Chthonic Ultraman Episode 31 (2024)

The following page (Chthonic Ultraman Episode 31) is fan fiction, it is in no way an attempt to make profit of any form off of copyrighted characters by Tsuburaya Productions and other companies. It is meant for the enjoyment of other fans of Ultraman and similar copyrighted characters.

WARNING: Disturbing content up ahead, reader discretion is advised.

The following episode contains graphic depictions of violence, those with sensitivities to such subjects are advised to tread with caution.

Contents

  • 1 Prologue
  • 2 Chapter 1
  • 3 Chapter 2
  • 4 Chapter 3
  • 5 Chapter 4
  • 6 Chapter 5
  • 7 Chapter 6
  • 8 Chapter 7
  • 9 Chapter 8
  • 10 Epilogue

Prologue[]

A dense fluid dripped down mercilessly, a rain of chunks and half-digested pieces flooding out one cough at a time, littering and pouring all over the bowl of a toilet.

The whole body of the large and hefty man hunched over and convulsed, drenched in such intense sweat that his shirt stuck to his skin. With cool breeze from the air conditioning slipping through the door to caress him, he shivered as the difference between hot and cold assaulted his body on two different fronts, freezing the sweat outside while heat outpouring from within made his skin feel like it was being pierced by needles.

So many thoughts, so many emotions, but his task only so simply. He emptied the contents of his stomach not because he wanted to, but because he needed to let something out, his body felt like exploding into a thousand pieces and he had to keep it together somehow, even when the fields of his mind were reaped by the scythes of anxiety.

His secretary must have been watching him from behind unsure of what to do, looking back and forth and contemplating what words she could even say to him in this state. He entertained all of the things that must be going on in her head while his own mind drifted away, out of his skull in those delirious moments where nothing held any coherence.

And all of that was because of the images on the TV digging and clawing into Kojiro's mind. Yet it wasn't the terror of the current time that upset him, rather it was the images they brought back into his memory. While everyone on the news likened it to the events of twelve years ago, he could only go back to that day five years in the past, the day his life had been flipped on its head and nothing had been the same since. He shut his eyes with such intensity that it hurt his cheeks, all for the sake of blocking out those memories of black giants swarming the land, silhouettes of darkness dancing through the flames.

The more he remembered the more he hurt, the more he threw up from mere reflex. He never wanted to see that day again, even if it meant gouging his own eyes out.

As streaks of tears and snot flowed down and dried over his face Kojiro's mind became lost in thought, the low panting that came after the storm of pain. He stood there in such a state for a moment, only quivering to himself like an animal left drenched in the cold rain. He needed a moment to get everything back together, even if that moment lasted an eternity.

The one that had brought such a travesty into his life on the contrary enjoyed a very different, but similar punishment. Just as Kojiro was lost in a sea of his own thoughts and cut off from outside stimuli, so did the soul of the perpetrator wander, trapped in its own body.

Hanami and another POD unit had carried the unconscious body of the blond over to a checkpoint set up where the divisions could regroup. There the combatants made a stop to get themselves ready to advance deeper into Shinjuku while those among them that were out of the race could recover.

At some point only his body laid on the ground, alive but separated from the world around him, observed by two figures he couldn't perceive. Shigeru and Hanami watched without a word to say, both avoiding each other and only being there to tend the body.

Though they wouldn't exchange a conversation between each other, they somehow had the exact same thoughts in mind. What could Makoto be thinking?

Chapter 1[]

A world of darkness, where even light as as dim as the dark itself. A world of cyclopean nothingness, of massive expanses of void and immeasurable stretches rendered with an emptiness overflowing with an endless blank.

As he hovered through the dull limbo, the unconscious blond felt intensely on him all the nothingness it had to offer. It stimulated no senses, it awakened nothing as if it didn't exist, as if he were just a figment of his own imagination trapped in a fleeting thought.

Yet he was real, otherwise that pillar of white tearing through the black to catch his focus would have been for nothing.

With grogginess in his veins, Makoto's eyes slowly stretched open, his pupils dilating and focusing to react to the sole stimuli in this space. His gaze became transfixed not on the white pillar but on what it hung over and showered, blessing it with light. It was another black shape, but this one was confined to specified dimensions, contained in a long trapezoid shape maybe two meters or so from front to back.

Compelled by a primal push, he stepped closer to it, though his feet didn't receive any stimuli, his nerves detecting nothing as if they were walking on the air yet remaining oddly steady.

He reached for the object cut out from a different black than the rest, a black that reflected the light hailing from that white pillar which gave it a slight gloss. Makoto didn't understand what it was immediately though he seemed familiar with its shape. He studied it, examined it from multiple angles and tried to pick it apart with just his eyes before it dawned on him what this arrangement of geometry was: a coffin.

On cue with him reaching that realization, an aspect of this shape that wasn't immediately obvious revealed itself to him. On its top was engraved an inscription, a series of characters he read one at a time to properly grasp the meaning of their collective. Once he did however, his heart skipped a beat.

'YORUGO HITORI'

Without a second thought going through his head, Makoto's fingers reached for the crevices where the lid of the coffin parted from the bottom and he mustered all his strength to pull them apart. He couldn't even boast to be frantic, the motions were too mechanical, too swift and strong to allow for any signs of struggle or missteps. Makoto simply flipped the lid open as soon as humanly possible if only to prove this was nothing more than a lie.

It couldn't be anything but a lie, thus his eyes looked eagerly to prove it, defeat that fear before it could make a nest in his soul and make room for anxiety, and anxiety in term sprout despair.

Thin and stretched skin laid dormant over a skeletal frame, the features of a human's body obscured by the linework of the skeleton peeking out like tattoos. Its shade wasn't what it should be, not the peachy colour known by most nor even the pale hue he was used to seeing on her, rather a dull and rotten purple awakening a primal reaction in the heart of man. He flinched at the mere sight before the odor had settled in, making his hands spring up to cover his mouth and nose.

His blue eyes couldn't believe it so they scanned and searched, analyzing every aspect of the body before him to make sure it wasn't, it couldn't have been her. The fact however remained he couldn't make heads or tails of it, not in this state, not unless he look at her head.

He didn't want to call it 'her', because he didn't want to admit it. But even if sunken into the spaces left by her bones, those facial features, her protruding canines and the dried shade of blue left in scattered patches of hair around the skull were unmistakable.

It had to be a lie, so he looked at her eye to eye to hear it from her, so she can tell him who she wasn't.

But there were no eyes to leave windows into her soul, the blinds had long been removed and the insides emptied, leaving only black and shallow pits darker than even the black of the vast stretches surrounding him. When he looked at her absence of eyes Makoto wondered if he would lose his own, he had given up on blinking and after a moment of thoughtless staring felt them losing moisture, but he wouldn't shut them either. If they wilted away as well he wouldn't have to look at her any more.

Who would do this? Why? When? How? Whoever it was, Makoto felt a burning conviction to kill them, bring as much pain as he can for doing this to her.

A second examination after the fatigue of the first had settled might have given him his answer though.

Peppered all over the cadaver were spots of black squirming and writhing, moving to leave back trails of skin in a condition even worse than the rest. Makoto plucked one out fiercely and held it in his shaking grip with such intensity that he threatened to splatter it with a strong enough squeeze. Once he recognised what it was however, he was too lost for words to mash it into paste.

It was a leech, that was evident enough by how it sucked and clung onto the rotten flesh of the body looking for nutrients, however where its suction-cup-esque mouth should have been he noticed something was different, something was human. The leech in his hand had a face so awfully familiar that it was like he was staring into a mirror.

It could only have been because it was his face.

The second he recognised his visage on the parasite he dropped it, earning a squeal in a voice that could have only been his own, but that wasn't it, his vocal cords had remained silent.

On further examination he found the leeches hard at work biting and chewing on the body, sinking their teeth to pull apart the tender flesh they were making a thorough banquet of. Each one of them had a look on its face, a sneer that said 'you can't stop me'.

Determined to prove them wrong, Makoto gave in to the frantic madness he'd avoided a moment earlier and began to reach for them, yanking out on leech at a time. Their fangs piercing the body's flesh, they drew chunks of it out even as he removed them, sprinkling sores and gashes across her skin. It was worth it, so long as they ceased desecrating her they could rip out as much as they wanted on their swan song.

He reached and pulled them apart, flinging the parasites into the void until the body was free. Its state was abysmal, unrecognisable to anyone but him, but even as his breathing ran rampant and his heart pounded on his chest trying to break through it he clung onto some semblance of hope. He could still fix this, he could still save her. Maybe if he screamed for her, asked her to wake up and open her eyes, asked her to help him then she'd patch herself up and keep going like always, wasn't that it? Wasn't she resilient? He could count on her to make it, he always did so it would be of no use to give up on her now.

He got ahold of the body and tried to pick it up, support her frame against his own. This was embarrassing to admit but... he often wondered what it might have felt like to be this close with another person, to sense their skin against your own. Was it warm? Was it homely? Was it soft? Could you feel the beat of their heart bumping against your chest?

As he felt their thoraxes meet as the body slumped over him he found all of his curiosities and wonderings quenched in the worst possible way. It was cold to the touch, rough to where he couldn't get a good hold on it, uncanny as if he wasn't even holding a human- but worst of all he felt nothing beat from inside. He'd never heard his own heartbeat, that was a given, but to not feel the other person's either was a nightmare of no precedent.

