The planet designated PX-7 in the 7th Universe's 4th Galaxy wasn't just abandoned; it was a cosmic tombstone. Jagged obsidian mountains, sharp as shattered godsbone, clawed at a bruised purple sky veined with dying nebulae like old bloodstains. Geysers of inert dark matter hissed plumes of absolute cold, freezing the thin, metallic-tasting air into glittering, toxic frost that crunched under the Stardust Weaver's landing struts. Silence hung heavier than neutronium, broken only by the mournful groan of tectonic plates settling into their final positions. Merus materialized outside the ship in a bloom of fading cerulean stardust, the usual luminescence of his skin dimmed, almost grey. He leaned heavily against the scarred hull, not from physical fatigue, but from the psychic aftershock still vibrating through his divine core like discordant harp strings plucked by giants.
Across the unimaginable gulf of realities, the battle in Universe 6 raged; a discordant symphony of spiritual detonation and collapsing spacetime that resonated within him. Shinji's signature, a frantic supernova of golden-green rage and Voidheart resilience, clashed violently against Nirvana's corrosive, desperate entropy. He saw flashes: volcanic rock vaporizing, nebulae tearing like rotten fabric, Shinji's body bisected and reforming, Nirvana's monstrous form crumbling under relentless blows. Each psychic tremor was a fresh wound on Merus's soul. He'd failed Shinji's family. Failed to shield him from Monarchs. Failed to be anything but a fugitive guide in a war against annihilation. His knuckles whitened against the cold metal.
"Hold the line, Shinji," he rasped, the sound swallowed instantly by the oppressive silence. "Don't you dare lose now. Not after everything. Not to her." The names echoed silently; Kiyomi's fiery crimson hair, his aunt's gentle smile, Tamago's piercing gold eyes; casualties on the altar of Shinji's destiny. The crushing weight of his own diminished power, his inability to stand against the likes of Amado or Dentetsu or even Nirvana, pressed down like the gravity well of a collapsing star. He was a God of Creation reduced to hiding in cosmic junkyards.
Suddenly, the ambient cold deepened. Not a drop in temperature, but an absence of warmth so profound it felt like the universe itself had taken a final breath. The hissing geysers faltered, their plumes freezing mid-air into grotesque sculptures of absolute zero. The oppressive silence became absolute, a vacuum swallowing even the phantom echo of distant stars. A scent permeated the stillness; ozone, yes, but undercut by something far older, far more terrifying: the sharp tang of primordial hydrogen, the metallic bite of nascent singularity, the cold dust of dead galaxies.
Every divine instinct in Merus, honed over eons, screamed in primal terror. This wasn't concealment like Amado's unnerving stillness. This was a void where spiritual energy should roar. It predated concepts like 'power' or 'deity'. As if was the silence before the Big Bang.
"Well, well," a voice resonated, not through the air, but within the very bedrock of Merus's consciousness. It was the sound of continental plates grinding against the foundations of reality, deep, ancient, and utterly devoid of inflection. "If it isn't the little Creation brat. Hiding in the cosmic scrap-heap? How... diminutive."
Merus couldn't move. Terror, cold and absolute as the void between galaxies, locked his joints. His breath crystallized in his throat. He felt less than an insect; a momentary fluctuation in the cosmic background radiation beneath the gaze of something that had watched universes ignite and die as fleeting sparks.
Footsteps echoed, not on the frozen obsidian, but on the fabric of spacetime itself. Each step caused faint, fractal cracks in reality that healed instantly, leaving trails of impossible geometry. As the Creation God tensed thinking that Saganbo personally came for him he heard words. "Relax, Merus." The voice held no malice, no warmth, only an immeasurable, detached weight. "Your little band of troublesome insects? They hold no interest for me today. Not directly. Take it easy, alright?" A pause, vast as an intergalactic void. "I merely find myself... intrigued. Something of that sort. And thus, I extend a proposal."
