence ended up causing her to rebel, leading to a battle between gods that Ananke used as an excuse to claim her head under the pretense of an execution.

Later, she found usefulness in Baphomet's fear of death and lured him with the Prometheus Gambit, intending him to kill another god so to kill him in retaliation. After he attempted to kill the Norns, Ananke decided to move against him, but was prevented due to the Morrigan's intervention. Later, both he and Inanna, who had fought with him, realized Ananke's true intentions and found out the existence of a new goddess, Persephone. They stepped to Laura's home and prevented Ananke from taking her head. Angry at the interruption, Ananke saw more usefulness in letting Baphomet live, so she took Inanna's head instead.

Shortly after this, Tara, whom Ananke had helped to reach a breaking point, decided to kill herself, and Ananke assisted her in her suicide, taking her head instead and burning her suicide note, blaming Baphomet for the murder in order to drive the Pantheon against him even more. With a turn of events caused by Persephone's return, Ananke ended up being executed by Persephone for her actions, and Minerva had to work on her own to finish the Ritual. She attempted to use Sakhmet as the last head, but her head was left in a half, leaving it useless. Minerva comments her remaining choices are impossible before leaving the cave.

Victims

• 2010s
• 1920s
• 1830s
• 450s

Lucifer, the Christian devil, formerly Eleanor Rigby. Her head was the first, collected by Ananke.

Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love and Queen of Heaven, formerly Zahid. His head was the second, collected by Ananke in seized opportunity.

Tara, goddess of unknown origin, formerly Aruna. Her head was the third, collected by Ananke in assisted suicide.

Notes:

• Ananke collected Inanna's head to replace Persephone, whose claiming was interrupted by him and Baphomet. Her course of actions also imply that she meant to take the latter's head as well.
• Minerva attempted to collect Sakhmet's head. Although she succeeded in claiming her head, she just took half of it, leaving it useless to be used.
• Minerva stated during her final monologue of how she once again “Won”, Minerva stated that she planned to collect Urdr’s head as the fourth due to her being imprisoned by Woden and thus the easiest one to acquire.

<gallery navigation="true">

Persephone 1920s.jpg|Persephone, the Greek goddess of spring, death and rebirth, Queen of the Underworld. The first head, collected by Ananke in 1922.|link=Persephone The Morrigan 1920s.jpg|The Morrigan the Celtic goddess of war, death and sovereignty. The second head, collected by Ananke.|link=The Morrigan Set.jpg|Set, the Egyptian god of the desert, storms and chaos. The third head, collected by Minerva.|link=Set

Susanoo.png|Susanoo, the Shinto god of storms and sea. The fourth head, collected by Minerva.|link=Susanoo

<gallery navigation="true">

Persephone 1830s.jpg|Persephone, the Greek goddess of spring, death and rebirth, Queen of the Underworld. Head collected by Ananke at France in 1830.|link=Persephone

Inanna 1830.jpg|Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love and Queen of Heaven. It's possible her head was collected by Ananke. If so, she was most likely the final head.|link=Inanna

Persephone, the Greek Goddess of spring, death, rebirth and Queen of the Underworld. Her head was collected by Ananke in Germania in 454.