Chapter Text
Izuku was familiar with visions; he’d had incredibly vivid dream-like experiences; he’d experienced Illusion Magic firsthand. This was none of that. The black sands were part of reality, moving underneath his feet. There was wind, sound, the crashing of crimson waves.
“NULL… but not… the NULL Being, right?”
The Gardener nodded. “There are a total of 2,357 universes in our link of reality. Each one of them is influenced by NULL and ABSOLUTE. But it all manifests in different ways.”
“So… why am I here?”
“In all of those universes, there are NULL and ABSOLUTE Avatars. I refer to the NULLs as ‘Zeroes’ and the ABSOLUTEs as ‘Ones.’” The Gardener gestured to the tree, which suddenly became glowing with crimson-red light. Each branch had a different luminosity. “Zeroes total around 500, and Ones around 30,000.”
"Doesn't seem fair,” The Draconic Izuku lightly commented with a smile, “But NULLs tend to be stronger… way stronger.”
“However, there are still only a total of 100 Zeroes with significant powers, fewer still who could reach our heights,” The Gardener said, gesturing to the collection of NULL Avatars. “It takes a great deal of enlightenment to actually reach the NULL Beach. You performed the journey in a very dramatic way I must say.”
The assassin Momo flicked her hair to the side. “So now, we’re at four who can pull off a Fa Jin.”
Izuku, the Shadow Monarch, immediately caught onto the implications. “You’re looking for powerful NULLs throughout the multiverse. What for?”
Another Izuku, this one decked out in high-tech armor, shrugged. He was the one Izuku saw as a speedster in his visions. “Don’t know.”
“Okay… ground rules, we need names. I’m the Shadow Monarch, or just Monarch for short, I guess.”
“Gardener, obviously.”
“Synthetic,” The Speedster added.
“Onyx,” The Draconic Izuku said.
The only Momo present chose, “Nulliah.”
There were a few others, but Monarch needed to get back on track. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“NULL and ABSOLUTE have always existed, throughout the entire process of creating our multiverse. Recently, however, their Avatars have been clashing more and more. They’ve been involved in bigger and more violent conflicts than ever before. Not to mention, we’re all significantly more powerful than early Ones or Zeroes,” The Gardener explained.
“Bottom line,” Synthetic said, pulling up a holographic research paper from his suit, “The energies of the universe are starting to become a little… messy… And there are Izuku’s out there who don’t have the best interest of the multiverse in mind.”
“As one of the few Izuku’s powerful enough to stand beside us, we needed to make introductions,” Onyx added. “But don’t worry, you won’t be missing any time when you return to your reality.”
Monarch shook his head. “Why now? Why not earlier?”
The Gardener pointed upwards, “Because you felt a glimpse of the universe as a whole.”
Monarch looked up, straight up, to see a singular blood-red eye, hovering over the lands, as large as the sun in the sky. The only difference was that you could stare at this sun without going blind… and it would stare back.
“What… is it?”
“NULL. Not the NULL Being, not the NULL Lord… NULL.”
“And… why is it watching us?”
Even the Gardener, the most technologically advanced being in the multiverse, possibly one of the most advanced creatures throughout the endless chains of reality, could only shake his head. “Best guess? It is the embodiment of One For All or All For One, the Quirks from our higher dimension. The vestiges remained and created two new beings. Two young Gods who may or may not like each other.”
“You think…?”
“We’re playthings,” Onyx responded. “Each universe created is an attempt to foster new and powerful avatars. They work together to make the universes, but perhaps they fight through proxy wars?”
“Oh good… more Gods to deal with.”
“Well, we don’t know anything for sure,” Nulliah quickly reminded everyone. “They could just as likely be Gods who are disconnected from our individual lives. They make the universes and that’s it, they watch em’ spin. There’s no evidence for any conclusion to be drawn.”
“And you haven’t been able to communicate with it?”
Again, the group answered in the negative.
Monarch tilted his head back down, unnerved by the eye still silently staring at them all. “Maybe a bit extreme, but could we just go to the higher links of reality to figure out what’s going on? The one where the original Izuku existed?”