Agonizingly slowly, Merus forced his body to turn. His cerulean eyes, wide with a fear he hadn't felt since his own nascent days, beheld the figure standing casually before him, bathed in the sickly light of dying nebulae.
Short, light-blond hair, not like spun gold, but like captured starlight filtered through the event horizon of a quiet black hole. A physique that seemed carved not from matter, but from the fundamental potentiality preceding existence itself, radiating effortless, ancient authority that made Saganbo's flamboyant tyranny seem like a fledgling's tantrum. Eyes the colour of forgotten supernovae; not bright, but holding the deep, cold embers of creation's first fires; regarded Merus with unsettling neutrality. He wore simple, unadorned robes that seemed woven from condensed cosmic background radiation, shifting subtly with unseen currents of pre-reality.
Merus's voice, when it finally came, was a cracked whisper, the sound itself seeming to freeze and shatter in the unnatural cold. "You... you are—! It cannot..."
A faint, utterly unreadable smile touched lips that seemed unused to the expression. "It's been quite a while since the last time we've met face to face kid." The ancient eyes held Merus's, seeing through eons of struggle and failure. "Call me Hyachima. The God of Absolute Beginning. Your senior, Merus." The weight of those words pressed down, heavy with the dust of dead realities. "By several eternities, child. By the span of countless dead universes."
Universe 3523—Saganbo's Throne of Weeping Neutron Stars
The pulsating heart-light of captive neutron stars cast frantic, strobing shadows. Amado materialized not from shadow, but from the space between photons, his drowned-moonlight blue skin flickering with a rare, almost imperceptible agitation that manifested as a subtle warping of the light around him.
"My Lord Saganbo." His voice, usually a monotone hum, held a distinct harmonic shift; a sliver of something akin to awe, laced with cold calculation. "A significant disruption. Unparalleled in its... improbability."
Saganbo, lounging on a dais crafted from shattered quasars, paused mid-sip of distilled dark energy from a chalice of compressed spacetime. He raised a perfectly sculpted purple eyebrow. "Improbability is the spice of eternity, Amado. Spit it out."
"Planet 556," Amado stated, the coordinates resonating in the air like struck crystal. "Universe 3, Galaxy 11. Designation: Earth."
Saganbo froze. The chalice paused halfway to his lips. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face, wider and more genuine than any expression of delight Merus had ever elicited. "Earth?" he breathed, the word thick with dark amusement. "Again? Oh, this is exquisite! A cosmic punchline worthy of the grand stage!" He threw his head back and laughed, a sound that cracked nearby realities like thin ice, causing miniature gravitational anomalies to swirl around the throne. "Another legend blooms in the very same gutter? How deliciously, perversely unexpected!"
Amado remained impassive, the faint light-warping around him intensifying. "Energy signature analysis confirms nascent Trascender protocols. Resonance overlap with Subject Kazuhiko: 99.8%. Statistical probability of coincidence: negligible."
Saganbo's eyes gleamed with manic delight, the purple depths swirling like miniature galaxies caught in a vortex. "Fantastic! Truly, a blessing upon this increasingly tiresome game!" He slammed the chalice down, dark energy splashing and freezing instantly into shards of null-space. "Assign a Monarch. Immediately. Prune this unexpected sapling before it casts inconvenient shadows."
"Kokuto?" Amado suggested, his voice returning to its neutral hum. "He possesses... operational familiarity with the locale. He did go there once after all."
"Precisely!" Saganbo purred, steepling his fingers. "Send the Swordwrath. Let him clean up the mess he left unfinished. A poetic return to the scene of the first failure. Ensure he understands the target's potential has escalated. No holding back this time."
Amado bowed fractionally, the movement precise as a calibrated instrument. "Parameters acknowledged. Deployment initiated." His form dissolved, not fading, but unfolding out of local reality with geometric precision.