Without intending to he dropped it- her, slumping over the side of the coffin. He became repulsed at the traces left behind on his own skin, scratching himself intensely to the point where he considered just peeling it all off to remove that gross sensation.

As a thousand thoughts ran wild and did warfare in the battlefield of his mind, Makoto failed to recognise an extra presence in the unbound room with them. From beneath the coffin space broke apart and something grew, one leech to conquer them all large enough for the coffin to fit comfortably into its mouth, swallowing it whole.

Makoto backed off at the sight, his own sneering face mounted on the black stalk, munching down and chewing while its eyes met his own.

That wasn't what he wanted, it couldn't have been what he wanted. As disgusted as he was at her current state it's not like he wanted to do away with it, even like this he still wanted her to be there, so who was this fiend of such insatiable hunger that had the gall to take her away?

Whoever it was, one thing was for certain: it wasn't satisfied. The colossal leech spread its jaws open and sped for him, aiming to take a bite out of the man it shared a face with.

Makoto didn't protest, if being devoured and chewed to bits by this monstrosity meant he could be with her again he'd accept it, but a part of him had other plans.

A fist of blue sped to the middle of the leech's face, its skin bending and sinking inward under the pressure until a fissure spread across its skull. Parted in half, the fragments of the parasite's existence splattered out as chunks of skin and a rain of golden hair, teeth scattered alongside them. In its current state it no longer resembled Makoto, leaving its headless body drop to the side and quietly wither away.

Standing in its place however remained something else, an entity with its back turned towards the young man, a being of dark silver armoured in navy blue and adorned in regalia of crystalline orange.

Makoto could only contemplate before its sight. What he had, what he lost, what he'd never get back. And at the centre of it all it was him, always him.

Burning up in righteous anger he approached the figure, putting on a scowl to shout at it. "Are you proud of what you've done?!"

His words were loud, yet they didn't elicit any response even as minute as a flinch. It was as if he'd gone unheard and he didn't appreciate it. Thus to make sure he would notice he grabbed ahold of the entity's shoulder and pulled it back to face him by force, his blue eyes meeting with those orange domes on its silver face aligned downwards, head hung low.

"This is all your fault. The Shinigami are doing all of this because they were inspired by you!"

He exclaimed once more but once again received no reaction, frustrating him even further. With both of his arms on its shoulders he throttled the entity thoroughly, adamant to get through whether it liked it or not.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you... Enma!"

Reeling back a fist, he then swung forward. He didn't know what prompted him, what convinced him to do it, it was as if his own muscles and base instincts took over. The second his fist clenched so intensely he felt its nails dig into his skin met with the face of the silver entity he knocked it on its back, but felt the recoil burn his own cheek and chin.

That pain was nothing that could make him stop.

Getting atop of him, Makoto began to pound and rain down fists atop his face and chest, pummeling without a semblance of mercy while his own weight kept him down.

"If you never existed then none of this would have happened! None of it! The Shinigami wouldn't have gone on a rampage, all these people wouldn't have been killed, Juru would still be with his daughter!"

Each strike reverberated both inside and outside, feeling pressure on his own body, a drumming pain that knocked his breath out but never slowed him down. Even if his own face ended up getting bloodied then he would continue to beat the face of the person in front of him.

"What do you have to say to that Enma?! To all of these people dying because of YOU! Are you going to own up to it? Are you going to take responsibility?! This is all your fault!"

He didn't fight back, he didn't resist, he didn't need to. He was hurting Makoto without even trying because that's just the kind of devil he was.

Even if it drew streaks of tears out of him, Makoto would keep on hurting him until he'd suffered the pain of everyone he'd hurt.

"They shouldn't have died, you should have! You! You!! You!!! Die! Nobody else but you! Only you! ONLY YOU!"

His fingers reached for Enma's neck, so thoroughly bruised that his skin felt like mush against his nails. With hands coiled around it he began to dig his fingers in, resting his knees on his dented chest while he put in enough pressure to strain his fingers' bones, bringing them to the brink of cracking. Piercing through skin they sunk inwards, digging until they were submerged into a red pool. He knew what he had to do, it was like second nature when he pulled his throat open like a blooming red flower, a canyon to never be sealed.

He barked at him between sobs, but found he couldn't even understand his own words. The chasm on his own neck, ripped open and drenching his suit with crimson was too wide, leading to every breath he took making him gurgle and choke on his own blood. But he didn't stop, he still yelled at him through those half-breaths full of vomit circling in and out of his mouth and throat in rapid circulation.

"Only you!" he screamed, pounding into Enma's face from the left.

"Only you!" he roared, smashing his knuckles into it from the right.

"Only me!"

His fist rose, but it never came down.

A chill ran through him, piercing Makoto's body to trap him perfectly still. He blinked twice to make sure it wasn't a phantom or an illusion he was witnessing. It wasn't a leech, but it had his own face, he made sure that much was the case when he ran a hand though the blond hair of the person beneath him.

Beaten, bruised and with his throat ripped open, he looked back up at Makoto with unfeeling maroon eyes.

He didn't want to look at his own fingers sunk so deeply into his throat, perhaps because he dreaded that what he would see would be the membranous talons of a fishman bringing a second end to his life.

Quietly he lifted himself up and stepped away, helped in no small part from a palm of the old Makoto shoving into his chest, pushing him away.

"Did you get everything out of your system?" he asked, catching his own breath as he adjusted his bloodied shirt over his frame, cracking the back of his neck to adjust.

Makoto only hung his head low and sighed, finding his body had adopted the silver and blue colours of Enma, reminding him of his place.

"I... think so."

Ruffling his own hair, and scratching away an itch, the human Enma put on a disgusted scowl as he stared at Makoto from the side of his maroon eyes, squinting lightly while his lip curled up. "Tch" he clicked his tongue, turning to face him in such a manner that he didn't look like he registered his own injuries.

The state of raging ecstasy Makoto had found himself in slowly wore off as he adjusted to his Ultra body, the pain he'd inflicted now seeming like only a passing memory. One could hardly guess that demure and down state he was in came from the same person out on a rampage a moment ago, perhaps that shameless shift was what ticked off Enma most of all.

"How selfish can you possibly be?"

Slowly lifting his head up to face him, the Ultra Makoto quietly answered. "I don't know what you mean."

"You want to die so badly just to punish yourself, but you didn't take even a second to think about how others will react, did you?"

Of course he had, the world would have been a better place without Enma, that's what he thought.

"I know what you're thinking, that the world would be a better place without you, right?" Enma scoffed, his human face morphing into a sneer. By Makoto's sudden reaction of freezing up he could tell he was spot on. "Of course that's what you're thinking. Goodness, you're just like Juru!"

Makoto flinched, what could he possible know to say something like that?

"You told him to think about what Mizuki would have wanted, how much this would have hurt her- but he adamantly stuck to his self destructive ways. And then you go and do the exact same thing! Tell me, if we really did die then what would Hitori think?"

Like his knees were about to buckle under his weight, Makoto felt himself weak and shifty. He felt like he was hit by a car, his whole body surging and quivering as if suddenly thrust into motion. The flow of his blood was fast, but it was cold, freezing even. He couldn't fathom the fact he'd have to admit it, but he hadn't thought of that, not until now.

"She would be... sad."

In a deadpan tone and lowered eyelids Enma snapped back. "That's putting it lightly. You're her first real friend, her partner. She'd be devastated if you died, betrayed!"

He could understand devastation, he'd felt the same way when he saw her body... the body he was now grateful to realize could only have been an illusion. But betrayed? He didn't understand what Enma meant by that and Enma seemed to recognise the confusion on his static face.

"Do you know what those leeches were?" he asked and pointed back to where the carcass of them massive one had lied. "They were you. You depend on her, look to her for comfort, find yourself at peace around her... and I'm happy when we feel that way. I cherish having someone to talk to about whatever, someone to count on to have my back during a battle."

Enma's human face allowed him to express emotions that the image of an Ultra couldn't, to soften, to look content, melancholic, happy.

"She's a treasure, I don't know what we'd do without her."

All of their times together rushed back into Makoto's head, the good, the bad, the times they couldn't make heads or tails or anything or the times they felt they had it all figured out. She was an eccentric person -there was no arguing against that- but that eccentricity felt like a norm he could get used to. He had gotten used to it, to the point he now just found it endearing. That's just who she was, silly, stupid and awfully strong in both mind and body.

"But she's not our treasure. You can't keep seeking out for her to mend each wound because she's just as lost as you are."

Enma might have been right, Makoto seldom acknowledged her own emotional needs whenever he sought her out. He always counted on her, but he couldn't recall if he'd ever made himself reliable enough to be counted on by her. The guilt of that realization made his fist clench on its own.

His other half approached him and reached into his pocket to bring out a handkerchief spared of the bloody mess he'd become. Stretching his arm out to offer it to Makoto, he said "She's wiped your tears enough times, it's your turn to wipe her own."

In a slow reach, Makoto received it and wiped specks and streaks running down his smooth face which he didn't even know were there.

He nodded and brought up his other arm, holding it up for Enma to lift his own and their forearms to connect.

"I'm sorry for what I said to you."

"It's fine, if you forgive me then I forgive you."

