Finally, after staying there in silence for what felt like far too long, Tsutsumi gently let go of his sister's body. His movements were slow and careful, almost reluctant, as though releasing her would make everything truly real, and he was not ready to accept that yet.
He lowered Ryoshu onto what was left of the wooden floor inside the ruined house, then just stared at her for a while.
Her face looked peaceful enough that, for a brief moment, she seemed like she had merely fallen asleep. If not for the blood soaking through her clothes, and if not for the unnatural stillness of her body, he might have believed she would open her eyes at any moment and complain about the floor being uncomfortable, then demand another cup of sake like nothing had happened.
Without speaking, Tsutsumi reached into the pocket of her trench coat and found the cigarette pack she always kept with her.
He pulled out one cigarette and placed it between his own lips, then took out a second one and leaned down to set it gently between Ryoshu's lips.
A faint smile touched his face as he looked at her.
"You said smoking was art," he murmured. "Guess I'll humor you one last time."
Beside the pack, he found her old metal lighter. It was scratched and worn from years of use, covered in tiny marks from being carried around, dropped, and used over and over again. He recognized it immediately.
It was the same lighter she had used yesterday, the same one she had leaned in with while insisting they smoke together like normal siblings.
Tsutsumi flicked the lighter open, and a small flame appeared. Just like yesterday, he leaned forward until the tips of both cigarettes touched the flame. His own lit first, and a second later hers did as well, the orange glow of the embers soft in the darkness around them.
For a brief moment, it almost looked like they were sharing another quiet smoke together beneath the balcony, listening to the rain fall outside.
He took one slow drag before lowering the cigarette again. The smoke drifted out into the cold air.
"You really were a troublesome big sister," he said quietly, and there was no bitterness in his voice, no humor either, only loneliness.
He carefully removed the cigarette from Ryoshu's lips and laid it gently across her folded hands. "Rest well."
Only then did he stand. The house around him had gone completely silent. Broken walls leaned at strange angles, the roof had long since collapsed, and shattered furniture lay scattered across the room together with chunks of concrete and splintered wood.
Tsutsumi's eyes moved slowly over the wreckage before stopping on something half buried beneath the debris. It was an old wooden picture frame. He walked over to it and knelt down, brushing away the dust with one hand before picking it up.
Inside the cracked frame was a photograph of a much younger Ryoshu with her arm around an equally young Ryoko. The edges were worn and the colors had faded with time, but both of them were smiling.
The moment he saw it, fragments of memory rushed into his mind. Small moments of the two of them sharing meals, being protected by her whenever trouble came, watching her leave for work in the morning and waiting for her to return at night, the smell of cigarettes lingering in the house, the two of them eating cheap takeout because neither of them could cook, and the way she would silently place a blanket over him after he had fallen asleep on the couch.
None of those memories were originally his, and yet they were still his in a way that mattered. They belonged to another Tsutsumi Ryoko, another version of himself, but the emotions behind them were real all the same. He lowered the cigarette in his hand and put it out.
"So that's why..." His voice came out barely above a whisper. "This place felt so familiar."
His thumb brushed lightly across the photo. "This was our home in this world."
Without another word, he slipped the photograph into his pocket. It was the last thing left of the life this world's Ryoko had shared with his sister.
Then he turned around. His expression had become frighteningly calm. He walked out from the remains of the destroyed house, his steps steady even as the weight of what had just happened settled deeper and deeper into him.
Above him, Geats continued descending from the sky with slow, measured steps, each one seeming to send invisible ripples through reality itself.
The Creator God looked down at him with the same detached gaze as before, as though he were simply watching the inevitable conclusion of a fight already decided. Decade stopped walking and slowly lifted his head. Their eyes met, and silence stretched between them.
The life that had remained in Decade's purple eyes began to fade. The faint warmth that had always lingered there slowly disappeared, replaced by an emotionless stillness that felt almost inhuman.
Dark green pigment started spreading from the edges of his irises, staining the whites of his eyes like cracks crawling across glass.
At the same time, the yellow jewel set into the horn at the center of his forehead dimmed, the golden light fading until it shifted into a deep, ominous purple.
Geats swung his blade, releasing a massive white energy slash that tore through the air toward Decade. Tsutsumi responded by pulling out a card at once, using his Semblance to glitch out of the attack before it could land. The slash struck the remains of his already ruined house instead, carving through what was left of the structure and sending debris flying in every direction as he inserted the card into his Decadriver.
Attack Ride: Invisible!
His body vanished from sight in an instant.
Geats's attack crashed through the shattered remains of the house, reducing more of it to rubble, but by then Decade was already gone. Geats looked around sharply, trying to locate him, only to suddenly widen his eyes as he turned toward the direction of Nagoya.
A massive explosion had erupted at the center of the city.
The blast was large enough to make the ground tremble even from where he stood, and without hesitation Geats immediately rushed toward the city. When he arrived, he saw Decade walking through the panicked streets with calm steps, while civilians ran past him in fear, trying to escape the destruction spreading around them. All around him, the nearby buildings had been cut down by massive invisible slashes, causing entire sections of them to collapse down toward the people below.
Geats thrust his hand forward and used his power to reverse the damage. The broken buildings quickly pieced themselves back together, undoing the destruction as though it had never happened.