Universe 664 (Combat Potential Index: Prime):
Raimei crackled, a humanoid storm of violet lightning dancing on the polished obsidian floor of his newly claimed citadel; formerly the seat of Monarch Daganu. Below him, arrayed in varying states of bewilderment and aggression, stood his acquisitions: Sasaki, Shinaru, Raigan and Ubiginu, I mean, valued assets!" Raimei jabbed a sparking thumb at his chest. "From this nanosecond forth, consider yourselves promoted! You are the inaugural members of the Special Raimei Force! How's that for climbing the cosmic ladder?" A ragged, discordant chorus of "Yes Yes Sir!" echoed, Sasaki's voice a grinding boulder slide, Shinaru's a whisper from a tomb, Raigan's a cackle, Ubiginu's a grunt. Raimei's grin widened. Cannon fodder, yes, but his cannon fodder. Useful tools against the coming chaos.
Universe 9:
The Whispering Wind shuddered violently as it exited the turbulent slipstream of Universe 10. Inside the cramped cockpit, the air reeked of ozone, scorched metal, and the distinct, acrid tang of Gorogilian blood; a scent like copper and rotten eggs. Shirou slumped in the pilot's chair, exhaustion etched deep lines into his face that no regeneration could smooth. His knuckles were white on the controls, eyes closed, but beneath the lids, they darted rapidly. His fingers twitched in micro-movements, replaying every near-miss, every calculated dodge, every split-second trigger pull against the planet-sized monstrosities of Planet 35. Image training. Always training. He couldn't afford to be slow. A low groan escaped him as his ship's sensors pinged; another long jump ahead. Universe 6 was still far.
Universes 3923-3926:
A wave of palpable despair, cold and gnawing, seeped across the four Universes like a psychic frost. Civilizations faltered. Lights dimmed in cities that had shone for millennia. Stars seemed to lose their lustre, their light growing weary. No visible attack, no grand explosion. Just... a deepening shadow on the soul. The unseen touch of Soereichi, One of the monarchs, had fallen upon them. His presence was a vacuum cleaner for hope, a whisper in the dark that amplified every doubt, every fear, until entire worlds simply... gave up. The silence here wasn't empty; it was heavy with the weight of surrendered futures, futures which forgot what they first forgot.
Universe 128:
One moment, it existed; a vibrant tapestry of spiral galaxies, nascent stellar nurseries, worlds teeming with life both simple and complex. The next... absolute, silent void. Not destruction. Erasure. As if a cosmic hand had simply selected it and pressed 'delete'. No explosive release of energy, no collapsing singularity. Just... cessation. A perfect, impenetrable nothingness replaced swirling nebulae and bustling planets. For a single, infinite picosecond, an incomprehensible presence lingered within the void; a sense of vast, indifferent scrutiny. Then, it too was gone. Universe 128 was no longer on the map.
Amado materialized back before Saganbo's throne, the usual smoothness of his arrival marred by a fractional instability in his form, like static on a screen. "Lord Saganbo—" he began, his neutral tone carrying an undercurrent of something urgent, almost... strained.
Saganbo didn't let him finish. The manic delight vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden, terrifying stillness. The playful glint in his purple eyes extinguished, leaving pits of absolute cold. The ambient temperature in the throne room plummeted towards absolute zero. The laughter lines around his mouth hardened into fissures of pure, unadulterated rage. "I," he hissed, the word carrying the weight of collapsing stars, "Fucking. Know." The chalice of frozen dark energy in his hand sublimated instantly into screaming vacuum. The neutron stars wept faster.
Location: The Shattered Crucible – Battlefield Aftermath, Universe 6
A desolate archipelago of broken planetoids adrift in a graveyard of dead stars. The largest fragment, the corpse of the volcanic world Shinji and Nirvana had shattered, still glowed sullenly red in places, molten rock cooling into grotesque, twisted sculptures under the cold gaze of a nebula torn ragged by their conflict. The very fabric of space here felt scarred, thin, bleeding phantom radiation.