In a flash their bodies changed, Makoto becoming changing into the form of a blue eyed human and Enma reclaiming his own Ultra form. Their injuries vanished, both of their bodies stayed static for a moment before stretching and blurring into blob-like states where they met in the middle, merging into one unified form. A silver body with orange markings, armour running down and amassing into spikes cords and bracelets, black horns protruding forward as well as blue eyes that flashed with such intensity they burned through the darkness.

Ultraman Yomi awoke.

Chapter 2[]

Of all his senses, it was smell that returned first. The scent of something burning, molten and rotten filled his nostrils and made up his whole world first and foremost. Charring flames crossed with putrid sweat, the smell of the outside world reminded him what kind of situation he truly was in.

Then came taste, the tang of a bitter bile earning a gag out of him, mucus from his stomach having unconsciously pooled into his throat. He entertained the idea that it was blood, but as touch returned to him and he reached for his neck he felt no scars nor tears. That memory could lie buried until the end of his life, the pain didn't have to torment him any longer, he was safe.

He wasn't the only one who knew that, as when the power to hear was bestowed to him once more it didn't take long for the muffled and distant voices to begin shouting his name, calling out for him.

"Makoto! Makoto!" they went persistently, each repetition sounding closer than the last. He wanted to answer them, but his lips and tongue still felt too numb for him to articulate a sentence, thus his weak and flailing motions would have to be the signs of life he could use to answer them for the time being.

Who was calling out to him, he wondered. And where was he as well. He couldn't have been in immediate danger, otherwise the Shinigami would have already dealt with him. So could it be he was home?

A vast blur covered his field of vision when he opened his eyes again, dull and dark shapes blending together into a soup deep and dreadful like trenches deep in the ocean's abyss. He couldn't make out shapes, only outlines, colours, ideas for his mind to stitch together. But when he began he couldn't stop himself from continuing, his mind putting together the world around him. Voices, scents, sensations, images and tasted all aligned at once, finally sending him snapping awake.

Makoto's whole body shot up as he drew in long breaths, sitting down in some decrepit hideout of rubble in the deepest recesses of the dark city. He reeked, he thirsted and he craved for even the tiniest pocket of clear air unaffected by the foulness of smog, but as he looked at the two people in front of him, waiting for him he realized some things took precedent.

One of them was a girl with blue hair and glasses of a distinct shape, for the first time he was able to tell apart Hanami from Hitori without error, so he hoped it wouldn't be the last. Perhaps the reason why he could figure out her identity was because of the sharpness he felt his senses adopt, an acute sense of accuracy. It was as if a breezy wind had entered him, making every cell of Makoto's body feel alive and fighting all at once. He couldn't articulate it, but he felt fresh.

The second needed to contemplation, it was Shigeru. Though for once, Shigeru became the more vocal of the two.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt? Do you need anything?"

Makoto didn't answer verbally, instead he raised his hand to open and close his fist a coupe of times. He felt his blood flow through it, the air filter his lungs, electric impulses going through his nerves. In this state of internal hyperactivity he felt more alive than ever before, which reminded him of something. Something that if he were to bluntly utter would come off as strange and impulsive, it probably was, but the second the idea popped into his head he had to throw away logic and say what was on his mind no matter what.

"I think... I saw the true shape of my soul."

Hanami reacted to his words, eyes widening in response. She seemed to understand what he meant.

"So it's like the Shinigami said, you reached the next level."

Their minds both raced following her statement, running to conclusions and ideas likely different from one another, ideas they couldn't decipher by simple meeting gazes. What the 'next level' entailed for each of them might have been different, but whatever the case was, Hanami would put away her responsibility to report on it just for a moment.

Reaching forward she held his hand with both of her own, once this gesture would have taken him aback, but now Makoto remained idle and content with that warmth.

As Hanami felt around his wrist she commented "His pulse is back to normal."

"Good to have you back." said Shigeru with relief. It was rare to find him this expressive, but one look at his beat up state revealed how he wasn't in the position to allocate a lot of energy for keeping up a formal front.

"Thank you." Makoto answered and then scanned his surroundings, recognising he was still in Shinjuku's ruins, just not where he had been last time. "Did you two save me?"

Hanami's face turned a slight peachy colour. "Save is a strong word, I just helped carry you here and we looked after you."

She might not have wanted to take credit, but Makoto's gratitude towards her remained strong. On further thought he realized she wasn't originally part of the mission, so she must have joined them and ran all the way here on their own accord, possible just for him. The thought made his heart melt, but equally so it reminded him of a loose end he'd failed to take care of.

He remembered where they must have found him, in the ruins of a battlefield where he'd had to erase any traces of Juru, of his inability to save him.

Makoto didn't know if they knew or if they'd just picked him up and ran away without checking, maybe part of him would be happy to bury that memory and never let it resurface again. Nobody needed to know of their pain, but that was a lie and he knew it. They had to know, they deserved to know so Juru's tale may not be forgotten, but also because Hanami had been a part of it, arguably a bigger part than even him. She had visited Mizuki so many times, she had vowed to reunite her with her father, but when that responsibility fell on Makoto's hands he'd let them both die. For her sake he needed to confess this sin.

"I... defeated one of the Shinigami." he began, taking it slowly.

"That's good, one more down." said Shigeru in a satisfied tone, as if he could rest easier knowing Makoto had found success.

On the contrary however, the blond could only tense up, his facial expression showing these weren't the happy news they might have seemed like at first glance.

"He's dead, Alien Miracle Juru, otherwise known as Saint Tsuchikera is dead and... so is his daughter."

He watched as Hanami's expression morphed into apathy and stayed that way, a stone cold and unblinking visage staring into his own. To those words she could say nothing but "How?"

"She made it all the way here to try and stop him, but in his rage he killed her and then himself. I only got rid of his body."

That last part may have wiped his hands clean to the eyes of some, but Makoto certainly didn't find himself feeling that way. His ensuing silence gave an opening for Hanami to bring a hand over her mouth and hung her head low to contemplate.

He didn't know what thoughts might have been going through her head, but he believed the safest answer to them would be to say "I'm sorry."

Breaking away of her own delirium, she suddenly seemed to regain focus and composure just to respond with "Don't be."

"I should have saved them." he adamantly attested.

"Maybe you could have, but it's over now." she replied, seemingly resigned to it.

Intrigued by her approach, Makoto asked "Aren't you... upset that Mizuki died in this way?"

"I am upset beyond what the words I know can describe, but I'm not going to take it out on you. You did your best and I'm sure it weighs on you just as much. I wish I could have done something to help them, been there for them and you, but I couldn't. Even so... I have to remember what they taught me in the Paranormal Comprehension Unit."

Shigeru's head turned away from her as she said that. Makoto not only noticed his discomfort but he also remembered Juru's testimony, but he still wanted to listen to the wisdom they had passed onto Hanami.

"When people die, don't let their deaths amount to nothing. Let them be fuel for you, strength to save more people than those sacrificed along the way." she recited with a low and mechanical tone before lifting her eyes to meet with Makoto's. "Even if it hurts, you have to keep on fighting. There's still people out there you can save, so don't let them meet the same fate."

The tragedy of a loss wasn't contained in just the loss itself. It spread out and made roots like a tree, reaching into the hearts of people affected and hurt by the loss. If a person died then it hurt that many more people than just themselves, so the more he failed to save the more the number of affected would increase exponentially. Hanami was right, they hadn't made it all the way here to stop now.

Slowly, the girl lifted herself up from the floor they sat at and tried to walk away.

"Where are you going?" Makoto asked.

"I need some air... to let it sink in."

Nodding, he replied. "Alright, that's a promise."

A curious Hanami asked back "What is?"

"You recover from that loss, take as much time as you need and I'll gather my strength to keep on fighting." He said it once before in his battle against Gagi, but now more than ever it felt appropriate to repeat it. "I'll save more people than I have hurt."

Her expression showed traces of amazement but remained somewhat lowkey. It was more admiration she felt, thus Hanami nodded and walked off.

The silence she left behind lasted little, for Makoto didn't take long to catch up with Shigeru.

"What do you make of it?"

"About what she said?"

Makoto remembered the last time a topic such as this had been brought up between them, he could never forget it after all. It was the Hellberus incident and it's horrible aftermath. Though the good it brought out was unmistaken and the directions it had sent their relationship towards couldn't be denied, it felt like he and Hitori had quietly made a pact with Shigeru to never bring it up again. For all the closure they're received, the actual incident seemed as though it had simply been left in the past, but here were its lessons creeping into the present once more.

Shigeru's answer to a similar enough dilemma had come off as 'suck it up' at the time, but perhaps that's because they had not given him the benefit of the doubt or didn't know each other well enough. He wanted to ask him again now that he could just to see what he'd bring to the table this time around.

"I think... in general terms it's sound advice. A lot of people are counting on us right now so we wouldn't want to fail them even if we are in pain. I agree with the statement even if I am skeptical of her source."

It didn't take too much thinking to be able to tell his experience in the PCU might have been different from Hanami's. They both had their heart in the right place even if they didn't see eye to eye.

"What do you mean?"

"You know how it can some times be with big agencies. When you get too professional you wind up just going through the motions. You shouldn't lose sight of the bigger picture, but don't sacrifice your heart along the way either."

Makoto felt a sense of awe at his response, a feeling of understanding. Shigeru's answer seemed more thoughtful upon revision, as if its aim was to keep him on the right track. Though it was difficult to tell past the apathetic mask he commonly put on, he had changed.