Another Izuku, named Void, piped up. “It is possible, Gardener figured out how to move up and down the link, but the project will still take a decade or so. Even if we had full access, the problem is that our prime universe has nothing to do with ours aside from its beginning. Izuku Midoriya, Tenko Shimura, their Quirks, and subsequently their vestiges, were the catalyst. But the flow of our universe?”
“Midoriya Prime was created by an author. Our universe was conceptualized and born from a different writer. Of course, neither of them knew a damn thing about it.”
Monarch nodded. “Okay! Great! So, who is it?”
“Brandon Prime, I guess you would call him. Explains why he pops up around our multiverse… then again, like 99% of them are dead or inconsequential, so we only have to deal with a few.”
“Seriously? Him?” Monarch asked, to which all of the NULL Avatars nodded in identical annoyance.
“Never underestimate the ego of an author,” Gardener replied.
“Okay… so we all deal with our own problems, wait ten years, see what the deal is?” Monarch looked at their collective faces. “I’m sensing a ‘but.’”
“None of the Brandon’s in our multiverse hold any answers. Most of them don’t even know they exist in a universe of their own doppelganger's creation. The only one who actually knew anything was the Prime.”
“‘Knew?’”
Void shrugged. “In his home universe… The guy’s been dead for over 30 years. He died long before he ever completed anything. There’s no one at the helm of our stories anymore.”
*******
“So what?” Rumi asked as she reunited with Izuku on the battlefield. “Reality is obviously still intact, and more than ever, we’re free of some God’s influence, right? What’s the big deal?”
“I very much dislike calling ‘that one’ a God,” Rakan suddenly interjected, his perception of the universe changed forever. He was the first Higher Being, after Ashborn, to transcend death.
*******
[The Beastly Monarch - Rakan:]
Grade: Higher-Being
Species: Absolutsium Progeny
Skills: Beastly Monarch, Beastly Will, Higher Being Protections, Spawn of the Gods
*******
“Well he’s dead if that makes you feel any better,” Momo pointed out, uncomfortable next to the Shadow of such pure darkness. It was unlike anything she’d seen or felt before. The pull of Rakan’s black void that was his body felt a little too much like an actual black hole.
“The reason it matters,” Kaina surmised, talking with them through the comm system Momo designed for them, “Is because now we don’t have any information on what’s going on in the multiverse. What’s going on between NULL and ABSOLUTE.”
“Not to mention… his death might have been the inciting incident that drove NULL and ABSOLUTE to the points they’re at,” Izuku added. “Time works differently throughout our universe, multiverse and… omniverse? The links that make up our chain of reality. He died 20 years ago in his home dimension, but some dimensions have progressed way further than 20, and some less than.”
“Still a problem for later,” Rumi insisted, to which no one could exactly disagree. “Couldn’t you just revive him if we can move between the higher dimensions?”
Izuku shook his head. “The Gardener’s technology can bring us there and back, but any powers that rely on NULL or ABSOLUTE Particles are completely non-existent. And since my power is to nullify death, then I can bring back shadows in any dimension that doesn’t have NULL.”
“But all that means…” Momo looked expectantly at Izuku.
“Yeah,” He replied. “Our theory was correct. When the new Shadow Monarch role was created, it was a combination of at least three things, probably four. Raia’s System, Nexus’s pathways, part of Ashborn’s Soul, and a little influence from…”
“Holy shit…” Rumi muttered. “You’re the Absolute Being’s sister!”
Izuku made a funny face. “It explains why my power level is not consistent with a standard Monarch, Ruler, or even Ashborn himself. I got a fragment of power from the NULL Being herself.”
[Event Activation: Last Will and Testament of the NULL Being]
[New Game+ has been activated]
“Midoriya,” Raia informed him across the universe. “This is not my doing. The System is acting on its own accords.”
“Or maybe just the NULL Being’s accord.”
[Player will keep current buffs from all Stats, Skills, Titles, Quirks, Shadows, and Souls collected.]
[All current armor, weapons, and items, with the exception of ‘Blade of the Empress,’ will be unusable and converted into crafting materials.]
[Stats will reset to ‘1’ (without weakening the Shadow Monarch’s current power).]
