Ryouta was back in the darkness. This time, there was no glow trying to take him. Instead, there was only a soft purple luminescence. It felt nice, like the first breeze of fall at the end of summer. Ryouta did not feel threatened by it at all. He considered walking into it, but he wasn't sure whether it would be wiser to try and find something else.
In the end, his debate went nowhere, and he realized that he had to leave here somehow, and he didn't have any way of knowing where he would be anyhow, so it didn't really matter where he chose to go. With this thought, Ryouta decided to walk into the glow.
He emerged into a scene of terror. The world around him burned. What was this?
Where had the purple glow come from?
Ryouta instinctively tried to open his inventory, and he was surprised when it actually came up. Unfortunately, it no longer contained....
Ryouta's thoughts trailed off. There was something there. Just beyond his reach. it felt like something from his system's store. So, maybe he could unlock his items from his first life? How strange. But anyhow, what was this? What did he do anyway? His system was shattered. It couldn't give him any more currency. So what was the currency?
An answer. The purple glow. He saw it again. Drifting up to the sky. Some form of energy? And could he absorb it?
Things were crashing down around him. Masses of metal and other things. They looked kind of like massive forges, huge containers made of iron. Maybe some form of machine? They were shaped like six-pointed stars, and they were everywhere. They were supported by another power. He reached out a hand, and sucked in a breath.
Nothing happened. Ryouta waited for a while, but he couldn't absorb energy as he once had. Or maybe the distance had just been reduced.
He followed one of the plumes of purple energy. This world was dying. Maybe, if it was enough energy, he could awaken his system again?
A vain thought. But he hoped. Hope had gotten him through many dark places. And it gave him a reason to keep going. His form didn't seem to be entirely solid. He couldn't feel the heat from the flames that broke this world around him, that obscured what lay at the base of the purple energy.
It was a giant. He had stepped through a curtain of flame, finally finding where the smoke-like power came from. He stared at the thing. It was massive, and purple. It's clothes weren't burning in the flames, and neither was its body. Its chin was oddly striped with solid lines set into the flesh, perhaps backed by a strange jaw bone.
This was not a savage. He looked up, and saw one plume of fire separating itself from the others. A ship?
Perhaps this giant knew who had been on it...
Ryouta's thoughts trailed off as he noticed the creature's eyes. Forlorn, the look of the lost, even in death. He reached up and slid the thing's eyes closed, with two fingers each, muttering a small prayer underneath his breath. He had never been one to believe in an all-powerful God, but maybe someone, somewhere, was watching this thing. This planet. Or was he the only one to witness this destruction?
"May the stars guide you, friend. This is not the end of your journey, but the grand beginning of another."
Perhaps more than one, Ryouta thought as he looked back up at the retreating ship.
This being was almost certainly the father of the one who had escaped. He knew that look. Far too often, he had caused it. Back then, he had not cared. He saw now, perhaps as he never had before. In his first life, he had grown into someone who did not care for the well-being of others, and only for his own gain.
Power had corrupted his steady heart, as surely as a drop of blood dirties a glass of water.
He placed his hand over the giant's head. Even with his tall, willowy frame, and long fingers, his hand hardly overlayed half of its face.
He took in a small flame, a little soul, lost at sea. He wasn't sure exactly how he did it, but it was done. With it came a vast power. Nowhere near as much as he had had before he had died. No, not even close. But a large jump from where he was. He no longer had a system to tell him how much exactly, or his limits in containing it.
Would he have burned this world, if he had thought that he could gain from it?
The answer, of course, was yes. He didn't deserve this power. He cradled the flickering soul inside himself. What was the point? What did he do with it? Throw around his weight because he had it? If he did not use power to do something, what was the goal? Only to gain more. He would not be limited by anything. He would continue to grow until he tore down the heavens simply because he could. And he had been close, too. He knew it. He had been at the Cosmic-Deity Realm, but what was next? Would he become like the Destroyer that he had killed within his first few years of having the system?
No.
He fed the soul power. Enough that it grew. He felt the flickering stabilize, and then grow even more. He understood this thing.
Not a true person. As he had not been in his captivity under the High Elder Lord of the Universal Realm. Spiteful, hating, merely for the purpose of hating itself. He drew that away. He left only the true emotion. No hatred. What else was there?
Forgiveness.
The soul was molded into what it once was. It drew power from Ryouta. And he gave it gladly. It spread, like a fire, creating a burning on the inside, contrasting the feeling of cool air blowing over his skin from outside, even though he should have felt flames. Everything about him being here was wrong. But he didn't care. This soul needed to live.
It was small. So small. Innocent, and pure. Where had it come from, and where was it going? He didn't know. And it wasn't his place. His place was to provide it with power.
He was a battery. Discarded when used. And he enjoyed it. The feeling of being useful. Of being the one who changed a life. It was different from when he had had great power. Better. More right.
The soul quickly burned through the power from the corpse of the giant, then began absorbing more. All of the purple plumes in the sky shifted towards it, and Ryouta's body was overwhelmed. He burned up, and the soul burst out. It was tinged purple, and had a luminescent factor to it. Like a little giant. It grew quickly as Ryouta's body faded.
He didn't feel the slightest bit of pain, though. Finally, he had found what he should be doing. Only by sacrificing of himself to others would he be truly free.