For the umpteenth time since the fight began, Tanjo, Yuso, and Regashi found themselves floating motionlessly in space, waiting for one of them to take the initiative and continue their relentless and brutal battle. However, Tanjo made a breakthrough this time: he injured Regashi. Yuso had no idea what Tanjo was referring to when talking about an individual named 'Nyx,' but when utilizing the context given from the conversation held between Regashi and his supposedly younger brother, Nyx was a being who had been using Regashi Ketsueki's body as a vessel, concealing their primary identity for whatever reason.
Despite the incredible discovery, one question remained—could Yuso damage him, too? Was Yuso strong enough to inflict pain on the most cruel being in the multiverse? So far Yuso had punched holes and warped the man's body, but nothing had seemed to deal permanent damage, with Regashi healing himself seconds after each attack every time.
"You two are still far from achieving anything significant." Regashi admonished with a wicked grin, his eyes shimmering. "Even Reiwa was stronger than both of you combined. We haven't even left the multiverse yet!"
Tanjo and Yuso wanted to grunt in bewilderment. Have they not left the multiverse? What was beyond it? To add to the confusion, Reiwa Takuetsu was allegedly capable of figuring out such a thing.
Regashi laughed loudly, raising his right hand and preparing to snap his fingers. "Let me show you just how much of a gap there still is between us!"
*SNAP!*
Everything was hazy. The cosmos around Tanjo and Yuso had lost its solid black appearance, shifting into an abyss full of a cloudy blur. Somehow, it had felt far more bleak and empty than the desolate universe they had just been residing in. The cold vacuum they once hovered in was now a plane that did not have a temperature. Just haze.
"Yuso… my magic, it's gone!" Tanjo shouted, his eyes drifting to his own body and realizing that both his rifts and Aura Amalgamation had no longer been willing to have any output.
The redhead immediately stretched his arms out and attempted to conjure pentagrams, only for his efforts to be fruitless as not a single crimson circle came into existence. They were utterly powerless, mystically losing their abilities. What had Regashi done?
"The only reason you two can perceive each other is due to me letting such a thing happen—otherwise, you both would have been swallowed by the Ectoverse by simply entering it." Regashi's voice rang through their years, causing them to flinch.
Tanjo's face scrunched as his gaze flitted in every possible direction. "This isn't an illusion… we're somewhere way out of our reach…"
"The Ectoverse…" Yuso mumbled, his Shirugeto eyes narrowing. "Tanjo, we're more than out of our reach—we're outside the boundaries of the multiverse. Even the gods could not touch this place."
The jet-black-haired teenager angled his head to stare at the youngest Takuetsu, adopting a curious gaze. "How do you know about it?"
"Stories back on Earth, and if we are truly in the Ectoverse, then the person you claim to be controlling Regashi should also be out of theirs…"
"Speak plainly!" Tanjo demanded, feeling a sense of urgency.
Yuso turned his head toward the boy. "You said an individual named Nyx was controlling Regashi. Nyx was a goddess who had been ostracized by most of the mythos and deities. She, too, should be bound to the multiverse…"
Without warning, Regashi's body slowly formed in the distance, appearing one body part at a time. Throughout the hazed realm, the man's piercing green eyes were all the more horrific, housing malevolent intentions. Regashi was truly an unstoppable force.
"Goddess… such a primitive, obsolete term." Regashi hummed, his cloak lifting around him.
"Quit pretending. You'll never be human, even if you take over the body of one." Yuso asserted, clenching his jaw.
Suddenly, a hand clamped down on Yuso's right shoulder, making the redhead's eyes widen as he swiftly spun his body around and launched a solid punch at whoever stood behind him.
*SMACK!*
The punch was more than fruitless as Regashi, who magically appeared behind Yuso, caught the punch with his free hand, still holding onto the redhead's shoulder. Yuso felt powerless, not having an ounce of magic fueling him. The Ectoverse was a realm of existence that was far too high for the youngest Takuetsu.
"Your strength is that of a well-trained athlete, but nothing more." Regashi mocked with a grin, pushing the redhead back.
With a grunt, Yuso charged Regashi once again, employing skilled combat moves that quickly failed to be of any use. The situation made it seem as if Yuso was a typical citizen trying to fight even a low-class warrior. Regashi had power; Yuso did not.