[Levels now require twice the amount of EXP Points. In return, every point put into Stats counts as two Stat points, and Stat potency is weighted to be 1.2x stronger.]
A new System page opened, one that no one had seen before. It was a tree with eleven branches made of blood-red energy. It was the same tree from the NULL Beach.
[NULL Skill Branches - All Skill Branches can be explored and all buffs from each tree will be applied simultaneously.]
[Unless explicitly stated as such, all Branches only apply to the Shadow Monarch and his Shadows. Synthetic Shadows, or any other type of Shadow not personally raised by the Shadow Monarch himself, will be exempt from all benefits of the Branches.]
[The following are all of the Branches at Level 0. NULL Water can be obtained to increase the level of one Branch by one level.]
*******
[Strategist:] For those who prefer to direct their forces over multiple front lines from a central command center.
LVL 1: Planning Bonus - The Shadow Army gains incremental buffs to all Stats relative to how thoroughly planned an operation or frontline offensive/defensive is.
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Overwhelming Darkness:] Prioritizes extracting the most Shadows possible and forming an army of immense quantity.
LVL 1: Excess Soul Essence - For every 5 Shadows extracted, gain a free basic Shadow Soldier extraction.
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Royal Forces:] Prioritizes the best of the best, forming squads of Shadows to take on any mission, specialized or generalized, that their King demands of them.
LVL 1: Royal Guard Division - Up to 24 Shadows can be selected for this Division (limit increased with further upgrades). All Shadows in this division gain a 15% buff to all Stats.
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Endless Devastation:] Designed for those who wish to throw a torrent of long-range attacks at the enemy over a wide space, exhausting and robbing them of their manpower.
LVL 1: Immense Impact - All Ranged AOE attacks have a 25% larger area-of-effect, and gives the User an additional 50% range.
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Morbid Warfare:] Fear is the greatest weapon of all. To accomplish full usage of this weapon, great intelligence gathering is needed and will be provided through this tree.
LVL 1: Corrupting Presence - Shadows hiding in the shadows of an enemy can now apply an incremental debuff. This debuff gradually weakens the target’s mental fortitude. They will be more likely to cooperate if their debuff is larger, or more likely to surrender, amongst other things. This debuff can be disabled so that allies with Shadows hiding in them are not affected.
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Entrenched Hell:] Hiding in the darkness, the fortified position of a Shadow is impossible to break through, resulting in immeasurable defensive possibilities and counter attack opportunities.
LVL 1: Engineering - Certain Shadows now have knowledge on various forms of construction projects, involving land, air, sea, and orbital environments, giving various buffs depending on the situation. They can temporarily ‘extract’ the fabricated fortifications, or even makeshift defense lines, and turn them into Shadows, boosting their durability and defensive capabilities by 50%
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Speed of Dark:] The battlefields of Gods are wide reaching, and rapid reorganization and deployment is paramount to success.
LVL 1: Reorganization - A Skill with a one hour cooldown, allowing any Shadows not in active combat to be moved around battlefields and act as strategic withdrawals or reserve forces with instant teleportation. The cooldown is independent of each Shadow using it.
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Infinite Darkness:] Shadows typically have need for very little, only Mana to sustain their injuries. However, by further increasing the demand of various supplies and logistics, they can exceed their base power, allowing a well supplied front to vastly exceed expectations.
LVL 1: Supply Depots - Allows the User to assign the Supply Depot title to a Shadow Army operating base, command center, or fortified area. If a strategic operation is fully supplied from these depots, they receive a buff that increases Vitality by 25% and reduces Mana Cost for Regeneration by 30%. Max Supply Depot Locations: 2
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Synthetic SpecOPs (This Branch only affects Synthetic Shadows):] Nothing will ever truly top the original, but variation is important. Synthetic Shadows in specialized roles can serve as reserve units, responding dynamically to any growing fight involving the Shadow Soldiers.
LVL 1: Quick Reaction Force - Synthetic Shadows will be broken up into more specific roles for various operations. If Synthetic Shadows are kept in reserves and sent into missions they are classified for, they are 10% more effective. This affects all Stats and experiences. For example, a Synthetic designed for airspace dominance will perform much more advanced dogfighting maneuvers than before.
