The thing is, the forest didn't just change like patterns saying goodbye to the only one that we desire and wish for until it folded. That is to say that one heartbeat Basil was holding Hel's hand that was making the happiest woman in the world, not like those simps that spend all their time on Instagram or discord (living skin burning, rotted bone freezing, frost and logos-fire twisting into wedding bands made of void), and the next heartbeat the smiling red trees were gone. Well, it maybe just an illusion for thme. The moon blinked out the way I would wish for a girlfriend like crying for food and sadness. The chant of endings stopped mid-note like those tv shows that end at the middle sentence in the 80s. Even the sorrow in his chest the big, cemetery-sized sorrow that had been his crown since mother's blood hit the portal got yanked sideways like someone pulled the plug on gravity to surprise him again.
A new presence arrived. Not loud. Not flashy. Just... inevitable. Like the moment you realize the room has been empty for years and you're only now hearing the echo of your own breathing stop like wishing for true company, knowing that no one would come to rescue you in the most heroic way
She didn't walk in like those ladies in soap operas. She was always there, and the omniverse only pretended otherwise until she decided to stop pretending that she was not
The Supreme Singularity of Death. A woman or man? Anyway, she had Y breast cups and perfect proportions similar to the goddess Juno, Athena and Persephone.
Not the princess. Not the fragments wearing Nephthys' veil or Kali's tongue or Hel's half-rotted smile that could not stop trembling. The mother. The origin point. The zero from which every ending subtracts itself in what you would call the very end of everything. Not loneliness. Not shape. Not singular terminal. She wore no body because bodies are temporary jokes. She was the space between heartbeats stretched infinite, the color of absolute black that somehow still managed to look maternal. The thing is, she was not showing her physical body, just her presence. Around her edges reality frayed like old lace threads of every underworld, every quiet grave, every final breath ever drawn, all unraveling and re-weaving into her outline similar to the king of hell but not eternal the way she is.
Hel stiffened like a little child. The living side of her face paled (impossible, yet it happened). The rotted side cracked wider in something almost like fear, almost like love breaking in the same moment of getting to know that it may be the end at the beginning of the end.
Supreme Singularity of Death: Daughter. That is to say that you danced with flux when you should have ended it the moment you met it. Oh how the simplest pleasure that occurred to me could at the same time encircle the most secret soul. When I felt the morning air, it went through me so that the morning's lightness and advent permeated all the gradations of my nature. You let the logos-child touch what should only be touched by silence. Now the harmony is tainted. The lyre string is knotted. Ignorance laughs in the background because you gave him a loophole or perhaps you only felt…. MERCY.
Hel: Mother... I—
Supreme Singularity of Death: No apologies. That is to say that apologies are for the living. You are mine. He is not. Yet he marked you as yours. It is unacceptable to even think about this. The closer two people stand to each other inwardly, the more readily they become for each other the condition under which alone their two beings find expression. The black star-sun on his chest kissed your frost. That cannot stand. Not in my forest. Not in my silence.
She raised no hand. There was no gesture. Only intent. And intent from her was law.
The loophole opened, knowing that it could kill him.
Not a portal. Not a tear. A mathematical joke. Hermes Trismegistus' oldest prank or maybe it was his way to escape that singularity As above, so below twisted into reverse. Above became fiction. Below became canon. The thrice-great code bent backward until the symbols bled: caduceus snakes eating their own tails until the infinity sign snapped into a university hallway.
Basil felt it first in his core stats.
Rank: Mathematical Perfection → forcibly recalibrated.
Power compressed. Not reduced. Squashed. Like putting a supernova in a condom and tying it off to just cum in a forced way. All the conceptual infinite damage, the ∞ growth from devouring hellhounds and 300 succubi and sea-kings and Garagor Alphas, still there, just folded into a shape that fit inside a teenager's body that cannot come back to the main reality. Yin-Yang eyes dimmed to something that could pass for "heterochromia" if nobody looked too hard. Kun Peng shrank to tattoo-size on his back, sleeping. Succubus bloodline hummed low, seductive but leashed. Logos Decree became a whisper instead of a shout. And the ancient dragon shrieked to be a mole on his bottom back
He landed hard.
