Chapter 28: The Man Who Built Gods
...
After the Rupture
The sky had not stopped burning red...
Even months later, the air still carried the stink of ozone and ash. Great black spirals of what used to be cities still rose over the wastelands. The screams had faded, but not the silence that followed them... that silence was worse but not for one man.
He wandered those dead roads alone.
The one and only Mr.P
...
(The sound of boots crunching over broken glass. The whisper of ash falling. The faint spark and hiss of a cigarette lighting in the dark.)
"Its Day… what again? Hundred and twelve? No. Hundred and thirteen. Maybe. Doesn't matter.
City's still here. Somehow... I guess, I'm still here too. Somehow... oh how i would love taking a bullet right now."
Mr. P walks the cracked avenue alone. His coat is torn. His sunglasses chipped at the corner. He flips his lighter open and closed as he goes, the faint metallic snap the only sound against the silence.
Behind him, three clones in identical coats trail, their eyes scanning the shadows. One speaks up:
"Why are we here, boss? There's nothing left." Said Clone #3.
He doesn't look back. Just exhales smoke.
"Because if there's nothing left… then that means it's mine, doesn't it? Isn't that how apocalyptic movies do it"
The street winds past skeletal buildings, their facades blackened, their windows blown out. Somewhere above, an Akuma shrieks in the clouds and a faint tremor runs through the ground.
He ducks into a narrow alley, pressing his back to the wall. His clones follow silently.
"Shhh," he mutters. "You hear that? That sound? That… silence? Yeah. That's the sound of everybody else being dead. Don't ruin it."
The Akuma passes overhead, its shadow sweeping across the alley. The smell of ozone and rot lingers long after.
When it's gone, he straightens his tie... futilely... and steps back out into the street.
He pulls a piece of chalk from his pocket and stops at a jagged stretch of wall.
The chalk scratches against the surface:
IF YOU'RE STILL ALIVE, FIND ME.... To yours sincerely -P.
Below it, he draws a crooked arrow pointing down the road.
"There," he murmurs to no one in particular. "Never let it be said I wasn't polite to the neighbors."
He keeps walking, muttering under his breath. The clones don't interrupt.
"Always thought cities were ugly. Too much steel, too much glass. Always hated the crowds. But now… now I'd kill to hear 'em again. All those idiots yelling into their phones, fighting over who gets the corner seat on the train, spilling coffee on each other and pretending to be mad about it. Hell. That was beautiful, wasn't it? Those with times huh...And now it's just…"
He stops, staring at the skyline... twisted spires silhouetted against the bruised-red sky.
"…all ash."
One of the clones ventures:
"You miss it?" Said Clone 2...
He chuckles, bitter.
"Nah... I just miss her."
The cigarette burns down to the filter. He flicks it away.
He stops again, chalk in hand, and writes on another wall.
IF YOU'RE STILL HUMAN, KEEP WALKING. To yours truly and loving-P.
Then he adds, below it, smaller:
P.s : Am human, just for you to know and am writing to another human...
The alley narrows here. He ducks under a fallen girder, his coat snagging briefly.
The air feels colder as they move deeper into the ruins. The faint echo of claws on concrete in the distance makes his pulse jump.
He freezes, flattening himself against the wall. The clones crouch low, silent.
An Akuma lumbers past the mouth of the alley... hulking, wrong, a mass of black lattice and bone, its wings scraping against the buildings.
He doesn't breathe until it's gone.
Then he straightens, smoothing his hair back.
"You know what the funniest thing is, boys? " he murmurs, lighting another cigarette with a steady hand.
"I used to think I hated people. Thought I'd be glad when they were gone. Thought they were loud and stupid and in the way. And now here I am… looking for them. For just one of 'em. Just… somebody. Anybody. To prove it isn't all a goddamn wasteland atleast. "
He exhales a long stream of smoke, eyes narrowing at the horizon.
"And that I can't keep talking to myself its so uncool? "
He smirks faintly.
"Guess that makes me king, doesn't it? "
The chalk comes out again.
On the next wall, in big block letters:
STILL HERE. STILL WAITING. To yours sincerely -P.
He steps back, admiring it briefly before turning down another street.
"Let's keep moving," he mutters to the clones. "City ain't gonna haunt itself."
And as they vanish into the ashstorm, his voice drifts back through the quiet:
"One of these days, I'm gonna find something beautiful again. And when I do… I'm not letting it go this time."
The chalk scrapes against stone.
And he leaves another mark.
A cigarette between his lips.
A cracked pair of sunglasses hiding eyes that hadn't truly slept since that day.
Behind him, nothing but dust. Ahead of him, nothing but dust.
Until the day they came for him.
...
The Observers
He found them waiting for him in the skeletal frame of what had once been a rail station.