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Eternal Adaptation:] Shadow Soldiers no longer live, but that does not mean they cannot evolve. With the nearly limitless climates and atmospheres in the universe, the Shadow Army must be prepared for any terrain.
LVL 1: Adaptable - Shadows are now capable of forming real-time maps of terrain and enemy positions. Shadows now receive a slightly smaller debuff penalty for difficult terrain. (This Branch also affects the Engineer upgrade of the Entrenched Hell Branch, allowing them to make more specialized defensive structures).
LVL 2: ???
*******
[Weapon Master:] All Shadows come with a basic weapon. Whether it be a part of their body, or a simple sword or spear held by a basic Shadow Soldier. However, by producing and equipping Shadows with unique lines of weaponry, their power and skill can be greatly expanded.
LVL 1: Mass Production - The Shop now allows for the purchase of mass production items for a steep cost. With the help of production lines (produced either by the Shadow Empress or specialized factory production lines) these Items can be produced at scale for a much lower resource cost (resources are still consumed to make them, alongside the Mana cost).
LVL 2: ???
*******
Immediately, Izuku was thankful he didn’t have to pick and choose one over the rest. They were all too useful to choose only one or two. There were obvious frontrunners, like Weapon Master, Overwhelming Darkness, Royal Forces, and Morbid Warfare, whereas something like Strategist or Infinite Darkness were lower on the priority list.
*******
Level: +1
Strength: 1
Vitality: 1
Agility: 1
Intelligence: 1
Sense: 1
NULL: 1
Available Points: 0
[Mana: 1,213,239]
[HP: 203,549/203,549]
*******
Izuku wasn’t sure what the NULL Stat was, but he didn’t have time to figure everything out right now. There was still a lot of shit going down all over the world. And, unbeknownst to him, shit going down in space.
*******
“Oh for fuck’s sake! I just finished building this place!”
Strea’s flawless face twisted up into a gruesome scowl. “You are speaking to the God Queen of the Universe, partner to Antares. Be careful of how you interrupt-”
“I don’t give a shit!” Brandon replied. “I don’t believe in Gods,” He said with a nervous smile. “Oh, and I grew up in America, so I don’t believe in any sort of monarchy.”
Strea stomped forwards, her delicate white clothing flowing behind her, but in a way that spoke of her total disregard for life. She raised her hand, and backhanded Brandon across the face. But the moment she did so, she found the both of them floating in the void of space.
“Wha…” Strea connected them both via a mild telepathic link, allowing them to speak even in the vacuum.
“OW!” Brandon yelped, clutching his cheekbone as his skull pulled itself back together. “Holy shit!” He added. “Do you guys feel that on a regular basis?”
“You… You teleported us halfway across the universe?!” Strea said, gaining her bearings. “You spent almost all of your Mana for this?! Do you have any idea how long it’ll take me to get back to Antares?!”
“Well duh. I’m not gonna let you rampage like this near a bunch of humans. That slap could’ve caused a shockwave and killed most of ‘em.”
Strea scoffed. “Saysus always chose the worst host. I can see he hasn’t changed.”
“I… don’t necessarily disagree… I’m not the best fighter.”
“I am not here to fight!” Strea insisted. “I want answers on Raia!”
“Heh,” Brandon chuckled. “I only know what Saysus knows. And that’s that Raia died like… how many thousands of years ago? Millions? Your guys’ timescale just messes with my head.”
“Don’t play coy, you’re not-”
“What I do know is that you’re the whore who betrayed her best friend, got him and his people killed, all for some asshole dicta-”
Brandon was suddenly launched backwards through a Gate of Strea’s creation, crash landing on a planet as a red paste.
He would’ve said “ow” again as he pulled himself back together from such remains - all thanks to Saysus’ true immortality - but he quite literally had no mouth and no vocal chords.
Strea crashed next to him, throwing up debris like some sort of impact event.
“If you had conserved your Mana, you could’ve blocked that. Instead you wasted it all on protecting some worthless mortals! At least Raia’s people lived longer than a handful of decades.”
“Fu… ck… you… self…” Brandon managed to spit out.
Strea laughed sadistically. “You do understand I could keep you like this for all of eternity right? You want endless torment?”
