Chapter 40 :The Dance, the Heart, and the Hunt"
Wildcard's Sharingan pulsed, the tomoe spinning with surgical clarity. Amid the chaos and illusions, his vision locked onto the source—the Crimson Heart.
A writhing mass of carnal energy, suspended midair like a second sun, its beat syncopated with the pulse of a dark ritual. It wasn't just a power source.
It was Asmodeus's anchor. A foothold in the mortal realm.
There. The core. The artery of the beast.
But the demon was already moving.
Asmodeus—no longer hiding behind Slade's mannerisms—moved like shadow incarnate, smile twisted, eyes alight with wicked mirth.
"You've prolonged this far enough," he said, voice velvet over thorns.
He raised one hand—green fire spiraling in his palm—and released Desire Leech, a roiling fog of spectral tongues and whispering hunger. It surged toward Wildcard like a lover's breath turned venom.
But the moment it neared, Mind-Shielded Resonance activated. A crystalline toll echoed through Wildcard's mind. The miasma struck—and shattered.
"You're going to need a bigger net than that," Wildcard said coldly.
Then—
Thunder cracked.
Wildcard blurred forward—Cyclone Stride: Shadow Step activated.
He reappeared midair behind Asmodeus, twin Gale Serpent Blades humming with crackling wind-lightning chakra. The strike descended, precise and fast enough to cleave a mountain.
But Asmodeus didn't even turn.
He simply exhaled.
A pulse of crimson-black energy erupted from his back—wings of writhing lust and fury unfurled. The backlash struck Wildcard mid-slash, hurling him backward. He crashed, boots tearing trenches in marble, twin sparks streaking behind him.
"Ah," Asmodeus purred, eyes following lazily. "The thrill. You make rage look… elegant."
Wildcard said nothing. His chakra flared outward—layers of lightning, wind, and earth. Calculated. Controlled.
He's solid… but not.
He surged forward again—Cyclone Stride flashing in high-speed bursts, flickering in and out like a storm's strobe.
Strike. Feint. Reappear.
But each attack passed through Asmodeus—like striking a mirage.
"Aren't you clever," the demon said lightly. "But clever men die just like the brave."
Wildcard skidded to a halt, eyes narrowing.
"Phasing? No. Not illusion. A mirror veil… dancing between dimensional folds."
He slammed his blades together, forming a sigil mid-air.
"Fine. Let's see how you dance inside a cage."
He drove both swords into the ground—chakra roared up like a hurricane's eye.
Wind Release: Storm Cage Seal!
Bladed gales erupted from the floor, spiraling into a dome. Inside, the winds sliced the air with razor edges, ready to skin anything that moved.
Asmodeus didn't even blink.
He began to laugh. Low. Indulgent.
"Oh, little storm," he smiled. "Do you really think this… is what I fear?"
He raised a single finger—
"Desecrate."
The winds darkened. The marble blackened. Cracks etched with crimson rot splintered outward.
And the air—the winds themselves—began to change.
They twisted.
Transmuted into flesh—silken tendrils of hunger and lust, living sinew that slithered outward, reaching for Wildcard's clones hidden in the shadows.
"It's not just lust," Wildcard muttered, eyes wide. "It's… transmutation. Reality-bending through spiritual resonance—"
One clone was caught. It screamed silently. Then—burst.
Wildcard cast Earth Release: Rising Shield Formation—stone slabs launched upward, intercepting the corrupted winds just in time.
He landed beside Jinx, panting, heart hammering.
She looked up, eyes glassy beneath the Bardock mask.
"What the hell is he?"
Wildcard looked at her—then at the Crimson Heart, pulsing now like a wounded beast, beating out of sync with reality.
Then he turned back to the demon, stepping through the now-dissolved wind prison, brushing phantom dust from his shoulder.
"A storm in human skin," Wildcard muttered. "And he thinks this world is ready for him."
Asmodeus grinned wider, licking blood from his clawed thumb.
"I don't think it," he purred.
"I know it. The hunger in your world… it howls for me."
The museum rumbled. The Titans still lay unconscious, but their auras flickered.
The ritual wasn't just sustained—it was feeding.
And the Heart at the center?
It was awake now.
***
A black ritual circle bloomed beneath him, swirling like an ink-stain of madness. From it emerged a phantom: a mirror of Wildcard, down to the blades, the blood, the posture.
But its eyes—those eyes were wrong.
They shimmered with guilt. With fear. With the burden of trying to save everyone and failing.
> "You mistake resistance for strength," Asmodeus whispered, voice slipping from everywhere and nowhere.
"All mortals bend. Eventually."
The copy lunged—perfect stance, perfect angle, just like him.
Wildcard didn't blink.
> "I am my own worst enemy," he muttered.
His Sharingan flashed.
A flick of two fingers.
Genjutsu: Spiral Mirage.
The phantom froze—then unraveled into spiraling script, burning away into ash.
It had never been real.
Just a fear made flesh.
Then—Wildcard's voice rang out:
> "Jinx! Now!"