*CRACK!*
In an instant, Regashi grabbed Yuso's wrist with two fingers and applied enough pressure to snap the bone lying under the redhead's flesh. Yuso seethed in pain, his body instinctively flinching at the pain and discomfort thrumming through his right arm. He was unable to heal the injury, forced to endure the pain of a usually small injury for the first time.
"Reiwa was capable of seeing up to twelfth-dimensional planes. He had power, while you two can't even visually perceive anything after three dimensions." Regashi spoke with a taunting tone, looking down at the redhead.
As Yuso backed away to prevent any more injuries, Regashi shifted his gaze to Tanjo, who was crouched and staring at his hands. The teenager was visibly tensing his arms, the limbs shaking erratically. Tanjo was giving it his all to produce even an iota of magic in his body.
"As smart as you've become, I'm ashamed to see you haven't realized that you can't conjure anything. Your Aura Amalgamation and Disruption of Reality—two abilities that never belonged to you—are gone until I say otherwise." The brown-haired man cackled, grabbing the hood of Tanjo's gray cloak.
Tanjo was then tossed further into the blurry abyss, his body hitting an invisible surface. He slowly pushed himself up to another crouched position, his white wings veiling most of his form. He had his right hand pressed against his stomach and his left hand against the invisible surface beneath him. His head was also tilted downward, having hair draped over his face.
Yuso watched in confusion. Has Tanjo given up? The teenager refused to retaliate against Regashi in the slightest, remaining in a cowering position. Regashi ambled toward Tanjo with interest gleaming in his green eyes, towering over the boy menacingly.
"Even now, you still perplex me, Brother. I can't read your mind, despite the fact you're completely depleted of everything." Regashi revealed, his grin widening.
Tanjo did not speak, his breath hitching every few seconds. Even though he had refused to express any stress or anger, the boy's body was still under extreme strain.
"This is out of character for you—!"
Before Regashi could finish speaking, Tanjo abruptly reached through the man's cloak and clutched onto what felt like a leg, hoisting his body up and reeling his right fist back. Not an ounce of magical power was built up in Tanjo's fist, but he continued to throw a punch with all of his strength, with Regashi standing still, watching as the boy's fist grew closer.
Once Tanjo's fist was no further than an inch away from Regashi's face, a faint—*KRSH!*—could be heard. The Disruption of Reality was back.
Hurriedly, Regashi's head retracted into his cloak and narrowly avoided being struck by Tanjo's fist. Upon seeing this, Tanjo grunted and forced the blue rifts coating his fist to crawl further up his right arm as he swung downward, attempting to strike the rest of Regashi's body. Unfortunately, the man's body blipped out of existence, vanishing from sight.
"Ha! You truly are my brother!" Regashi's voice rang through the blurry abyss, his body reappearing in the distance.
Yuso subtly slid closer to Tanjo, his Shirugeto eyes glued to the boy. "How did you get your power back!?"
Tanjo straightened his posture, glowering at Regashi from afar. The blue rifts around the boy's body hovered majestically, fully returning to him as if they never left.
"Nyx said we couldn't perceive anything beyond three dimensions… so I challenged that. I'm only capable of seeing four dimensions, but it took quite a bit of math to get my magic back." Tanjo replied, his voice low.
The redhead scoffed. "Just because you know math doesn't mean you can physically project it!"
"The Disruption of Reality works in only one way, Yuso, and that's to manipulate everything. It only needs me to order it around, and with me using math to comprehend a fourth dimension, it can spurt to life." Tanjo reasoned, flaunting his intelligence.
"I hate to say it, but I'm not as aligned with math as you are." Yuso admitted, holding his broken wrist.
Swiftly, Tanjo pressed two fingers against Yuso's head. "Your body just needs to be…tuned.."
Suddenly, the haze that filled the entire dimension began to subside, giving the Ectoverse a bleak appearance, resembling a typical empty universe. Yuso could feel his magic brim within his body, his Shirugeto eyes swirling excitedly. His broken wrist immediately healed itself, repairing the broken bone. Yuso had his power back.
"Your rifts are such a cheat." Yuso commented, rolling his shoulders and flapping his black wings.
Tanjo hummed lowly and said, "All three of us have cheats that we weren't born with."