The Hyper-Kinetic Monarch was a ruin. Not merely broken physically; limbs bent into impossible, puppet-like angles, his blue armor shattered, chestplate a crater of charred flesh, sparking cybernetics, and leaking fluids that shimmered with unstable dimensional energy; but conceptually shattered. Shinji's final, point-blank Spiritual Detonation hadn't just ruptured bones and sinew; it had overloaded and fractured the delicate, hyper-accelerated neural pathways Torento used to perceive and manipulate illusory dimensions. His hazel eyes, wide and utterly vacant, stared past the corpse of reality into an abyss only he could see. His form vibrated at impossible frequencies, a blur of dissipating matter and fraying spacetime connections. Then, with a sound like tearing silk and shattering glass, he simply... unraveled. Vibrating particles scattered, winking out of existence one by one, leaving behind only a faint ozone smell and a lingering sense of frantic, unmoored motion. A Monarch, erased not by blade or energy blast, but by the destruction of his own perceptual reality as if his existence itself was nothing but a... Hypnosis.
Crumpled on a jagged spire of rapidly cooling obsidian, the terrifying Alpha Monster form was gone. She was just Nirvana again; breathtakingly beautiful, terrifyingly cruel, and utterly, irrevocably broken. Her lustrous pink hair was matted thickly with luminous, blood from a savage gash across her scalp. Her right arm ended in a cauterized stump just below the elbow, the ragged flesh still steaming faintly from Shinji's point-blank Spirit Pulse. Every ragged, wet gasp tore through her ruined torso, where deep gashes pulsed with fading pink light, revealing glimpses of cracked ribs and damaged organs beneath the tattered remnants of her elegant outfit. Luminous blood pooled beneath her, staining the dark rock an eerie violet.
Shinji stood amidst the swirling cosmic debris, chest heaving. Golden-green spiritual energy flickered erratically around him like damaged circuitry, sputtering and flaring. Blood – crimson human blood flecked with faint starlight – streamed from a deep gash on his temple, welled from a split lip, and oozed from countless smaller lacerations crisscrossing his arms, chest, and legs. His clothes hung in scorched, bloody tatters. Yet, even as Nirvana watched through pain-hazed eyes, the worst wounds began to knit shut with visible, grotesque speed. Muscle fibres writhed like snakes, weaving back together; skin stretched and sealed over the gaps, leaving angry red lines that faded swiftly to pale silver scars. The raw power of his regeneration was undeniable, but the sheer volume of damage, the spiritual exhaustion etched into his face, spoke of a cost even Voidheart couldn't erase instantly.
A wet, choking rasp tore from Nirvana's throat. "Damn... it..." The words were thick with blood, pain, and a dawning, horrifying realization. The Trascender wasn't just strong; he was a force of nature, healing faster than she could inflict lasting harm.
Shinji wiped blood from his mouth with the back of a trembling hand, his eyes, when they met hers, blazing with a mixture of incandescent fury and bone-deep fatigue. "Looks that way," he ground out, his voice hoarse. He took a deliberate step forward, the obsidian cracking under his boot like gunfire in the sudden silence. "Even if you are stronger right now..." Another step, closing the distance. "...I either surpass you mid-fight..." He raised a fist, golden-green energy sputtering back to life around it, casting sharp shadows on his determined face. "...or I just outlast you. Your energy's fading. Mine's woven into my fucking soul." He met her gaze, unflinching. "Let's. End. This."
*Too strong... Too relentless! * Nirvana's mind screamed, a frantic litany against the rising tide of agony. *Voidheart Surge... True Immortality... DAMN IT! Where is the extraction?! LORD SAGANBO! ANSWER ME!* She pushed herself up on her remaining arm, muscles screaming in protest, trembling violently. Defeat warred with seething, venomous hatred in her pink eyes, but beneath it all, a primal fear was taking root.