While he was at it, Makoto looked even further back into their history, seeking to tie up loose ends now that he was on a roll. One memory returned to him, one of their first day sharing a house together. Once again it was as if they'd made a silent agreement to never talk about it, leading to the memory almost being wiped from his head, but Makoto recalled it at that critical moment, seeking out an answer to what he'd neglected all this time.

Practicing caution, he checked over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. He didn't know why he felt compelled to do that, he didn't feel like he had anything to lose by revealing that any more- but old habits died hard.

"When we first started sharing a house you told me you'd be keeping an eye out for me so I don't step out of line-"

Shigeru seemed to grow more uncomfortable as Makoto continued, looking like he knew where this was going but not if he had the words to answer it.

"That's because you knew I was Enma. The question is, how did you know?"

His housemate opened his mouth to answer but sealed his lips not a second later without uttering a syllable. He hung his head low in contemplation and Makoto gave him as much time as he needed, though he was clearly expecting him to indeed give a response.

Deciding to make it easier for him, Makoto threw in his own hypothesis to see if it was correct with just a 'yes' or 'no'. "Did someone higher up tell you?"

He theorized there were some people who might have known but never had the chance to prove it, being too distant from them to properly gauge their knowledge.

"No, nobody told me. I figured it out on my own."

His answer surprised Makoto, but it didn't deter him. One door closing was another opening, so he wasted no time to ask "How?"

Shigeru's discomfort only grew in response, visibly shrinking back as if in visible pain. His speech also seemed to grow more erratic, unfinished words slipping in and out of his mouth.

"I just... felt it in my bones. I just knew."

He couldn't make heads or tails of that answer, but perhaps he didn't have to. They lived as irrational people in an irrational world, so it was only logical that irrational explanations were the best they could do some times.

Shifting his focus on another facet of that idea, the blond asked "Since that day, have you ever thought we could end up as enemies?"

"It might be unprofessional of me to say this, maybe even a betrayal of my own vows... but no. I got used to you two, so I can't imagine of a life without you any more."

A smile slowly crept up on Makoto's face while Shigeru tried his best to hold up a facade of apathy. By the little cracks in his mask Makoto could tell that his housemate was too pleased when recalling their memories together to imagine anything negative, his happiness slipping out in the form of a look that spelt out adoration of his current situation.

He had acquired a lot in what wasn't even that long a time, so he had to fight not to lose that happiness. Similarly, he had to fight so nobody does.

Rampant footsteps caught their attention, a third figure entering the decrepit room. "We got a message from POD18! Their transfer of the unconscious Yorugo was intercepted!"

The expressions of the two's faces shifted to those of worry, taken out of the moment and sent back to reality. Once again they changed, this time to looks of coolheaded determination powering through, lifting themselves up to head forth in their mission.

Chapter 3[]

A disturbing grogginess lasted for a little, the feeling of insects crawling on your body teased every cell and demanded of your primal reflexes to scratch it, only to find nothing was there.

The second her eyes shot open the world revealed itself, a vast field of green under the sunset-lit sky. Far off past a river could be seen a towering city shimmering in the afternoon glow, caresses by a calming breeze that regulated temperature and saved them from overheating, though the lingering dryness in the air were another story.

Hitori focused on it, keeping her eyes fixed on the far off architecture that seemed oddly small in comparison. It took her a moment, but once her eyes fell downward she realized what caused this confusion in perspective. She was standing on a high place, but it was no hill of the greens that surrounded her nor any tower, but a vastness of red stone-like material that shook as soon as it was recognised.

Losing stability in her step she reached for something to latch onto, a formation of gold branching up from the ground she stepped on as spines. Plates of red shifted apart to reveal a softer and fleshy material squeezed underneath, a shade of blue so dark it almost resembled black, but rich in veins that lit up and glowed in a strange ethereal luminescence. Her gaze widened while her grip grew tighter to save herself from tumbling down, bit by bit her mind put together just where she was standing on- or no who.

Assuming a quadrupedal stance, the crimson drake coiled through the land and let out wailing roars that rattled the air itself. Hitori had to cling onto dear life to not fall off and felt her heart pound against her chest in anxiety, every moment more dreadful than the last and with seemingly no end in sight. Her eyes met with those of the giant's who turned back as it sneered at her, breathing out warm air between fangs. Confronted with this creature she felt herself powerless, weak and incompetent, as if she had no weapons to fight against it and no tools to guarantee she would live. Her options seemed exhausted from the get go as if the game was rigged against her, for Hitori had no hope of besting the power and anger of her own monstrous self.

Like a ship caught in a storm she drifted aimlessly in the tide of her rampant shaking. Out of every opponent she faced this might have been the most formidable one, the only enemy that ever made her feel this small. She searched for her White Magnum but couldn't find it, showing just how great of a wall Grigio Bone was to a petty human like her. The distance between them was simply too large, as hard as she tried she could never best her.

Maybe however, fists wouldn't be needed to win this battle.

Like an owl swooping down to catch its prey, a silhouette fell upon the titan's back as a speeding bullet. With one knee down it laid a hand on the monster's back and whispered to it with the voice of a grown woman. "Shhh, shhh it's okay. Easy girl, easy."

As if she were an expert animal tamer, the words of the woman quelled the rage of the colossal beast as her palm brushed against it, bringing its earthquake inducing movement grinding to a halt. While its ripple remained prevalent within her bones, Hitori's composure slowly returned to her as the aftershocks slowly wore off, setting her mind straight once more. When she realized she had no more reason to cling onto something for stability she didn't make a move, instead taking a moment to let it settle and for her whole body to come to an agreement to move again. The rugged feeling of a rocky surface was washed away from her hands while her posture turned and whole frame grew calmer. Through her legs slowly ceasing their shaking she searched for stable footing and took a few baby steps while brushing loose hairs out of her glasses. After a moment it truly settled in that it was all over.

With nothing but relief in her heart her head rose up to look at the direction of the person who had saved her, though her reaction couldn't be described as anything short of mortified.

A black tuxedo with a white undershirt adorned the woman's elegant form, resting underneath a tie in bright yellow. Something about her radiated composure and maturity, a distinctly adult graceful appearance with undeniable features spelling out coolness. Nails red and moderately long, lips wearing a slight gloss and circular glasses over topaz eyes remaining half shut, given a mystifying effect by black mascara that twinkled like pixie dust, granting flare to her eyelashes. Perhaps her most striking features was that over that content and peaceful gaze rest long streaks of blue hair in a bright hue she couldn't not recognise.

Hitori flinched back in response, but found herself bumping into something soft. She discovered that around half her height were a little girl with black hair carrying a picnic basket, her frame feeling weak to the touch as she almost fell over from such short a contact. Hitori jumped back the other way when she saw that girl, when the sunken eyes on her pale face peered past the frame of her glasses to look at her as she struggled to lift the basket.

Both the girl and the woman drew closer together as the latter pulled out a tablecloth from the former's package, laying it down on the ground for them to sit on. The ground shook one last time and then stopped, making Hitori feel a shift downwards as if the monster was now lying on its stomach, face buried in its arms.

She watched them take out a whole bunch of snacks, some home made and others in bags and cans fresh from the store shelves. When they got them all out the both of them knelt on the floor with the older woman momentarily putting her hands together to give thanks. It looked like they were about to eat and the girl wasn't particularly keen on waiting for anybody, digging right in, the woman however practiced patience and stopped herself, turning to look at Hitori right in the eyes.

She flinched, a primal feeling inside her making the whole situation feel awfully uncanny, but nonetheless she stood at attention and waited for her to speak.

"Are you going to join us or not?"

Hitori looked down at all the plates they had and -to the best of her ability- she failed to deny it made her stomach growl. The older woman seemed to be waiting for her, even eyeing the girl to stop until she could reach a conclusion. She didn't know what to make of it, but if there was one sense of hers that hadn't been snuffed out it was hunger.

Slowly approaching them, Hitori knelt by their side as they all assembled, the oldest member of the three finally giving the green light for them to feast. Hitori didn't know where to begin, for as tasty as those barbeque flavoured chips looked she didn't know if she should pick them over the nutritional value of hard boiled eggs. She was at a crossroads, so giving it up to luck she passed the responsibility onto someone else to make the choice between snacks and healthy food for her. Looking at them however, it looked like both had distinct and clear preferences.

The girl seemed to be stuffing her mouth with anything store-bought she could find, acting like a wild animal pulling food her way to munch and chew loudly. The lady on the contrary seemed more visibly refined, using a fork and knife to pick through the carefully prepared delicacies she might have made by herself. Both sides had their merits, she couldn't live without the former but as time passed she recognised the significance of the latter for her health, but did her choice really matter at that point? After all, was any of this even real?

She had delayed it long enough, it ate at her from the inside so before she could get to eating she had to say it. As she prepared herself to ask a question however, she noticed the older woman put a pause to her own eating to pay attention to her, thus Hitori directed the attention towards her.

"Are you... me?"

Putting on a gentle smile carrying with it an adult elegance that she could never see herself pulling off, the older Hitori nodded at her. Her features were the same, after all she had already reached adulthood so there wasn't much room to change from here, but something about her appeared more refined. Her choice of clothing fit her frame like a glove, highlighting the intricacies of her body type a lot better than anything she had worn to this day. Her hair retained its dye job but was grown out longer to nearly reach her legs, brushed to be smoother and glossier than typical. What was most intriguing about her was the noticeable fangs and the unnatural colour of her eyes, traces of Possession that remained with her for years.