Across the battlefield, the chaos flared.
Jinx—bloodied, pale, Bardock mask cracked down the side—stood with trembling hands, her eyes glowing.
She launched Focused Hex Pulse, a spiral of wild pink energy that detonated beneath the Crimson Heart. The marble fractured. The air around the Heart skipped—time itself stuttering like a broken reel.
> Gotcha.
Lightning crackled from Wildcard's boots—Lightning Overdrive: Recoil Surge initiated. Chakra wind coiled around him like a storm wrapping its champion. His Veil of the Hidden Current shimmered into motion, cloaking his form in ghostly afterimages.
He didn't aim for Asmodeus.
He aimed for the Heart.
His twin blades spun, then fused mid-motion into a double-edged, cyclone-forged storm weapon. Chakra surged to its edges, glowing white-hot.
He plunged it into the ritual's core.
> KRRAAAAAGHHH!!!
The sound that followed was not a scream.
It was a wound.
A crimson geyser erupted from the Heart, searing black and red energy lashing skyward. It wasn't just magic—it was sentient pain, howling through the bones of the museum.
The building shuddered. The pulse of the Heart skipped—then stumbled.
A dark shard, oily and alive, latched to Wildcard's blade like a leech unwilling to die.
He tore it free—
Just as Asmodeus roared in fury.
> "You will regret that!"
"That pain… will be yours, magnified a hundredfold!"
A torrent of demonic energy erupted from him—unrefined, unshaped, pure wrath.
Wildcard's Dragon Scale Layer flared. His Liquid Armor followed suit, casting overlapping sigils across his body.
It wasn't enough.
The blast hit like a meteor, detonating the air. Wildcard went flying—crashing through statues, walls, and fractured marble. Sparks trailed behind him like falling stars.
He landed beside Jinx, hard. His suit hissed, systems overloaded. One Sharingan eye blinked out, blood dripping down his temple.
> Still standing, he thought grimly. But what about—
CRACK.
A groan—deep and low, like a monster inhaling.
Wildcard looked up.
> "NO!"
The ceiling gave way.
A massive stone beam plummeted, jagged and final.
Jinx turned—just in time to see it.
Her protective hex flared—
—then shattered.
Her scream ripped the air as the beam crushed her leg.
Blood gushed. The wound was catastrophic. Her body jerked, eyes wide with agony, lips parted in a silent sob.
And in those violet eyes—
Wildcard saw it.
Fear.
Real fear.
For the first time.
Wildcard's mind fractured.
Sound vanished. The world fell away.
No Jacob.
No Crimson Heart.
Only her pain.
Her voice.
Screaming in his skull like a dying bell.
> This is the path I chose…
> And on this path… no one else falls.
He moved.
No hesitation.
Chakra flared from every joint. The air screamed as servos ignited.
He threw off the pain.
And ran.
He slammed his shoulder into the beam—lifting with everything he had. Muscles tearing. Armor groaning.
"Stay awake. Stay with me, Jinx," he growled, low and urgent.
"I've got you."
The Crimson Shard pulsed in his belt—still twitching from being torn free.
From across the room, Asmodeus howled again. The sound echoed like a choir of broken voices.
The Heart was bleeding.
The ritual was broken.
But the war…
The war was only just beginning.
***
Jinx gasped, her masked face contorted in pain. The beam had crushed her leg outright—blood pooled fast, too fast, dark against the pale stone. Her chaotic aura flickered violently, trying to stabilize her, but the mask's shielding had drained with her last hex.
Wildcard moved.
Faster than thought.
"Stay with me, Jinx," he said, voice low but steely.
"You did great. Just breathe."
He dropped to one knee, sliding an arm under the debris.
Anti-Gravity Boots. Powered Exoskeleton. Hydraulic Core—Route C.
A grunt. Sparks flew. With a grinding roar, he lifted the beam, chakra igniting through his frame. Stone cracked. Metal shrieked.
Then—
He hurled it aside like broken kindling.
Jinx whimpered, teeth gritted against the agony.
"You said no one else falls, remember?"
Wildcard nodded once, gaze never wavering. "I meant it."
Across the hall, Jacob staggered—but even wounded, his demonic aura swelled like a storm about to split the world. The Crimson Heart pulsed in rage, echoing with his fury.
"You touch my Heart, and now bleed for it?" he bellowed."That is lust, Wildcard. Sacrifice. Desire. Love always demands pain!"
Wildcard turned toward him, still crouched beside Jinx.
But something in him had changed.
His voice was colder now. Measured. Unshakeable.
"No."
He removed his mask, cracked and splintered, and tossed it aside.
"This isn't love. It's your rot—wearing its skin."
He rose to his feet—blood-spattered, armor scorched, hand clutching the pulsing shard torn from the ritual's heart.
Black-red energy flickered around it, desperate to reknit. Desperate to escape.
But Wildcard's Sharingan spun, fast now—analyzing the ritual's remaining veins, its magic bleeding out into the cracks of a collapsing altar.