Tall, silent figures cloaked in lattice light and gold. The Observers.
Zero stood in the center. His face impassive. His foresight threads glittering faintly as though even here, even now, he could still see beyond the horizon.
The others flanked him... Genna's flames low and banked, Greed's expression thunderous, Envy's pale gaze pinning him like a hawk.
And there… at the back of the group…
Naomi.
Her hair was shorter then, wind-tossed and streaked with soot. But her smile…
Somehow her smile hadn't burned away yet.
...
A Familiar Voice
"Paku," she called softly, stepping forward before Zero could speak.
He stood very still, letting the cigarette smolder in his fingers.
Naomi stopped in front of him, close enough that he could see the faint red rim around her eyes.
"You don't have to be alone out here," she said.
He chuckled dryly, but it cracked halfway through.
"Oh, I do.... now... Trust me."
But she shook her head.
"Come with us," she told him. "We're building something. A refuge. A place to start again. These people…" she glanced back at the others, her lips tightening faintly, "…need you. Even if they don't know how to say it."
Zero didn't speak. Just stared.
Mr. P tilted his head, squinting at her through the haze.
"Ohh oh... you making a bad decision." he said.
Naomi smiled sadly.
"Yes i think I am but we need plus you going to love."
...
The City and the Secret
And so he went.
Not for them.
For her.... and for his safety and insanity that was getting to him.
Eden rose slowly from the bones of the old world. Steel and glass, woven with lattice and gold. The people worked. The Observers watched. And Mr. P built.
They thought he was building weapons.
They thought he was building walls.
And he was.
But not only those.
He kept his secret close. Hidden in a black pod beneath the lowest level of his lab: a prototype core, faintly glowing with divine resonance.
Elian's essence.
The fragment of his son he'd siphoned from the catastrophe, clutched in his shaking hands as the world ended around them.
It pulsed there in the dark like a heartbeat.
He kept working.
37 failed bodies.
37 dead shells that couldn't hold the power of what lay in that core. But every test was one step closer..
And then…
He saw it.
...
The Geki-Class
It came on a battlefield at the edge of the barrier.
A Geki-class Akuma... humanoid, jet-black wings arched high, lattice threads tearing through the air as it cut down soldier after soldier.
Until Genna found it.
The Wrathborne burned it out of the sky.
What was left... twisted, but intact... he took.
He dragged its carcass back to his lab. Ran the systems. Tore it down to its alien bones and rebuilt it.
Layer by layer, integrating decades of human research with the strange latticework of the creature.
He made it beautiful.
He made it human.
He made it his.
The 38th attempt.
...
Naomi and the Past
She caught him one night.
She caught Mr.P...
Standing at the window of his lab, arms folded, she watched him work in silence.
When he finally glanced at her, she smiled faintly.
"You're getting close," she murmured.
He grunted, lighting another cigarette.
"Close doesn't mean anything," he said. "Not in this game."
They didn't talk about it for a long while.
And then she sat on the bench beside him, resting her chin on her hand.
"You ever wonder if anyone else survived this?" she asked softly.
He quirked an eyebrow.
"Survive what?"
"Another country. Another group. More of us… somewhere. Do you think there's anyone left out there?"
He smirked faintly and leaned back, letting smoke curl toward the ceiling.
"Oh sure," he said dryly. "Bet they're all out there right now. Sipping cocktails on beaches. Playing cards. Probably laughing at us for still believing in gods and monsters. Bunch of dummies we are."
She snorted and shook her head, but there was sadness in her eyes.
He saw it.
And quietly added:
"I don't know, Naomi. But if there's anything left worth finding, I'll find it."
...
Luther
Years later, it was ready.
The final night.
The black pod opened, and the boy... tall, golden-veined, his breath faint and uneven... opened his eyes.
Luther.
And for the first time in decades, Paku smiled without bitterness.
"You woke up quicker than I thought, kid," he murmured. "Guess you couldn't wait to see what kind of mess I made you for."
He let Naomi sit with him after that.
Day after day, she stayed close to Luther. Smiling. Talking softly to him.
Because he couldn't.
He only watched from the shadows, and thought of his son.
And prayed that maybe this time… it would all be worth it.
...
One night, as Luther and Naomi sat on the steps of the lab, watching the golden barrier shimmer far away, she turned and asked softly:
"Do you think she'd forgive you? If she saw you now?"
Luther sat that confused as this was a random question to him.
"Forgive who now..." said Luther
There in the dark corridor .
Mr. P stood leaning against the doorway, cigarette glowing faintly in the dark.
He didn't answer right away.
Then he chuckled to himself, low and tired.
"Oh hmm," he muttered. "I doubt it... "
"I'm trying my best.. after all"
And he blew smoke into the night.
...
END OF CHAPTER 28: THE MAN WHO BUILT GODS