On the contrary, that little girl she dreaded to look at must have been the Hitori of the past. A sickly and weak runt whose lack of proper nutrition made her look younger than she actually was, yet she was too focused on eating anything to fill her stomach to bother noticing what good it was for her.

Both the Hitori of the present and of the future looked at her with traces of pity, the former in particular appalled at how fast she was emptying a bag of chips. "Hey, slow down or else you might choke." she warned and reached out to grab an apple slice before offering it to her. "Have one of these to wash those down."

The younger Hitori looked at the apple slice in her hand and then up until the shaky eyes and awkward smile of her intermediate self before going back to stuffing more chips.

"H-hey I'm talking to you!" present Hitori grumbled, swearing that she couldn't have been that difficult a kid to work with.

The older Hitori in contrast covered her eyes in shame. "Was my food palette always this unrefined...?"

Sighing in defeat, present Hitori just ate the apple slice on her own and turned to her older self with a muffled voice "Gwess owd wabids dye hahd."

Older Hitori squinted at her in an awkward grimace before pointing at her mouth "Do you... mind swallowing first?"

Realizing how impolite she was, present Hitori sealed her mouth and gulped immediately even if she wasn't completely done chewing, leading to some chunks almost getting caught in her throat and eliciting a cough. She leaned forward while her older self said "Oh dear" and gently tapped her on the back, trying to help her out.

It was embarrassing, but funny. She couldn't even make a good impression on her own self, that was how she knew she was a lost cause. Something about her older self made her feel immense respect towards her for a reason she couldn't exactly decide. Perhaps it was simple seniority, but it might have also been how stunning she found her. It was a bit egotistical to say that about a person that looked exactly like you, but she'd already conceded Hanami pulled off her looks better a while back so it hardly made a difference. This however was in a league of its own, her adult self had a type of professional beauty she'd seldom seen, wondering if at one point or another she picked it up from Ms Ohara.

After managing to swallow properly and clear her throat present Hitori drank a bit of water and recollected herself, deciding to laugh it off to show she was okay.

"Sorry... it must be super embarrassing looking at us like this when you've got it all figured out, right?" she confessed and then leaned back on the rocky surface of Grigio Bone's back, gazing up at the indigo of the night in a tussle against the orange of the ceasing day. As she tried rubbing the crimson armour of the monster she spoke up "It was pretty cool how you stopped Grigio Bone like that."

"What can I say? I know myself well."

Hitori could have dismissed that answer as a typical and devoid of particular meaning response, but then her mind connected two dots that should have been obvious from the start. Springing up to look back and forth between the monster and herself she asked "Wait, is this also another me?!"

"Mhmm" the older Hitori nodded with hands on her lap. "She is the Hitori of the present."

Considering her circumstances that made sense, but it only brought out more questions. Scratching her temple with a bead of sweat running down her forehead she neglected to fully raise her head up, only looking at her with the top of her lowered eyes as she asked "Then... which Hitori am 'I'?"

Abruptly, both the past and future versions of herself stopped what they were doing to silently exchange glances, even Grigio Morgana joining in as if she could still communicate despite her monstrous growls.

Reaching a silent agreement, the Hitoris had their youngest version have the honour of answering. "You're the 'absolute' Hitori. Past, present and future all flow into you, the realest version of you that exists."

She didn't know how to respond to that largely because she didn't understand what they meant, leading to her scratching only getting more profuse.

The eldest of the bunch recognised her feelings and simplified the answer for her. "You are the one who decides the future you carve out for yourself."

That was simpler, but less comforting. As much as she wished she could be that cool and refined Hitori she was staring at that moment, the answer she received made it clear that was only one potential outcome for who she could become.

"Ah... I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" the older Hitori raised an eyebrow. "Sorry for what?"

"That I'll probably... not become you."

Confusion appeared on her face for a split second before being replaced by curiosity, a small and comforting smile appearing while she reached to pat her shoulder. "What makes you say that?"

"You're too good to be true. Too pretty, too collected, too mature, too... orderly. I could never get my life in order the same way you have."

"Nonsense." her older self outright denied her conclusion, making the true Hitori flinch. She wasted no time to beat around the bush or go about it in a roundabout way, she said it like it really was without second thought, shutting down any possibility for half-hearted self reflection. "You act like I'm some far off unattainable future without even realizing you're already over half way there."

"Huh?!" the true Hitori bore shock in response to that ludicrous confidence and certainty. She'd expect such delusion from her younger or present self, dreaming for a better future without working to achieve it, but hearing it from her most composed version was truly shocking. Over half way there was a lot, she didn't feel like she'd achieved that much so she felt like her future version was overselling it, even though she should have been the most frank and honest one of them all. Now the question was, did that delegitimize her or did it add merit to her word?

"You have a job, you have a place in the world, you have friends and people who love you. Take a moment to count all the people that matter in your life and all the things you have attained and tell me with a straight face if you still believe you are a failure."

"I-I never said I saw myself as a failure! It's just that- I haven't really found a conclusion to look for that's all!"

Sadness painted the face of the older Hitori, traces of disappointment not at her state but at her mindset. "You still don't get it. Fine then, let me ask you this. Name one thing in your life that you are truly missing."

She thought that would have been an easy question to answer thus she opened her mouth immediately, but all her confidence faded when no words could come out. Every answer she thought of giving was swapped out for the next only to be thrown out as well, every new one being more superficial than the last. Sure there were still things she could seek for but they weren't necessities, they weren't things she didn't already have in some form or that she couldn't get any day of the week by simply bringing it up to the others.

While her face slowly was drained of emotion, the older Hitori's turned livelier in a small smile. "You quest was to find happiness, right? Happiness isn't an end goal, it's a way of living. And you've already found it."

All the good times with her friends and coworkers, or the battles won, all the steps made, every time she had gotten a little closer or opened up a little more, gotten to know someone better or realized more things about herself- but also every loss, every disappointment, every setback and failure, every betrayal returned to her. She thought that at the end of the day they could reach an equilibrium and the scales would be even, but something deep down told her that expectation was built on a foundation of lies. In truth, the scales were overwhelmingly tipped in favour of the happiness she had attained in her new life.

"Every day you spend being happy is a day realizing your dream. Don't look off to the horizon and how far the race is from being over, look at the start line and how far you've come."

All this time her focus was on her future version, but just then she realized how little time she'd spent engaging with her younger self. That sad little girl must have been having the same thoughts as her, looking at the true Hitori and thinking that she'll never turn out like that. She wanted to hug her, tell her it's going to be okay, tell her that she'd made it after all- but that's when she realized that was what her older version had been doing all this time.

"You're strong Hitori. Don't look at your missteps and convince yourself you're weak because of them."

As she hung her head low in contemplation a smile was cast over it. Despite the animosity between them, she recognised her words as those spoken by Saint Shirogane Demaaga, warnings not to forget how far she'd come.

"If you ever feel like that, remind yourself what brings you comfort." the older Hitori said and crossed her arms, looking like she was expecting an answer. "So, what is it?"

Bringing her hands together and scratching her thumbs with one another, the true Hitori avoided immediate eye contact as her gaze shifted around. "You remember Makoto, right?"

The older Hitori's smile became abundantly brighter. "Of course, how could I forget him?"

"He's a real worrywart, isn't he?"

"Absolutely!"

"Yeah! He gets stressed out and starts brooding so easily, he just can't relax to save his life some times!" she began, eager to get her qualms over her roommate out to the one person that knew about them best. But of course, if she only had bad things to say she wouldn't be bringing him up in the first place. "I can tell he has a lot of baggage, something's always going on inside his head and keeping him busy, keeping him thinking about stuff that hurts him. I want him to take it easy... not quite forget what's on his mind but simply make peace with it. That's why when we're having fun together and he's enjoying himself, being calm and happy with no 'buts' or 'ifs' or second thoughts making his mind go back to bad stuff, I also feel happy with him because I truly know that everything is right."

A gentle look appeared on her older self's face, one of satisfaction. "Being happy when someone else is happy... that's a beautiful thing. Only a mature person would think like that."

The true Hitori sighed and nodded before another growl caught her attention, one from her own stomach.

A bag of chips freshly opened was brought her way, her eyes tracing its origin back to her younger self who instead munched on some apple slices. She accepted her offer and went back to eating with the two of them, enjoying the picnic they'd prepared.

Not too late after that a second growl caught their attention, getting them to turn and find Grigio Morgana had turned her head to look for them.

"You want one?" asked the older Hitori and picked up a chicken nugget to hurl into her jaws, the snap of which was intense enough to make them shake before giving out a laugh.

It was peaceful. If this peace was what her soul truly craved, what kind of person she really was, then she loved that she was born as Yorugo Hitori.

Chapter 4[]

The underground train station was like a maze, many paths crossing and splitting into many different ways to satisfy the demand of the populace. Usually it would be a bustling hub of activity day and night, the steps of people tapping over the tiles repeatedly in a unified chorus like a great tidal wave. It was fierce and loud, but it was homely to most. On the contrary, it was this dead, chilling silence POD's agents were forced to endure as they hid behind rubble with their weapons on guard that was most disturbing. Though perhaps even if wouldn't have been so discomforting if a single series of steps didn't echo in the dim lighting.