"I tore your anchor out," he said.
"You're bleeding through your own magic. You feel it, don't you?"
"That slow... unraveling."
Jacob's grin twitched.
His Slade-like features distorted—discomfort creeping in. One claw trembled.
"You think that shard gives you leverage?" he spat.
"You think you understand what you're holding?"
Wildcard didn't blink.
"I know what it costs you."
A pause.
The two stared across the burning remnants of a desecrated sanctuary.
"And I'll make you pay—every second for it."
With a blur, Wildcard slammed the shard into his belt's containment seal—locking it inside a capsule of reinforced chakra-metal, its runes flaring with sealing jutsu and chi-suppressing iron.
The Crimson Heart shrieked—not just a magical core, but a piece of Asmodeus himself, torn free and now caged.
It was his anchor, his tether to the mortal plane.
His conduit for feeding, for shaping reality, for corrupting minds.
And now—it was cut off.
A sound like a soul being torn in two echoed across the museum.
Jacob screamed.
But it was no longer human.
His voice twisted—rage and despair colliding, a demon's cry echoing through flesh that no longer fully belonged to this world. His form glitched, twitching between Slade's frame and something far more monstrous beneath.
> Wildcard had ripped out the artery—
and sealed the beating heart that made Asmodeus real.
His voice twisted—rage and despair colliding, splitting the air.
"MORTAL. I AM THE FEAST. I AM THE THIRST YOU ALL CARRY!"
"And I…" Wildcard whispered, chakra flaring up his spine—
Activating everything he had left.
"…am your reckoning."
***
The Scars of Retreat
Jacob staggered, wild arcs of demonic energy bursting from his fractured form. The pulsing absence in his chest throbbed like a cauterized wound. Reality itself buckled around him—flashing between mortal space and the writhing domain he had tried to anchor.
"I don't kill hope," the demon rasped, voice breaking between silk and static. "I let it rot."
Wildcard didn't blink. The acrid stench of burning blood and shattered stone thickened the air. He looked down—Jinx, pale and bleeding, stirred weakly in his arms.
"Jinx. Get ready."
His voice was steel. Measured. A general on the edge of collapse giving one final command.
She gritted her teeth, forcing a smile through the pain.
"G-getting ready... just gotta remember how legs work…"
Behind them, Jacob let out a sick, velvety chuckle—spite curling at the edges.
"Still making jokes while broken. Adorable. Shall I make it permanent?"
Wildcard ignored him. He slammed his hand to the ground.
"Earth Release: Gorilla Sentinel!"
The marble buckled as a massive golem of living stone erupted from the floor—half-statue, half-myth. The Earth Gorilla bellowed, barreling toward Jacob with fists like falling towers.
Two clones flickered into place beside it—blades drawn, expressions blank with purpose.
Jacob hissed. "Puppets. Tricks. Delay."
"Not delay," Wildcard muttered, sparking with Lightning Overdrive. "Diversion."
In a blink, he vanished—reappearing at Jinx's side.
He lifted the collapsed beam. Sparks and chakra whined through his armor. She cried out. His gloves dripped with her blood as he pulled her into his arms.
"Stay with me," he said, voice tight.
She nodded faintly, head lolling.
"Fire Style: Hiding in Ash Jutsu."
A black cloud erupted across the battlefield—ash and smoke swallowing the light, the pain, the ritual. Jacob's voice slithered through it, furious and distorted:
"No. NO. You don't get to run! You're mine, Wildcard! YOU'RE MINE!"
But Wildcard didn't stop.
He looked to the fallen Titans—Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Miss Martian, Raven—still trapped in Jacob's web.
No one stays behind.
He made a single hand sign.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu."
Six new forms exploded from the ash. Each moved with silent precision, lifting fallen comrades with ghostlike grace. Perception Veil shimmered over their armor. Anti-grav boots activated.
"Secure them. Move now."
One final surge.
"Lightning Overdrive: Phase Shift."
Wildcard became lightning—blue fire crackling across the stone as he bolted through the haze, Jinx held close, the others vanishing in spectral tandem.
***
Jacob stepped into the settling ash, wings of corrupted energy flickering, his frame twitching and unstable.
He stood alone now.
No prey.
No cries.
No ritual.
Only silence.
Only failure.
He moved to the fractured Heart—its pulse uneven. The shard gone. The ritual incomplete.
He touched it.
And felt Wildcard's essence—the scar left behind.
"He took them all," Jacob whispered. "A taste of my divinity. Stolen."
He turned his head slowly. The fury under his skin no longer boiled—it congealed. Into obsession.
"I know what you crave, Wildcard. You crave to win."
His voice dropped into a whisper laced with venom and longing.
"And your desire… will become my leash."
A pause.
Then his eyes glowed with cold finality.
You can't save them forever."
"Not from me."
His final words crawled through the dark like a curse:
"Desire always finds its way home."
"You can't unmark what's mine."
"Next time, I won't take your heart. I'll take your reason."
End of chapter.