“Step on me and I might just like it,” He said with a mangled shit-eating grin. Saysus’ regeneration was endless, but it was slow. Brandon still looked like Flat Stanley, his mouth just about functioning.
Strea’s scowl returned. “Disgusting creature.”
“I’m as degenerate as they come!” Brandon enthusiastically agreed.
See, he knew he didn’t stand a chance. Saysus was powerful in his own right, but Strea was powerful enough to pretty much genocide the Synthetics on her own. He stood no chance. His only advantage was that he was human, and like most humans, he knew how to do one thing better than anything else. He was gonna shit-talk her until she wanted to kill herself from sheer annoyance. Even if she took him with her and imprisoned him, he had no limit to his pettiness. He could be a smartass for all of eternity.
He knew, better than anyone, what hurt the most. The words that broke you down to a point that made you feel so inadequate that you preferred non-existence. His own mind had been filled with stuff like that for his whole life.
“Where. Is. Raia?”
“I think… you just can’t accept the fact that you got him killed. And now you feel like a sack of shit. You want someone to tell you it’s all okay. If he’s still alive, then you aren’t guilty. But guess what? Even if Raia were alive, you slaughtered his family and friends. One more person on that list doesn’t change anything. You’ll forever be a monster, carrying around buckets overflowing with blood.”
For a moment, Strea was frozen in place.
“What?” Brandon asked. “You guys don’t have therapists where you come from? Cause you’re so fucking obvious to read. It’s pathetic. Just reinforces my beliefs. There are no Gods, just arrogant and broken pieces of shit, littering this universe like discarded plastic cups filling a far more beautiful ocean.”
The veins on Strea’s forehead didn’t just begin to pop out, they began to glow with energy.
“Aww… did the ‘superior being’ get her feelings hurt?” He said with a high-pitched tone. “Cry about it, bitch. At least humanity has SSRIs.”
Strea raised her foot and opened several Gates around Brandon. With a single stomp, she sent bits and pieces of him scattering throughout the nearby star systems. “There. That should take you as long to regenerate as it does to get me back to my love.”
Brandon stifled a grunt of pain, using what meager Mana he had left to feed a Pain Nullification Skill he created. “You… haha… All of you… think time is on your side. You think because you live forever, that humanity - or any mortals for that matter - are inherently doomed. But the opposite is true of any machine. You ‘Gods’ have single points of failure. You’re an unreliable mechanism that will eventually break down, with no fixing any of it. Mortality fails more than you do, I’ll grant you that. But we have endless mechanisms. We break as many as we fix, maybe more, but we do fix them. A creator is worthless without the ability to recognize and accept their flaws.” He smiled wide, showing a rather hysterically missing set of teeth. “You’ll be slaves to your own flaws for as long as you live. You. Are. Worthless.”
He began to laugh a wet hacking cough. “That’s precisely why the Absolute Being considers Lords a failure. Your own creator, your own God, didn’t want you anymore. So he created the Monarchs. Antares sees you as nothing more than a failed experiment that he can use. Tell me again? Who in this universe cares that you exist? What makes you a God? Personally, I can barely see you. You’re like a black hole. An outline of empty space that can scarcely be observed. If you died tomorrow, I can guarantee you wouldn’t be remembered for anything.”
Strea’s hands were in taloned grips, clutching at nothingness as her breathing became erratic. “Just a human talking, a pathetic creature searching for a self-destructive mechanism to escape his own pain.”
Brandon laughed again. “After you killed Raia, do you really think Saysus didn’t think these thoughts himself?”
Strea’s face paled, and for the first time, she really, truly, looked like she was in pain. “Another plain-faced lie.”
“It’s adorable that you think I need to lie in this situation,” Brandon said. “I’ve always wanted to die. So really, I’m just telling you the truth in the hopes you find a way to end my suffering forever. And I have no reason to spare your feelings from my true thoughts.”
“Y-You can run your mouth all you want. I know Raia is alive and-”
“FALSE!” Brandon shouted, continuing to do everything in his power to break down Strea’s resolve. That was his own path to victory, outlast his opponents.