Past their covers the different groups performed hand signs at certain angles to send messages over to their peers, risking it all to peek their heads past just to look at one another. None saw their enemy but all heard them, knew where they were and where they were going. They clung onto their weapons, exchanged messages in sign language with each other and braced themselves for the moment that would never come, until the signal was given for them to leap.

All at once the group of agents jumped in a circle, bearing their weapons swinging and flailing down as they encircled two figures in white: a young hooded boy and his biker jacket wearing sister. As fierce fighters rained down on them like comets, the boy's deformed eye flashed and stripped all colour from the world around them, pausing any motion from anyone past himself and his sister. She -with a gem set into her palm- pointed forward and performed a spin, a thin laser sliding through their immobile bodies with such force and precision that it carved lines across the walls surrounding them.

As movement resumed it was finally allowed to register and all of them promptly detonated into clumps of flesh parted from one another, a red carpet just for them.

"Eat up." she ordered her brother and the two of them went into action, drawing in the souls of their fallen enemies to make a feast out of, her getting the larger share.

Trampling over their remains, the Shinigami advanced further down the train station, pursuing those too cowardly to join their fallen comrades. Some boiling in righteous anger dashed their way while others remained hidden covering their mouths, both however would meet the same fate. Without so much as lifting a finger they robbed their surrounding humans of their souls, pulling them in the form of black streaks both from those charging into battle and those attempting to stay hidden. Limp and lifeless they dropped to the feet of their nonchalant adversaries, though if they could even be called that would be the subject of debate.

The sound of meat smacking against the floor signaled to them just how many agents fell under their feet, wings of black ink taking shape as they drew inward all life around them.

For one agent bold enough to get up and run before their very eyes, make a mad sprint to get out of their range they would have a special surprise. Saint Shirogane Demaaga looked at her palm to find the gem had yet to regenerate, she also looked to her brother to check for the cooldown of his ability, receiving a shaking head in response. With him unlucky enough to evade their more merciful abilities, he would have to be hunted the old fashioned way. Turning off her passive ability to drag in souls, Shirogane Demaaga leapt forward and in the blink of an eye found herself up his side, shoving a hand into his chest to lift the man by the collar.

His weapon fell from his hand instantaneously, the squirming human beating and clawing at her hand to force her into letting go only to be suspended further upwards. All sorts of pathetic sounds came out of him, his shaking and shrunken eyes refusing to be set straight and meet her cold glare. His appearance became all the more laughable when the white jacket on his shoulders revealed to them his status as a captain, POD18 in particular. Extending a blade from her forearm she sought to rip him into two and put an end to his misery, she would have had something in the corner of her eye not been a guardian angel for that man.

A figure in black and a yellow tie, blue hair running down her head and a blaster with the red dragon's open jaws visible in her tight and bruised grip. In slow and rugged breathing she made her presence known, her very entry making the power of Shirogane Demaaga falter.

Out of every sight in the world, none could have made her more joyful than this one.

Her younger brother took a step forward, looking like he was about to gallantly protect her. "Sis, should we-"

"Nah."

A worried glare was thrown her way from him, one that prompted the grinning Shinigami to elaborate. "For her to wake up must have meant only one thing. She 'awakened' in more ways than one."

"A-and isn't that a bad thing? She should be a heck of a lot stronger now."

"I know, but that's not the only change she should have experienced." She spoke loudly, loud enough to make sure she was heard by the intruder and anyone hiding alongside them. Past the man shaking in her raised grip she eyed her fellow Possessed who she now could acknowledge as another bearer of that title. "When a Possessed awakens they give in to their inner bloodthirst, they realize what strength they are looking for and how to obtain it."

With a strong push she threw the agent Hitori's way, making him skid against the floor as he fell on his side, coughing and panting while he laid curled at her feet. The bespectacled agent's yellow eyes looked down at him for one mute second before rising once more to meet her fellow Possessed.

"You should have gotten closer to my level now... but probably not quite there." she began, giving the prelude to what she'd have to do if she aimed to bridge the gap. "Eat his soul and power up, then we can go at it."

Trying to get up on his feet, the captain paused and held his breath. All of his efforts to escape suddenly seemed to be for nothing when what they'd amounted to was being fed to the lions. Slowly his shaky frame tried to rise at least to his knees, lifting his eyes up and with them the heavy burden of accepting reality. His eyes met their own, painted in dread and adorned with terror that sunk into the blank abyss of his pupils.

"I won't."

From a smirk, Saint Shirogane Demaaga's face turned to a scowl. "Why not?!"

Calm, collected and most importantly of all using her strength to help lift up the stranger who'd recovered her body in the ruins, Hitori looked at her enemy not with rage, but with understanding.

"I don't need to throw away my humanity to beat you, not after all I've done to obtain it."

"Tch" the Shinigami grunted and lifted up her left arm bearing a blade that protruded from its side. As soon as a flash of blue sped towards her brother from the right however she was put on the defensive to block it, shoving him aside to block a sword of energy swinging her way. It didn't register at first but her eyes widened as it did, recognising the second interloper as a certain blond agent of POD.

"Ultraman...?" she asked before feeling another presence speed towards her from where she had come from, forcing her to lift her other arm and morph the metal on it into a shield to block the swing of a blind man's cleaver.

With two great forces pushing her inward she became easy prey for a head on blast fired from Hitori's weapon, an attack she'd surely be struck by if her brother hadn't sped into action to get her out of there. One second she was there, the next she seemed to have disappeared with not only Hitori missing her shot but her housemates landing their weapons on the ground. A quick scan revealed the two of them a little further off, recoiling back with Shirogane Demaaga shielding her brother, safe as if they'd been warped away.

The footsteps of her underlings raced behind her, several of the last infected troops running forward to intervene. "After them!" she cried out, forcing some to run ahead while others to take aim with their organic blasters. Those closest to her however were stopped by weapons driven through their backs, a trident and a spear that prompted both the Shinigami to jump back and out of their range. With the number of POD agents increasing, leaping out of blind spots to join the battle the two of them were forced to take desperate measures, reactivating their ability with the chant "Remotio" to steal the souls of any unwanted third parties.

First went out a psychic wave to act as a warning, prompting the two Possessed on POD's side to flare up in black auras that intervened with the Shinigami's ability, suppressing it to shield their comrades.

"What?!" Saint Shirogane Demaaga frantically looked around them, mortified by the sheer arrogance it took for them to intervene.

"Sis-"

"Shut up, I'm trying to think!" she said as he got the gears of her brain turning even if by force. She needn't do much thinking however, everything becoming clear the second her eyes lied on the two treacherous Possessed and their blind housemate cutting apart infected footsoldiers surrounding them, backs practically facing each other in the synchronized dance of battle. The very sight vexed her greatly, the utter idiocy of them daring to put on the front of strength and bravery when they were just so weak.

"This is a cruel world we live in, to find your place in it you must become cruel yourself. Kill, slaughter, devour and destroy, the principles of cruelty give way to strength! Without strength you're nothing, so why do you pretend to be strong when you don't have the cruelty to live up to it?!"

Against a particularly densely armoured soldier born from the bodies of several growth-overwhelmed humans mixed together into a carapace, Makoto's saber faced resistance as it was driven through his defense. "We aren't pretending to be anything. When you see a world full of monsters you run wild and sink into depravity to become a monster yourself-" he spoke in midst of his struggle of force.

The infected soldier suddenly froze solid when a cleaver fell on the back of his thick skull, sliding into it. "But we're different, we seek to save the cruel world by holding onto our humanity!" declared Shigeru, holding his weapon down and sinking it deeper into the monster's head by ramming his other hand into its back.

Hitori charged flames and lightning into the muzzle of her blaster, taking aim at the incapacitated enemy. "If it's born of cruelty, then we don't need your strength!" she spoke out loud, opening fire in a scorching beam that pierced and melted through the infected beast's body, breaking it apart and sending her friends flying out to the sides to regroup with her.

Shirogane Demaaga clenched a fierce fist as she swung it to the side, smashing into a wall to spread cracks all over it. Never before had she seen a sight as preposterous as the three of them joined by their captain, that good-for-nothing former captain of POD1, all those cowards from POD18 that had only now gotten out to battle and even the foolish captain she'd nearly killed all fighting as if they had any chance to win.

"If you don't seek strength at all costs then you're nothing more than pathetic weaklings!"

"If that's so-" in one voice the three of them spoke out, bringing their weapons together where they became encrusted in a thick layer of black, getting the two Shinigami to flinch.

Darkness swirled around their weapons, their combined powers joining together into a single spot in the middle. Makoto and Shigeru performed broad swings that sent their whole arms quivering while Hitori pressed down on the trigger with enough intensity to nearly snap her finger, all of that for fire a concentrated burst of Black Blood speeding ahead, roaring through the air.

"Then we're the strongest weaklings around!"

The younger Shinigami nearly lost balance at the sight while his sister let her jaw drop, unprepared to face such an attack. With nothing better to do she left herself to its mercy and spread her arms out, taking the full brunt of the attack that concluded into a fiery purple burst.

Knowing what was coming, Hitori and Makoto wasted only a second to reclaim their breaths before looking at one another with bruises and smiles.

Retracting his energy sword, the blond lifted the jewel-bearing torch up to his raised wrist. "Ready?" he huffed out.