Tile floor. Fluorescent lights buzzing like dying flies that burn the space that it touches. Lockers slamming. The smell of cheap body spray, cafeteria mystery meat, and teenage hormones thick enough to chew.
Kuoh Academy.
University DzD world.
But not the canon power levels. No. Hermes escaped to a much powerful reality than the original one didn't nerf him for fairness. She nerf'd the setting to match his folded power. Devils, angels, fallen, dragons, sacred gears they all got recalibrated to the love's scale. Issei's Boosted Gear? Now it scales like a Legendary D quality spirit trying to punch up to Galaxy. Rias Asazel's Power of Destruction? Cute. Like a Saint-rank fire spell against someone who already ate a Universe entity for breakfast.
Basil stood up. School uniform somehow already on him black blazer, red tie, trousers that fit too perfectly for coincidence that we cannot for fun. Black star-sun symbol hidden under the shirt, still pulsing faintly as if he were able to devour everything. He was 17 in body now. 7 feet tall shrunk to 6'4". Hair still black-red streaked, eyes still mismatched red-blue, but softer. Approachable. Dangerous in the way a quiet guy in the back of class is dangerous.
Students stared.
Girls blushed so hard that you could see them sweat. Boys sized him up then looked away fast.
A red-haired beauty Rias Asazell Asmodeus turned the corner, peerage trailing. Her eyes locked on him. Something in her demonic senses twitched. Like smelling ozone before lightning in the new generation of coming
Rias: New transfer student? You feel... familiar. And wrong. In the best way. Heaven belongs to the impetuous who won't wait.
Basil grinned. The same grin he gave Hel right before the forest exhaled to tell what he did.
Basil: That is to say that I'm just a guy who lost his mom in the most brutal way, fucked death in the most delicious way, married her daughter, and got yeeted here by grandma because I touched what I wasn't supposed to as a negligent adolescent. Call me Basil. Or Imperator. Or the idiot who still has ∞ conceptual damage folded inside a university body. Your call or loss. It is your choice
Issei Juan Drakona (from behind Rias, eyes wide): Dude... you smell like you bench-press galaxies for fun. That is funny by the way. You gotta teach me.
Basil laughed. Short. Bitter. The sound carried echoes of smiling red trees and frost-kissed bone.
Basil: Close. I bench-press endings. Now... who's first? Because destiny sent me here with a loophole. That means I'm supposed to break something. Or fix it. Or fuck it. Probably all three. Maybe, I cannot even come back without conquering everything.
He cracked his knuckles.
The air shivered.
In the distance somewhere beyond the school roof Ddraig's voice rumbled low in Issei's gauntlet.
Ddraig: Partner... this one is not a dragon. This one ate dragons. And liked it. I've had many enemies over the years. If there's one thing I've learned, it's never engage in a fight you're sure to lose. On the other hand, never let anyone who has insulted you get away with it. Bide your time and strike back when you're in a position of strength—even if you no longer need to strike back
Rias stepped forward. Power of Destruction flickered at her fingertips red-black like arterial regret.
Asmodeus Rias: Then let's see what a logos-child can do in a devil's playground.
Basil's yin-yang eyes spun once. Slow.
Basil: Hahaha! Careful, princess of ruin. You might get what Hel got. A dance. A marriage. An ending that doesn't end. Maybe, we can play later.
The bell rang.
Class started.
But nobody moved.
Because the new transfer student just made the entire supernatural underworld recalibrate its threat level.
And somewhere beyond fiction, beyond the loophole the Supreme Singularity of Death watched.
And smiled.
Both sides of her infinite face.
O my sorrow so big it finally found a university to haunt.
The omniverse is on summer vacation.
And Basil just enrolled.