Strea crushed his head underneath her foot, once more silencing him. “I don’t care what you say. Deliver this message to Raia when you pull your guts back together from a lightyear away. ‘There’s still time to fix this. Just come back to me.’”
Still slightly connected by a telepathic link, Strea flew into a rage as she felt Brandon’s mocking mirth fill her head.
“I AM A GOD!” She continued to stomp on his flimsy body, again and again and again, for hours on end. But no matter how far she went, no matter what she did, his body vibrated with laughter.
Brandon had turned off Pain Nullification to use a different Skill, one that broadcasted his thoughts as sound. He took each hit, and all the pain that came with it, so he could laugh in her face.
Five hours later, she broke and let out a scream of rage before launching into the sky and disappearing through a Gateway, leaving Brandon borderline comatose. It would be at least a month before he could speak once more to Raia about his old friend and genocidal maniac.
“Ow…”
*******
“HAHAHAHA!” Razar cackled in delight as he swept his hand to the side, turning an entire section of South Carolina into melted concrete, vaporizing tens of thousands of people in an instant. The wave of superheated earth would’ve been visible from orbit.
At the same time, Mind Bullet used a combination of pyrokinesis, telekinesis, and aerokinesis to divert and starve the flames of oxygen. However, these were the flames of a Ruler, not a mere Awakened Human or Villain.
“Fuck!” Mind Bullet screamed through gritted teeth as his skin was burned away, all the way down to the muscle. It was all he could do to use vitakinesis to pull the strands of his body back together and regenerate the layers being continuously burned. Atom by atom, he stretched his skin thinner and thinner to compensate.
“Only ten seconds so far!” Razar shouted as his flames died out and left the area looking like a primordial earth. Endless lava surrounded them. He hovered above it with a white-hot cape of fire. Clearly, he only had it for aesthetics, as his flames were so powerful as to be invisible heat.
“I wonder how well that regeneration of yours works against this,” Razar said in a mocking tone, holding up a finger gun.
MB had zero time to react to the infrared radiation that was pushed through a single beam of invisible energy.
It pierced his heart, and MB clutched at the hole in his chest before falling over dead.
“Really?” Razar looked confused. “I would’ve sworn he could’ve pulled his heart back together.” He shrugged, seemingly not all that concerned that he didn’t get the fight he wanted. “Oh well.”
“Razar,” a voice murmured. “There’s still time to return to the light.”
The Holiest Ruler turned around to see a woman in white armor, with blue energy racing through its veins.
“Tch!” Razar clicked his tongue and turned his head. “Of all the Higher Beings who could’ve appeared to scold me, it had to be you, Correnic! Why not some Spiritual Remnants of Father or a random Lord? Why you?”
Correnic’s face was covered by a high-tech battle helmet that went with the rest of her armor. “You knew I would calculate this to be your eventual emergence on Earth. You can’t hide from me. I am the Smartest Fragment.”
“Well, Father’s intelligence was never anything to be proud of, let’s be honest. He barely made a single functioning species.”
“We’re your family, you-”
Razar cut off Correnic’s pleas. “As I said, ‘let’s be honest.’ We both know you don’t have a single strand of love in your body.”
“The statement is factually correct,” Correnic responded, unable to deny Razar’s accusation.
“Humans taught me the opposite, actually. Baran and I share quite the admiration for these creatures. Their emotional range and complexity is commendable. And they have much wider definitions for family than mere genetics.” Razar turned his head away from her. “I have taken that advice to heart.”
“Tell me. How well did it go for Ashborn when he abandoned his family?”
Razar’s voice became quiet. “It was our war, and our Father, who drove him to such extremes. You cannot comprehend it, because you cannot feel-”
“I understand emotions just-”
“YOU DO NOT FEEL AS WE DO!” Razar suddenly erupted, turning around with such ferocity that Correnic’s armor began to grow warm. “You never have! Nor have I ever known how he felt! Baran has awakened me to the truth, but… Ashborn… he loved. I don’t think Father designed us with the capacity for love… I think Ashborn was the exception, that was why he was so close to Father, why he was so loyal. Because he was the only Higher Being who knew what love actually was. Not a single one of us have ever had a partner as he did. We all killed what he loved.”
“And you’re going to continue killing it?” Correnic sharply asked.