In response she only needed to lift her weapon underneath her chin. "Always."

"Hear the darkness howling! - Open Fire!"

"No time for tears! - Open Fire!"

Blue and orange, two lights flashed in the middle of the train station and wrestled against the purple flame of their enemy, pushing against it until they were all devoured in an intermediate glow.

Chapter 5[]

Pursued through vast mountain ranged of lime green under the lilac sky, Buzzard Birdon spun his neck back all sorts of ways and angles to spew fireballs to the Ultra chasing after him. With both of her legs paralyzed, Karakuri Bijou stood atop of two of her drones and used them as hoverboards to speed after him, forward thrusting motions of her hands firing off arrowhead projectiles to counter his own and strike his wings to impede progress.

"Venom Flamethrower!" cried out the Shinigami in a dignified voice to release a constant stream of his purple flames back at her, their bright colour contrasting the dull shades of his own skeletal form.

In circular patterns the Ultra was forced to dance, flying around it whether upright or upside down to evade the constant stream, holding out until it let up. When her adversary ceased fire and focused on his flight path she accelerated and flew through the smog to catch up to him. Though it made her eyes sizzle and burn she withstood it, she couldn't allow mere embers to slow her down after all. In her chase however she felt her conviction being intercepted by a sudden disturbance and a loss of balance.

Initially she attributed it to lightheadedness caused by fumes, it couldn't deter her so she pushed through in the incoming volley of fireballs. She drew closer, aiming to weave their way around them and attack him, eventually bracing herself to go right and dodge the first one. Her movements were swift, but awfully imprecise, leading to her flying left. One by one she fell onto the fireballs in her attempts to evade them, either steering to their direction or losing composure from a previous hit long enough to leave herself open to the next. The ultimate result of her taking so many attacks was Bijou losing balance and dropping in speed enough for him to increase the distance between them.

Sniffling, she barked back at him. "You sly little- what did you do to me?!"

"Hmph, I mixed my newest sensory-inversion virus into my flames so that the fumes they give out can still affect you if you inhale them."

He spoke of it so casually that she'd think it was practically second nature, confessing his scheme to her in such a manner that it felt almost demeaning. "Why don't you slow down and fight me directly you coward?!"

"Am I a coward or am I simply honest with myself? Not everyone is cut out for brute force battle, it is a wiser choice for me to use my smarts to beat you if I am lacking in the brawn."

Accelerating, he urged her to speed up and try and catch up to him in spite of her disorientation. As she got closer however she realized the foolishness in chasing after him, flying straight into a valley of pillar-like rock formations she lost him in. With roadblocks left and right it became a maze to her, the slightest tilt one way making her feel like she was sharply falling to another, unable to turn or make sharp turns less her sense of balance flip on its head. It pained her mind greatly, the constant adjustments and changes filling Bijou with a sense of dizziness, a loss of composure, of her sense of direction.

Every corner made her think she was going in circles, every shift in altitude feeling like she had made a loop and every change in direction like it was a total shift into a new environment, as if gravity itself was changing.

Her stomach twisted and her brain begged for release, getting her to close her eyes just to halt the influx of information- playing right into Birdon's hands.

"Talon Diver!" he announced and flew feet first through the rock formations, delivering a mid-air dropkick that blew his enemy through several pillars, bouncing between them as she plummeted to the floor.

Landing on her back she was overcome with unbearable spinning, even when completely stationary she felt like she was constantly accelerating, G forces that weren't there putting a strain onto her whole body. She tried to lift herself up but her legs wouldn't comply, giving her no answer. Her hands too rebelled against her, as they were scraped by his venom-dipped talons they were injected with a plague of resistance that urged them to move on their own, initially thrashing around like fish out of water before reaching for her throat.

The terran Ultra let out a croak, tormented by her own limbs as she choked on a lone breath.

That accursed Shinigami truly lived up to his title as a buzzard by speeding over her repeatedly, a shadowy blur occasionally flying across her field of vision.

As she lied there terrorized, mocked, immobile she found herself an awfully pathetic excuse for an Ultra. At the cusp of total defeat she could only wonder what someone who had survived such travesty would do in her place, how Doven would win such a battle. Not just he, how his own teacher would have won, how any other wielder of Bijou's power would have come out of this. Years if not eons of warriors of light passing down this power to fend off against evil across the ages, fighting for their own dreams and goals to keep this world safe- was she about to be the end of the line for them?

Were all their battles, victories, defeats and sacrifices all going to amount to her falling to a bird of prey?

She had to think what they'd do, what was a tradition they'd all followed, what was a sign of a true Bijou.

One had endured a rain of flames from the dreadful Gora to shield the alien who had once been his enemy. Another had defended the civilians he'd threatened with his own two hands in the past and protected the leader of the Dystopia Syndicate from the scorching remains of Gakuzom, the monster they'd personally transformed into on their rampage. A third tore through space and time to reach for the heart of the dark lord and bring out her friend swallowed within him. And Doven, the hole blown through his stomach to protect her from the fiendish Deavorick's weapons remained vivid in her mind.

She couldn't tell if they were really there or if their voices were simply a product of the delirium in her disorganized and dizzy mind, but Naoki could have sworn she had the hand of every past wielder of Bijou resting on her shoulder, pushing her to remember what made them strong.

One testimony remained consistent among all of them: when the time was right, their bodies just moved on their own.

From the high altitude of the wind he had rode, the vast expanses land below seemed impossibly tiny to him, as if he could crush it all in his talons.

Indeed, under the flaps of his wings they were crushed, just not under his own power.

As far as the eye could see, the forest of stone pillars cracked and tore itself apart, cracking and breaking into tiny pieces that were carried upwards by an invisible guiding force. Once massive stretches of land, now a hedge of destruction and dust coming apart, ascending rapidly as the crust of the ground scattered into flying chunks. Birdon had to navigate his way around them and maneuver with great haste to dodge, stones and rocks lifted up and hurled upwards at every angle as if the world they'd been warped to was ripping itself to bits before his very eyes.

Past the sea of destruction a turquoise blur caught his attention and sped upwards, causing him to flinch. Karakuri Bijou had dove into the air, weighted stone cuffs keeping her unruly hands in check as she spun through the air. Upside down, her body stretching to make an arc, she hovered above the land like the crescent moon hanging on the night sky, staring into infinity over her enemy as if he was the one that was tiny, insignificant.

Mesmerized by her sight he neglected the most obvious, the very boulders rising to his level. Piercing through them came two of her drones and stabbed into his wings, scattering feathers and worming into his flesh to not let go.

"Drat, she had concealed them in all this chaos!" he cursed as he rapidly lost altitude, flailing about in a desperate effort to hold himself up in the air.

Without even realizing it, Bijou had wound up over him, her spin across the sky winding up with her diving straight down. Four drones revolved around her stretched leg and generated a vortex of purple pointed downwards in a drill formation. If her own balance couldn't guide her then she rode the swirling force of the spiral and let it carry and align her path with his own descent.

Ripping through the sky she rammed the energy drill around her leg into his chest and accelerated downwards, digging it deeper and deeper as he smashed through boulder after boulder until they crashed onto the Earth. All the pressure of her attack flooded in on him while his momentum came to a screeching halt, getting blood to gush out of the Shinigami's beak when two rival forces pounded against his front and back.

"Your majesty... I am sorry."

Under the force of the drill the land was cut in half, a great canyon stretching through the land, bursting open like a wound on this foreign earth that flushed out rays of energy, a colossal burst that engulfed Buzzard Birdon in a cosmic explosion.

Beneath the lilac heavens, only Bijou remained the winner.

「 BATTLE IN THE EXOTIC BIRD CONFERENCE: FINISHED 」

「 OUTCOME: KARAKURI BIJOU IS VICTORIOUS 」

The dimension around them faded away in a blinding light, replacing the bright sky with the darkness of a night dressed in smoke clouds. At the base of the hotel in the heart of Kabukicho Naoki stood with her shoe on the blond Shinigami's chest, his arms and legs those of a cured human and his breathing heavy.

"You fought well." she complimented him, sheathing her blade at last.

The jingle of the lobby's door's opening alerted her, revealing a messy-haired Rika dragging outside an unconscious man of dark complexion by his gi, bringing him to lie by his comrade.

Naoki squinted at her, eyes aimed at her mouth "Did you lose a-"

"I don't want to hear it." she turned her down before immediately looking back to the top floor of the hotel.

There was a reason they couldn't get there and something told them both that they would find out about it soon enough.

Chapter 6[]

The vastness of space glimmered in perpetual darkness. Stars and nebulae danced in rhythmical patterns, dressed in elegant purples and shimmering white to shine through the monotonous eternity. Cyclopean constructs akin to diagonal pillars traversed from one end of infinity to the other, making up the land in this strange, artificial world with each one housing a self contained gravity field around its axis.

Sprinting across the side of the long cylindrical shape, the horned orange giant sidestepped a right fist from the serpent of crimson metal, grabbing the returning backhand to shove his knee not once but twice into her abdomen. Intending to break him off, Shirogane Demaaga swung her left fist at the Ultra only for its momentum to be stripped from it, the scarlet drake's arms wrapping around her own and giving room for both to throw front kicks at her chest. Upon backing off, the metal giant charged white light into the gem sprouting from her crest just for Yomi to jump and lighten his weigh, hovering where he could land consecutive bicycle kicks on her face and thorax to intercept. As he backflipped off Morgana ran to replace him, Shirogane Demaaga aiming to crush her skull with fists from left and right just for her to fall forward and evade the vice they made, performing a roll that ended in her tail whipping the Shinigami away.