Shinji didn't charge. He vanished. Not mere speed, but a micro-teleport fueled by rage and pinpoint spiritual expenditure, reappearing inside Nirvana's shattered guard before the space where he'd stood had even finished collapsing. Fists and feet became blurs of golden-green annihilation. THUD-WHAM-CRACK! Each blow landed with the concussive force of a dying star striking bedrock. Nirvana blocked frantically, her remaining arm a desperate, shimmering pink shield, parrying with bursts of rapidly weakening energy that sputtered and died against Shinji's relentless assault. A hammer-blow cracked ribs with an audible snap; a spinning heel kick snapped her head back violently, spraying luminous blood. She was driven backwards, stumbling over the uneven, scorched terrain.
"ACT 3: SPIRITUAL DETONATION!" Shinji roared, not firing a beam this time, but slammed his spirit-clad fist, knuckles first, directly onto the cauterized stump of Nirvana's severed arm.
KRA-BOOOOOOM!
Raw creation energy, supercharged by Voidheart amplification and white-hot fury, detonated inside her. Pink light erupted from Nirvana's eyes, her mouth, every pore, turning her into a grotesque lantern of agony. Her remaining arm vaporized at the shoulder in a spray of molten energy, vaporized bone, and gore. The force hurled her backwards like a broken doll trailing smoke and luminous blood, crashing through a towering spire of volcanic glass that shattered into a million glittering shards. She lay amidst the debris, a ruin of beautiful flesh and shattered divinity, struggling to breathe through ruined lungs.
Shinji stalked forward, breathing heavily, the golden-green blade of spiritual energy reigniting in his hand with a menacing hum. He stopped at the edge of the shattered glass, looking down at her broken form. "Why?" he asked, his voice low, dangerous. "Why shift back? To mock me with your beauty before the end? To pretend there's dignity in this?"
Nirvana coughed, a spray of luminous blood painting the dark glass. Her beautiful face was a mask of agony, but a flicker of that old, defiant malice sparked in her dimming eyes. She managed a ghastly, blood-stained smile. "If... if I'm to die..." she rasped, each word a struggle, "...I choose... to die as me. Beautiful. Whole... in form, if not... in power." Her gaze locked onto his, defiant even in ruin. "Not... not as that monstrous thing you forced me to become."
Shinji scoffed, a harsh, bitter sound. "Whatever. Doesn't matter. You're dying. Justice for Kuro. For Miryoku. For everyone you shattered for your fucking orders!" He raised the crackling energy blade high, its light illuminating the desolation, casting his shadow long and terrible over her. "This ends now."
Nirvana's eyes snapped wide, not with fear of the blade, but with a sudden, manic focus. The fear vanished, replaced by a terrifying, calculated resolve. "JUSTICE?" she shrieked, the sound raw and tearing. "THEN TAKE IT ALL, YOU RIGHTEOUS FOOL!" With a surge of desperate strength, she slammed her remaining palm not onto the ground, but into the fabric of space itself directly above the planetoid's molten core. Her entire spiritual reservoir, every shred of her being, her very life force, ignited in a suicidal cascade. Not an attack aimed at Shinji; an attack aimed at reality.
A sphere of pure, silent negation erupted from her outstretched palm. It didn't explode; it devoured. Light vanished. Sound ceased. Matter dissolved into quantum foam. It expanded faster than thought, a ravenous event horizon of absolute destruction. The shattered volcanic planetoid beneath them vanished instantaneously. Then the nebula, its colourful gases simply ceasing to be. Then three nearby star systems, their suns winking out like snuffed candles, their planets erased from existence. The shockwave wasn't energy; it was the recoil of space-time itself violently contracting after the erasure, a wall of distorted reality screaming towards Shinji at trans-light speed.
*Fool!* Nirvana's mind exulted even as her body began disintegrating from the inside out, consumed by the power she'd unleashed. *I shifted back for CONTROL! To channel EVERYTHING! That blast should have atomized you... or bought me time... Just... need... to... reach...* She gathered the dregs of her power, attempting a desperate, agonizing telekinetic push to flee the expanding null-field, her form flickering like a dying hologram.
