With her gambit revealed now in full, Ochazuke understood, and much like Sarada -- and perhaps the optimistic Chef, Zaofan -- the warrior wished to hunt Auroc to ground ... and again Ishtar could not help but smile.
This was good.
"Thanks to you as well, and Held, and Zaofan ... as while I positioned myself and made my gambit ... you three proved this God could bleed; and ..."
A voice trickled through the back of the glowing-horned Oni's mind then, of the same cloying quality as Auroc's own but softer still so that only she could hear it. Then with a flickering, the mark at her arm shifted and seemed to grow ever-so-slightly larger. Her smile widened to a fang filled grin.
"... and you proved him a liar in more ways than one."
There was a moment then, when silence reigned, before Ishtar took a single step toward Ochazuke before offering softer than before.
"I must confess that despite my success ... it is a gamble, yet. Despite his words, too, it seems he seeks to force my ... subjugation. A battle I can win, given the means and the time ... though perhaps not the war itself ..." the golden-eyed Oni trailed off then, before glancing over toward the others. "I suspect I will depart with Sarada a short while as well, now that the matter with Jagam is settled. Yet you alone know best of all of them, perhaps, what is coming."
A War with God -- a God -- and perhaps the Threshling themselves.
"Still." The Oni pulled back, if ever so slightly.
"We must move ... slowly. To fight a 'God' even false as Auroc is, in their demense ... is to give them an advantage."
Offering a sigh to the space between them then, the glowing-horn Oni glanced down at the mark upon her arm once more, and with a subtle nod as if to confirm that the game was now, as she had established, returned her attention to Ochazuke.
"So we must use the time before us now, to prepare ... and perhaps teach the others, that martial might is not always enough."