A sliver of dawn cut across the sky, breaking the dark, silent night as pink light shone through outer space.
The pink-haired girl stepped out from the sacred radiance and opened her eyes. Looking at the black figure before her, she smoothed her suddenly lengthened pink ponytail, and her clear voice rang out.
"I'm back, Shadow-sama!"
She vanished in an instant, and a powerful white shockwave burst outward.
"Welcome back."
Cid spoke softly and tilted his head slightly. The wind screamed past as a toned leg in white thigh-high socks swept across his chest, and an invisible wind blade split the sky and the glacier apart.
Such a transparent heart. Such deranged technique. Such… a boring fight.
As Cid continuously dodged the girl's attacks, he silently evaluated her.
She was still in that seemingly flawless "Heavenly Timing and Earthly Advantage" realm, but her way of fighting had changed drastically.
Within the girl's frenzied assault, he could sense a clean, pure heart. Her conviction seemed completely immersed in the joy of battle, its purity rising to an even higher level. But…
"If all you're relying on is a realm I've already cracked, then you'll never be able to defeat…"
Another attack brushed past him. His hand reversed through the dense barrage like rain, and a fierce punch slammed heavily into the girl's lower abdomen. The crushing force felt as if her organs were being ground apart from the inside, twisting the expression on her face into a… deranged smile!
Not only was she not sent flying by that immense force, she even took a step forward instead. A huge hole was punched through the emotional matter that formed her body, but the girl simply grabbed Cid's arm with a frenzied expression as her body lit up with Magical Power as deep as the sea.
"BOOM!"
Through the white mist, the pink-haired girl flew out and smashed into the ice, leaving a huge human-shaped crater.
"So good… so good… What an amazing battle…"
Inside the crater, the girl did not feel discouraged at all. She merely touched the wounds on her body and laughed madly.
What a deranged lunatic!
As the white mist scattered, the unharmed Cid looked at the pink-haired girl and thought to himself.
"Shadow-sama, I think I might understand how you feel now. Fighting really is amazing! Hahaha…"
"…This isn't a fight. This is just a perverted masochist enjoying herself. You could have dodged that just now, so why didn't you?"
After hearing Cid's words, the pink-haired girl's wild laughter faded, and her frenzied eyes gradually calmed.
"Because… it really was amazing. The pain you gave me when you pierced my body was so wonderful, so beautiful!"
"I feel like you're beyond saving."
Cid sighed and took a step back, avoiding the powerful attack that appeared without warning. The "Heavenly Timing and Earthly Advantage" realm was repairing her, yet she still exposed an opening that could be struck with ease.
"Whether I can be saved or not can wait. First, let's enjoy this battle that belongs to just the two of us."
"I'm not interested in boring battles, especially when you're in this perverted masochist state. I don't even need to merge into your realm to attack you. I can break through your realm and hit you directly…"
Cid struck every opening the pink-haired girl revealed, but she did not take even half a step back. She let the energy composing her body scatter, wearing an excited, deranged smile as she recklessly tried to land a hit on Cid.
"Come on, Shadow-sama. Don't you want to release your body's restraints like I have and have an absolute battle without any defense or evasion?
There's no way you don't look forward to it. After all, I inherited this state from you…"
"…"
Even as her body was pierced thousands of times in just a few seconds, the deranged smile on the girl's face remained. When she saw Cid respond with silence, she grew even more feverish.
"Instinct! This is the instinct I got from you!
It must be hard holding back, Shadow-sama. Isn't this exactly why you enjoy fighting?"
Her body, enhanced by a hundred-thousand-fold sensitivity boost, had already reached a terrifying state. Pain was amplified by that multiplier, but the pleasure brought by the pain had also surpassed the pain itself.
The feeling of her body being torn open was agonizing, and the suffocation of her organs being shattered made one unable to think of anything but suicide. Yet to "Son Goki", who had conquered her own instincts, that pain felt incredible. Being born from a pile of mental garbage where existence itself was suffering was truly wonderful!
There was no doubt that Cid, as her original body and someone with an even more terrifying multiplier, was absolutely a pervert beyond even a pervert like her. No wonder he loved fighting so much. He was just a tsundere hiding his masochistic heart.