“I will do as he does. I will destroy, and then I will bring it all back, better and more beautiful.”
“You’ll have to kill your family too,” She pointed out.
“Then I will kill you,” Razar sternly replied. “Do not assume I have love because I speak of Ashborn’s feelings. I will gut you, like Father should have when we discovered what you were.”
“Father respected my intelligence.”
“No,” Razar countered. “We all feared it. Father did too. Which was why he aimed to never upset you. A dim move. You did not need enabling. You needed a spanking as the humans would say.”
“You want a fight? Fine. I’ll end the problem here and now.”
Razar smirked. “I thought you needed my flames to complete your own plan?”
“I will harvest such heat from your corpse,” Correnic assured her brother.
“What plan?” A third voice asked.
Both Rulers looked to the side, spotting a figure rising from the shadow of a melted building.
“Speak of the devil!” Razar mirthfully remarked. “Though… not the devil himself, just his protégé.”
“This is a lot of Higher Beings for one location,” Izuku cautioned. “And I see you’ve already left your mark.” He said, gesturing to the track of land that was now little more than embers and ash.
“One has to demolish an old structure to build something new,” Razar quickly remarked. “And I don’t answer to you, only my brother himself.”
“Ashborn’s unavailable,” Izuku replied.
“And your harem?” Razar asked. “I thought you’d bring them with you to kill me.”
“This doesn’t have to end in a fight.”
“It does,” Correnic insisted. “Razar has to be put down. He’ll be no trouble if we work together and-”
“I’m sorry, who are you to tell me what to do?” Izuku interrupted. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re all threats to humanity. Especially someone who takes the body of a… well she’s an acquaintance more than anything, but still.”
Correnic chuckled as her helmet folded away to reveal the glimmering blue eyes of Melissa Shield. “I offered her unlimited knowledge in exchange for use of her body. She accepted it without being coerced.”
“And how long are you going to keep that body? Did you tell her anything of your kinds’ propensity for massacring mortals?”
“I obviously don’t intend to give her the body back. Nor did I need to tell her anything. She was far too naive and hungry for knowledge to worry about that. She believes that intelligence and progress equals a decent person. I might not give her autonomy back, but I do respect her desires.”
““How kind.”” Izuku and Razar said at the same time and with the same sarcastic tone.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook either,” Izuku then said to Razar.
“Not in your eyes, but at least Enji Todoroki was an asshole. I didn’t take a young, innocent girl through manipulating them.”
“Ashborn has given me his blessing, and I stand in protection of those who cannot protect themselves. This is no game.” Izuku’s unbearable aura of death exploded out from his Soul, assailing and chilling the Ruler’s to their bone. “I will make peace, but if you don't stand down first…”
DEATH
“If that is how it must be,” Correnic bowed her head, making Izuku think she was surrendering, but then she pressed a button on her armor’s belt and vanished.
She didn’t go invisible, and she didn’t disrupt Izuku’s senses. She was just gone.
“Urgh, I always hated that personal teleporter. I’m just lucky her minions can’t use it. Otherwise, we’d be-”
“Why are you here? What do you want?” Izuku currently wasn’t concerned with Correnic. She was obviously lacking any sort of remorse, and had taken Melissa’s body, but when he asked her to stand down, she left. That wasn’t something you could say of many Higher Beings. Izuku, for now, was grateful for that, but he knew he wasn’t through with her yet.
“I’m here to reclaim my palace, of course!” He pointed South. “After all, I was the Ruler who brought angels to Earth to save them from the demons. All I intend is to protect this world and-”
“Do all Higher Beings lie with such pathological tendencies?” Izuku asked, surrounded by multiple Shadow Soldiers that rapidly appeared. “I’ve been listening just long enough to know that last statement is obviously false.”
Razar once more shrugged. “Worth a shot. But I suppose the successor to my brother deserves to know my reasoning.
“You see, I was… unseen, by my Father,” Razar explained. “He created me to be the ‘Holiest’ Fragment, to give mortality a clear figure to model right and wrong off of. But he always treated me more like a Primordial. A function of the universe, not an inhabitant of it. And really, how did he expect me to reach so many trillions of planets all at once? How did he expect me to stay long enough to have an impact on…” He trailed off. “Ah, the questions are endless, that much is clear.