The wave hit Shinji. It wasn't physical force; it was the universe rejecting his existence. He was buried under megatons of collapsing space-time, bones pulverized, organs liquefied, consciousness flickering like a guttering candle in a hurricane. Voidheart Surge screamed through him, a biological imperative screaming LIVE! Regeneration fought a desperate, cellular war against entropic devouring. He felt his Trascender Core vibrate dangerously under the strain. With a roar torn from the depths of his soul, he forced himself back together, atom by screaming atom, clawing his way out of the devouring wave. He emerged, gasping, bleeding heavily from reformed wounds, his golden-green aura sputtering like a faulty engine, but alive. His eyes, burning with apocalyptic fury, scanned the null-scarred void. He sensed it: Nirvana's fading signature, a guttering spark fleeing like a wounded rat through the cosmic debris field.
Rage, white-hot and pure, obliterated pain and exhaustion. He focused, not on teleportation, but on sheer, Voidheart-amplified will, bending space itself. He reappeared directly in Nirvana's escape path, blocking the trajectory towards a flickering, unstable spatial rift she'd been desperately aiming for.
"YOU SELFISH BITCH!" His voice was a guttural roar that echoed strangely in the nullified space. "HOW MANY WORLDS?! HOW MANY LIVES JUST TO SAVE YOUR WORTHLESS, MURDEROUS SKIN?!" He raised a hand, golden-green energy swirling violently into a miniature, unstable supernova; a Spirit Bomb charged not just with power, but with the incandescent grief for the countless, nameless souls erased by her final act. This was the finishing blow. Justice distilled into pure annihilation.
Nirvana's eyes, wide with genuine, soul-crushing terror now, locked onto the gathering energy. She reached out her one remaining, trembling hand towards the flickering rift, mere kilometres away but suddenly an impossible gulf. "Ko-K-uto...?!" she gasped, a desperate plea choked with blood and despair.
SHINK!
It wasn't a sound. It was a sensation. A line of perfect, absolute severance drawn across reality itself. Not cutting space, but defining it. Shinji's nascent Spirit Bomb simply ceased to exist, unraveling into harmless light before it could fully form. Simultaneously, Shinji himself was hurled backwards, not through space, but through light-years, a deep, burning gash opening across his entire back as if reality itself had lashed out. He tumbled end over end through the cosmic void, the searing pain momentarily eclipsing his rage, skidding to a bone-jarring halt on a fragment of dead star, clutching the smoking wound. He looked up, dazed, furious, and filled with a chilling dread he hadn't felt since Kokuto's blade cleaved his home and family.
There, standing calmly between him and the crippled, disintegrating form of Nirvana, was the Swordwrath Monarch. Kokuto. Short, stark white hair immaculate. Thin black jacket unruffled. Crimson scarf hanging unnaturally still, as if immune to the dying echoes of cosmic violence. His hand rested lightly on the worn leather hilt of the plain sword sheathed at his side. His eyes, cold and ancient as the void itself, met Shinji's across the light-years, devoid of triumph, anger, or even recognition beyond the target acquired. He didn't spare a glance for the broken Nirvana collapsing, unconscious, at his feet. His focus, absolute and terrifying, was fixed solely on Kazuhiko Shinji.
The Trascender. The unfinished business. The kill left hanging months ago on a rainy Tokyo street.
The vast emptiness between them crackled, charged with the weight of graves unearthed, promises of vengeance unfulfilled, and the certainty of a battle that would, this time, shatter more than just planets. Kokuto's presence was a blade poised at the throat of the universe.
"Long time no see," Kokuto stated, his voice flat, carrying across the light-years as if they were inches, devoid of anything but cold, lethal purpose and pride. "...Kazuhiko Shinji."