Otherwise, why would Cid maintain the Magic Power Training Method twenty-four hours a day?
That was basically the same as stacking Grand Recovery and Blood Burst together. In other words, as long as Cid kept training, he was living every moment in the extreme of pleasure and pain.
And now, she was going to tear away the hypocritical Eminence in Shadow mask from her original body and face her physical instincts together with him!
"Huh?"
Son Goki froze when she saw Cid suddenly catch her attack and look at her coldly.
"Don't lump those two things together. Anyone who can't control desire with reason is nothing but third-rate small fry at the absolute bottom!"
He turned the piercing strike into a grapple, seized the pink-haired girl by the shoulder, and locked her body in place. Then he stepped forward and stared straight into those beautiful eyes filled with desire, their noses nearly touching.
"Even from you, I can still feel that pure, crystal-clear will.
Answer me. What was it that truly brought you back from the depths of darkness? If another me lost to pure desire, I'd find that incredibly embarrassing."
"Hee. It was love!"
With an innocent, flawless smile on her face, the pink-haired girl laughed, but her attacks did not pause in the slightest.
"Shadow-sama, can you hear them?
The people on this planet are crying!
Just because of our battle, this beautiful planet is breaking apart. Don't you think they're pitiful?"
"So, are you going to admit defeat?"
"Of course not. I love them, but I love myself too."
Again and again, her openings were caught and countered. The pink-haired girl answered Cid with an incredibly beautiful smile.
"Sometimes I wonder why I chose to fight you, Shadow-sama, the moment I appeared. Since I have all of Shadow-sama's memories, I should know very well that I could never be your match.
But now I understand. It's because my instincts crave the joy of battle. My love for you, Shadow-sama, makes me unable to resist reaching out to you. And the parts of me that Shadow-sama abandoned are influencing me. They're making me change you!"
"Shadow-sama, do you really intend to abandon everything and keep walking that path alone, even if loneliness surrounds you?"
"Mm-hmm!"
Cid's vague answer made the pink-haired girl's smile grow even more beautiful. Every aftershock from their clashes spread evenly across the blue planet beneath their feet, sending wave after wave of small tremors through a world that had only just recovered from an apocalyptic crisis.
"Shadow-sama, your head really is full of nothing but yourself."
"Either way, I don't need any of that anymore."
Holding off her attack, Cid looked straight into those now-quiet eyes and spoke softly, one word at a time.
"Worrying over gains and losses, caring too much about the past, fretting over the future. All of that only creates more trouble. I only need to live in the present. Who can really say what the future holds?
Human emotions are like that anyway. A brief flourish, followed by loneliness in the end.
As long as I understand that, all I need is the resolve to accept it and be ready to stand alone. Time will take everything away."
He sprang into the air, locked down the pink-haired girl's body, and shattered the realm of Heavenly Timing and Earthly Advantage. Cid hurled out a vast surge of Magical Power together with her body, instantly carrying them clear of the ocean's surface.
"Instead of wasting your time on all these useless thoughts, you should take a good look at yourself. If all you've done is change your fighting style while staying in the same realm, you'll never defeat me."
It was less an impact than an explosion of force and Magical Power the instant it entered her body. The shockwave burst outward from within, blasting the girl apart before she had flown far. A ten-thousand-meter wave surged toward Cid, only to split apart the moment it touched his Qi, slamming back into the sea and raising a tsunami.
"What a heartless and lonely answer!"
An unprecedentedly dense pink energy tore through the surrounding waves, pierced the sky, and shone into space. The pink light drowned out the glow of the stars in the cosmos, setting the entire solar system ablaze with radiance.
"I cannot understand you, Shadow-sama, because I am greedy. I don't want to become someone like you, someone who has only themselves. That path does not belong to me.
I want more emotions. I want to gain more things. That is my nature, a nature born from your greed and pleasure.
I will dye this beautiful world in my colors. That is why I love this world, and why I will share my love with it!"
As she shouted those words, she slowly rose within the pink pillar of light that stretched from earth to sky. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her long pink hair dancing in the wind. Her face was slightly cast in shadow, yet the gentle pink eyes she had inherited from Sherry were now solemn and majestic. With her back to the light that illuminated the universe, she looked like a God.