Decade only raised his fingers in response.
"Dismantle."
The invisible slashes reappeared immediately.
The restored buildings were cut apart once again, forcing Geats to restore them all over again. It became clear almost at once that Decade had no intention of stopping, and with every new wave of destruction, more panic spread through the city. Geats quickly sent out a distress signal to the other Riders and the staff members of the Desire Grand Prix, calling for immediate support as the situation escalated far beyond what could be ignored.
Then he saw them. A group of Riders and DGP staff members was rushing through the panicked crowds toward the source of the disturbance.
At the same time, Decade released another Dismantle into the surrounding buildings, causing even more destruction before pulling out another card and inserting it into his driver.
Form Ride: OOO! Gatakiriba Combo!
Green light wrapped around his body as his Rider clothes shifted again. Without hesitation, he split off into thousands of clones, each one appearing around the area in an instant. They spread out in all directions, and the chaos only grew worse as multiple Decades began attacking from every angle, tearing through the city while civilians scrambled to get out of the way.
Under the influence of Violent Emotion, Decade attacked without hesitation and without any concern for the people caught in the middle of it. Innocent or not, it did not matter to him anymore. In that state, he had accepted his role as the Destroyer of Worlds, and that acceptance made him even more dangerous than before.
Seeing innocent people and his own people being caught up in the destruction, Geats tried to stop the rampage, only for one of the Decade clones to turn toward him and quickly form a hand sign.
"Domain Expansion! 404: Reality Not Found!"
Darkness spilled outward from the clone's feet in an instant, swallowing the area and trapping both of them inside a massive black sphere that floated ominously in the sky above the ruined street.
Inside the domain, the sky had turned into a vast dark void, filled with floating glowing error symbols and flickering TV static that moved across the empty space like a broken signal. The ground beneath their feet had become a grid of neon lines that glitched and shifted constantly, as though the space itself could not decide what shape it was supposed to take.
Geats, however, was not completely helpless.
Thanks to his divine resistance, he was spared from the domain's sure-hit effect, and he immediately tried to use his reality-warping power to force an opening. But the moment he attempted it, he realized something was wrong. Or rather, his power was not working at all.
In a space where reality itself did not properly exist, his reality-warping authority simply failed.
That realization made him visibly alarmed. He quickly focused on his surroundings, searching for a way out, but the domain had already cut him off from the normal world. The Decade standing before him noticed this as well, and in that moment, he remembered his battles with Gojo and Sukuna, understanding exactly what kind of weakness this domain carried and why it was so effective in situations like this.
Without wasting time, he pulled out another card and inserted it into his Decadriver.
Attack Ride: Luminosité Eternelle!
The Flag of the Holy Saint appeared in his hand as a massive golden barrier formed around both him and Geats, sealing them inside. The metal flag itself reacted almost immediately to Tsutsumi's emotion. Flame began spreading from his grip and crawling over the surface of the flag, and the once silver-white metal gradually turned black as the golden edges on the white flag burned away, leaving behind a charred, ominous black appearance.
Geats could feel it.
The overwhelming hatred.
The malice.
The sheer pressure coming from the Destroyer was enough to make him wary, and he raised his sword again before swinging it forward, sending another massive energy slash directly toward Decade.
Decade pointed the blackened flagpole straight ahead as burning flame rose violently around him.
"This is the howl of a soul filled with hatred. The sinner's karma flays fiercely as they rush headlong into the scorching fires of hell. La Grondement Du Haine!!"
The negative emotions pouring out of him became the fuel for Jeanne's Noble Phantasm. A massive wave of flame burst outward, charging straight toward Geats's attack and colliding with it head-on. The two forces clashed violently in the center of the domain, flame and energy grinding against each other as the dark void around them flickered from the pressure of the impact.
...
Back outside the Domain, the other Decades continued to move through the battlefield, and the situation there had already spiraled far beyond simple chaos.
Buildings were still collapsing, roads were being torn apart, and every clone was moving with the same relentless intent, cutting down anything that happened to be in the way.
It no longer mattered whether something was a civilian, a person, a Rider, or just someone trying to escape. In the state Tsutsumi was in now, every living thing that crossed his path was treated the same. If it was there, it was a target. If it moved, it was part of the destruction.
Even with more than half of his Rider power now in Miyu's hands, the remaining portion of his main form was still more than enough to keep the massacre going.
The power he had left was still absurd by ordinary standards, and under Violent Emotion, he was making full use of every last bit of it without holding anything back.
Some of the clones began shifting again, their forms changing as they split into different Riders and different variations at the same time.
Agito's base, upgrade, and super forms appeared among them, followed by Hibiki, W, OOO, Wizard, Ex-Aid, and Zero-One, each one joining the chaos in their own way. The battlefield became even harder to follow as each version of him spread out in different directions, creating more damage, more pressure, and more reasons for anyone still alive in the area to run.
The city was no longer being attacked by one enemy, but by an army of them, all wearing the same face and all moving with the same cruel, unyielding purpose.
There was no hesitation in any of them. No concern. No mercy. Just destruction spreading outward block by block, street by street, while the people caught in the middle struggled desperately to survive it.