The teenager's comment clearly aimed at Regashi, as he stared at him fiercely. To think that a wicked goddess would take over an innocent man's body in order to push reality beyond the boundaries of multiversal divinity. Deities were equally ruthless as their very creation—humans.
Regashi grinned devilishly at the indirect mention.
"Since you managed to breach into the fourth dimension, why don't I up the ante yet again?"
As the brown-haired man spoke with a sinister tone, he held out his right hand, forming four spheres that hovered above his palm. They were green in color and resembled Genso-Kyu, but such an assumption would be dead wrong.
"Do you think you can handle being struck with the force of four, five-dimensional multiverses?" Regashi chuckled, narrowing his emerald-green eyes.
Tanjo's and Yuso's eyes widened in both confusion and horror. How much power did a five-dimensional multiverse pack? What did it mean? Was it every ounce of physical weight inside those multiverses, or perhaps how much theoretical weight could exist in them?
"Explain!" Yuso demanded, his Shirugeto eyes whirling rampantly.
Regashi tilted his head back, his lengthy brown hair sliding back. "In the Ectoverse, its inhabitants must be at least four-dimensional beings…meaning they can create worlds, galaxies, universes—multiverses, like an artist creating a new piece."
A million thoughts ran through the teenager's and redhead's minds, reeling in the information. Were they able to do such things? Create multiverses? They were currently sitting at a fourth-dimensional existence, meaning they qualify for such abilities. Never before did either of them believe they would be capable of such power.
"Now imagine every square inch of just these four multiverses, which are the outer bubbles themselves, and then picture the depth of the infinite number of universes inside those respective bubbles—I'll give you a hint, each universe is infinite in size… All of the reality that resides in them, intangible or tangible, is stockpiled into energy that I will then exert onto you. On a fifth-dimensional level, of course." Regashi explained, his voice smooth and sadistic.
*SHRMMM!*
Yuso materialized a group of pentagrams around his body, each one trained on Regashi. His black wings flapped vehemently, indicating that he was ready for combat.
"Your voice has always irritated my ears." The redhead declared boldly, narrowing his demonic eyes.
Tanjo grit his teeth. "Yuso! Don't you get it!? We won't survive if even one of those bubbles hits us! They're beyond our existence! If we were initially powerless by just standing in a fourth-dimensional state before, imagine being struck by anything fifth-dimensional!"
"Explain your motive, then. I'd rather die while resisting than willingly concede!" Yuso hollered, his muscles tensing under his tattered kimono.
Silence filled the abyss they floated in. The jet-black-haired teenager gazed at his current partner with veiled emotions, biting his tongue.
"I… just wanted you to know." Tanjo grunted, clenching his hands into fists and glowering at Regashi.
The four, fifth-dimensional bubbles floated out of Regashi's palm and hovered above his head, positioned perfectly to be launched forward. Gradually, Regashi lifted his thumb and extended his index finger, replicating the shape of a gun with his right hand and purposely aiming the front of it at Tanjo and Yuso.
"Maybe I'll reanimate you both, as well." Regashi muttered thoughtfully, smiling cruelly. "After I bring your corpses back from being torn apart by the weight of multiple realities."
There was no dodging the bubbles, enduring the brunt of their force, or even matching their oppressive output. It was certain death on all ends.
*CRACK!*
Before Regashi could unleash the four bubbles, a massive hole was punched through the Ectoverse above them. A brilliant light shined down onto the three, bewildering them all. Regashi glanced up at the hole in the realm, only for his eyes to broaden greatly.
"Big Daddy's here."
A blinding hand that dwarfed Regashi, Tanjo, and Yuso descended from above, reaching down to put them in its clutches. The teenager found himself lost in the light of the gigantic hand, overwhelmed by the power radiating off of it and astonished by the sheer size of it. It felt as if a new deity had made its way into the arena.
Before he or Yuso knew it, the hand swallowed them entirely.
XXX
LAZY ENDING. Don't care, I had planned for this sequence to occur for like 2-3 years and I'm sure y'all are going to get tired of this dragged out fight between Tanjo and Yuso vs Regashi. I know this fight NEEDS to be long like this, but I'll split it up now so it can get to the finale afterwards. You'll see what this is! Stay tuned!
Have a Great Day!
Peace - Cr1ticalz_