Watching that sacred scene, Cid's lips curled in excitement. He knew it. A character who collapses and then triggers a sudden power-up couldn't possibly be finished just like that. She was definitely about to pull out some ultimate, world-shaking move!!!
"Well said. But what can this love of yours actually do?"
"Shadow-sama, you once said that love can destroy everything, and it can create everything. Now I will prove it to you with this love."
An overwhelming Qi erupted. Invisible pressure swirled around the girl who stood like a God, and her crossed arms lifted upward from both sides of her body.
In Cid's eyes, those two pale hands gently crossed together, then suddenly spread apart as threads of energy gathered in her palms.
A Genki Dama?
The familiar motion made Cid instinctively assume she was repeating an old trick, and his burning heart cooled considerably.
It wasn't that the Genki Dama was weak. But now that he had recovered most of the power that had been stolen from him, using it against him would be like taking the Genki Dama made to fight Mini-Buu and trying to use it on Jiren. Just watch him push it right back.
Sigh. Looks like he really had expected too much from Son Goki. Then again, that kind of anime scene where someone gets knocked down once, suddenly powers up, and gains even greater strength is already ridiculous enough. There was no way it could happen two times in a row...
"Great Bliss…"
The disappointment vanished from Cid's face, and he looked excitedly toward the pink figure.
So there really was an even stronger ultimate move. Ah… it felt like his whole body had caught fire all at once. Just that opening phrase already sounded absurdly powerful!
"Billionfold…"
Oh, oh, oh! Starting right off with a number like a billionfold? He couldn't wait anymore. Hurry up and serve it already. Let him see that world-shaking wisdom!
"Sensitivity…"
Billionfold sensitivity. Damn, that was a billionfold sensi—huh?
"Slaaneshi…"
This… this wasn't right. The whole style had gone completely off the rails. Something was definitely wrong here. Other me, are you even sane?!
"Utopia!"
Looking at the enormous pink heart in the pink-haired girl's hands, a dreamy, romantic, and dazzling sight that stretched across the sky, Cid's burning heart cooled as if someone had poured cold water over it.
Ahahaha. Ha. Ha. Even though the mood had reached this point and, no matter how you looked at it, he ought to take it head-on, how should he put it? This time, he would make a special exception and dodge. The style was just too wrong!
If he lost an energy clash, the worst-case scenario was a grand, spectacular death. Dying as a mysterious powerhouse whose identity remained unknown wouldn't be a bad ending.
"One billion times sensitivity"... The only counter he could think of was creating the same "one billion times sensitivity" and trying to cancel it out. And even then, they would probably merge instead of canceling each other.
So basically, he would have to rely on his own tolerance from "one hundred thousand times sensitivity" and withstand it head-on. But if he failed... He simulated a few endings in his mind: social death, ejaculation death, world death, ejaculation-world...
No way! That kind of ending was way too lame! It wasn't Eminence in Shadow at all!
Mm, fine. He would dodge it. After all, it wasn't locked onto... Wait. No. It wasn't locked onto me!
A damp sensation came from the ice beneath his feet. Cid turned and looked around. There was not a trace of heat, yet the ice was melting rapidly. Nothing serious. The ice had merely washed itself to death...
So that was it. It wasn't me she was targeting, but this world?
"No wonder it's called Utopia!"
Looking at the world behind him, Cid nodded in sudden realization. Once this "one billion times sensitivity" landed, the overwhelming pleasure it brought would instantly stamp a mental imprint across the entire globe, single-handedly turning this world into the Inner World and making everyone in the world fall in love with lewdness!
It wasn't about women being lewd. How "pure" could ordinary lust even be? There was a reason the move had Slaanesh in its name. This wasn't romance. This was industrial-grade depravity: blenders, five-speed fans, helicopters; impalement, every possible opening, and a banquet no one walked away from intact.
It wasn't called Utopia because its moral standards were exceptionally high. It was because there were no morals at all. Every crime was part of love, so there was no evil. That was why it was Utopia.
It redefined moral standards. Starvation was part of love. Slaughter was part of love. Everything was part of love. Pain was love!
Having understood everything, Cid sighed, then fell silent for a moment...
"Gah, you can't do that!"