“Even still, I was as devout a follower of his as I could be. I would never reach the same relationship Ashborn had with him, but I still tried… and then Father was gone, and my brother was… changed. No matter my envy for where he stood, he cared for others in a way that most of us could not even appreciate at the time. Now he wanted to kill all Higher Beings, family included.”
“Then…” Izuku began. “Let’s end all of that. I may not be your brother, but maybe you can still see him again.”
“I am no longer seeking my brother, nor does he seek my head. We have already amended our relationship, at least, we did when I eventually defected to the Monarchs, and before he was betrayed by them.”
“Okay, now you’ve kind of lost me.”
Razar chuckled. “I began to question all the right and wrong things in this universe after my Father’s death. My position as the Holiest Fragment completely unraveled. In my personal assessment, out of all the decisions my Father made in this creation he calls a universe, 98% of decisions could not be fully rationalized. 98% were ambiguous, and faulty.
“He was THE Creator,” Razar stressed. “Why could he have not constructed a world where goodwill and kindness did not impede upon the progress of evolution? Why could he have not made us differently? Why not make a universe where war is unnecessary?”
“It comes down to two conclusions,” Izuku recognized, upon which Razar’s smile became bittersweet.
“Either he was an inept God, or a sadistic one.” Razar scoffed. “Perhaps you are the perfect choice to replace my brother.”
“So, you’re here to burn it all down and build a better world?”
Razar nodded. “I sent my Lux, cleaned of their brainwashing, to this planet to cleanse it from the influence of the Tenebris, who were polluting such a clean world with Mana. I alone knew of this world back then, and I wanted it to remain absent of our influence for a time, so I could learn more about what makes something a good creation without falling back on Magical tricks.”
“Technically it’s physics…”
Razar waved his hand through the air. “Only my sister sees it that way. Her and you humans. We still all know it as Magic. There are things not even theory can explain.”
“Whatever the case, it was I who helped hide this world from Higher Beings, at least for a time. A world without Mana is hard to sense, and my palace hides a device that obscures this system even further. Perhaps you would call it the answer to the Fermi Paradox. You haven’t been alone, I’ve just been hiding you.”
Izuku nodded in understanding. “So… you wanna try and kill each other?”
Razar shook his head. “I understand if you attempt to kill me now. But I would not like to do the same, not now. I believe these wars are the results of my brothers, sisters, and allies. Higher Beings making a mockery of your funeral. I shall return when humanity is united and made whole. You deserve to die as one. In each other’s arms.
“I merely appeared to save my host and… got lost in the battle. I am guilty of that, I admit.”
“How kind,” Izuku repeated mockingly.
“I don’t-” Razar raised his arms just in time, throwing up a massive wall of heat that Izuku slammed into.
*******
[Apex Skill: Razar, The Holiest Fragment]
- Apex Passive Skill
- Cost: The User’s Soul self-immolates upon use, causing short-term damage that exposes the User to Soul-based attacks.
- Description: The User can manipulate heat (of any energy type) to an absurd degree. It can even form solid objects. The hotter the flame, and the greater the energy, the more amplified the Magical power is.
*******
“I told you! This isn’t a game!”
Razar seemed genuinely astounded by Izuku’s willingness to kill him while he was caught off-guard. “You…”
Izuku inverted the space at the center of the energy, twisting Razar’s shield open and stabbing the Empress’s Blade through the gap. But it was already too late.
Razar fell backwards through a portal he had already been constructing before their exchange of words had concluded. “Maybe another time, brother.”
Izuku passed through the space Razar had just occupied, his skin searing and regenerating in the intense leftover heat.
“He’s in the Antarctic. He’s at his palace,” Deep Blue reported from their command control platform. “Shall I convene a strike force?”
Izuku sighed. “No. We still don’t know enough about that palace. Apparently it has more functions than we thought. But if he’s gonna stay there and wait for us to sort our shit out, then let’s just keep him on surveillance.”
“As you say,” Deep Blue acquiesced.
“Lots of Higher Beings…” Izuku nervously muttered to himself. “Too many.”