Taken aback and her opponents wasting no time to close the distance, Shirogane Demaaga jumped backwards a great distance and brought her hands together and apart, firing off an arc of light that ripped through the pillar on their footing. Forced to dodge, Yomi and Morgana leapt away into two other pillars and were pulled in by their gravities, running across them to then jump at once towards their enemy from different angles. In a swift spin her tail struck the Grigio while she rammed the Ultra with interlocked hands fierce as a hammer, knocking them to opposite ends of her pillar far from her.

She prioritized the roaring drake coming at her with claws opened wide and bearing her fangs, clashing weight against weight when they locked hands and rammed one another. Yomi jumped at her from behind and wrapped his body around her neck and head, pounding into it as he strength faltered under his partner's push. Forcing her weight forward, Shirogane Demaaga's tail whipped the Ultra's back and hurled him forth onto the Grigio, blowing them away and giving herself an opening to recover.

The two of them got back up on their feet and regrouped in no time, but faltered in making their next move when they saw what she was preparing. A white light flashed wildly, breaking out and pulsating from her crest like a rabid animal scratching and pulling on the bars of its cage.

Before making any risky moves, the Ultra decided to heed his partner's warning.

"It's coming, that move is crazy strong but it has a twenty second cooldown. That's twenty seconds where we won't have to worry about it and can go wild, if we survive it that is."

Shoving a fist into his open palm, Yomi confidently replied "Then let's give her hell."

A white light bright enough to cast the illusion of a moon over her erupted from the Shinigami's skull, directed forward with her outstretched arms. "Light Bearer Cannon, kill everybody!"

The immense speed and shine of the gigantic beam tore through pillars upon pillars as far as the eye could see until it sped out of vision, either pulverizing them to dust or spreading quakes across them to send them crumbling and drifting across the cosmos. Her beam's power shook the space around them, but left Yomi and Morgana only with burns on their left and right sides, nicked by it when they jumped away.

To the Ultra who had only ever heard of her power before, it was almost unimpressive to have this be his first exposure to it. To the Grigio however, who was too slow to dodge and left almost crippled by it in her King form, the fact she could both evade the brunt of it and withstand it in just Grigio Bone said enough as to the changes her awakening had brought on.

Landing on pillars a safe distance away they both glared at the flabbergasted Shinigami with energy flooding through them.

"Now!" cried out Yomi as he generated turquoise energy spheres in his palms, repeatedly flinging them forward in hundreds with rapid swinging motions. Joining him, Morgana's wide jaws unleashed a flurry of fireballs cast down upon their enemy like a chaotic rain.

By the ceaseless assault shot at her Shirogane Demaaga was blown away, thrashing and jerking madly as explosions went off across every centimeter of her body, blinding her in smoke and fire while she was pounded and smashed through pillars. As the countdown starting from twenty went down in their heads the two of them made good on their promise to give her everything, throwing all sorts of projectiles without giving their enemy a single break to counter. Flaming jaws flying at her clamped and bit into her arms while arcs of energy in a straight stream from Yomi's hands pushed her further away. Forehead beams and webs of fire, a bombardment of energy and a gatling gun of bullets, atmospheric detonations knocking her left and right as well as tearing halos.

Bursts of energy went off and shined like a detonating star in the darkness of space, the brutality of all their projectiles pelting Shirogane Demaaga all over while their roars echoed out into the night.

As a result of the overwhelming output the two found their energy reserves beginning to empty out around the ten second mark, agreeing on a ceasefire to view the current state of their enemy. Panting as she laid on her back upon a cracked pillar, Shirogane Demaaga was adorned in bruises and dents across her hardened armour, her crest only about half way reformed. Aiming to make the most of what they had, the two charged their energy remaining after this ferocious volley into hands and mouth for a finishing blow. They stared at her, completed the charged and prepared to fire- but after blinking only once found her crest fully reformed in a single instant.

"DIE!" Shirogane Demaaga shouted out and opened fire, this time catching them off guard and securing a direct hit that blew them through tens of pillars until their momentum was cut enough to splatter against the last one.

It was an agonizing second that they took to recover, one where they felt the pain of every hit course through their bodies as internal organs fixed themselves back in place, the overwhelming burn teasing and toying with their cells. Despite everything, this was the second blow they had endured and could still stand, hope persevered.

With strength flowing back into their limbs the two of them arose, staring off into the distance to scout for their enemy. The Shinigami had also dedicated a moment to recover, opening a hatch on her shoulder to let a boy in a white hood pop out.

"You okay?" she asked, checking up on him for any injuries after what she had been forced to endure.

Nodding while feeling his arms all over, the boy replied "Mhmm, I'm fine." before promptly getting the hatch closed on him by her claw.

"You bastards really made me worry about him!" she exclaimed and leapt ahead, breaking through their pillar as they jumped away right on time to land on another one.

"Did we count too slow or something?" grunted Yomi.

"No, that couldn't have been it. Her crest was still incomplete before completely fully healing all of a sudden, something must have fast forwarded its recovery!"

The Ultra couldn't help but suspect her brother, after all why would she bring him along in this battle of giants. "It must be that twerp, maybe he can heal her- or no, didn't he look like he was teleporting earlier? Maybe he can accelerate time or-"

"All eyes on me!" Shirogane Demaaga flew in once more and landed with a fist between them, shaking them off their feet like a descending comet. The sweep of her tail seemed like a spiked whip they were adamant to back off and dodge, the hunted Yomi being forced to deflect a fist with a roundhouse kick before a weaker energy bullet from her crest was shot at him. Performing a twirl, he grabbed the blast and used its own momentum to make him spin and hurl it back onto its maker, but even if she sidestepped it Morgana was quick to clutch it in her palm and shove the blast into her back to explode. Shirogane Demaaga keeled forward from the reverberating burst but wasted no time to throw a backhand at her, one that Morgana used both hands to catch.

With Yomi coming in, she collected her strength and threw the Grigio over to her partner, pushing them away with a series of blasts that knocked them away. They skid off but ultimately landed soundly, retaliating with thin beams from their forehead gem and nasal horns. Shirogane Demaaga felt no intimidation at them and dashed forth, slicing through their attacks with the blades sprouting from her forearms until she'd reached and dealt a double punch to knock them away. Catching up to them once more, she grabbed onto their unsteady heads and smashed them together, the recoiling force surging through skull and brain matter to earn out a cracking sound, putting dread into their souls while they lost all sense of direction and coherent thought.

Even in this dizzy and battered state they persisted, firing an energy sphere and fireball at point blank that were pathetically backhanded away before more punches struck their unguarded selves. It seemed that their prior onslaught had greatly lowered their output, only succeeding in making their enemy angrier. With her crest over half way recovered however they had no time to lament.

Yomi slid his fingers into his crest blade and drew it out, deflecting her swords with his own before a direct kick to the abdomen repelled the Shinigami. He flung it forward and commanded it to shoot down and slice through the pillar they stood up, not once but twice to cut out a sizeable chunk of it and make a gap between them. With the severed piece flying off, he jumped to grab it and slammed it onto her, cracking apart while it sent Shirogane Demaaga backing away. Before she even realized it, Morgana had made her way behind her and suplexed her, flipping her adversary over to slam her head into the ground and give her a taste of her own medicine.

Disoriented, the Shinigami rolled off to recover while her opponent's regrouped, aiming to make the most of their last five seconds. When they tried to advance however the unthinkable happened, explosions rang out all over them and charred their bodies greatly, casting the same strain as another head-on Light Bearer Cannon.

As their knees buckled under the pain it became clear to them, the sight of her crest broken once more and the counter resetting made it clear that indeed they had been hit by that attack- but when? The recovery wasn't completed, there was no charge up and no fire either, so when had they been hit?

While Yomi's delirious mind raced to seek a conclusion, the answer seemed abundantly clear to his partner.

"Time stop."

Choking on his own breath, Yomi turned to find her frozen and wide eyed.

"That brat can stop time for everyone but him and his sister... maybe for up to ten seconds. That explains how he can get her out of harm's way, but not too far out. She needed ten seconds to recover last time and he allowed her to spend them in stopped time to pull a fast one on us, this time she needed less than ten so she could get off a free hit while time was stopped."

"That's cheap!" shouted back the Ultra while pointing a finger at her, awestricken at her diabolical strategy.

In return, the grinning dragon wiped the grime off her brow, hurt but not to the extent of those two, enough to make her turning of the tables that much more satisfactory. "In the world of the Possessed there is no thing as 'fair'!" she barked back before looking off into the glimmering darkness in the vastness of this pocket space. "I'm getting tired of this scenery, it's more fun when there's a city in danger." she scoffed and slowly drew her legs apart, entering a squat with a lowered head. She grunted and ground her teeth together, clenching fists tight enough that it seemed to strain every metal muscle.

The pressure applied within turned into pressure applied without, surging outwards into a flaring crimson aura enveloping her. She spread out her frame and let loose, giving out a booming, guttural shout from the bottom of her heart that echoed through infinity and made the very space around them shiver.

Yomi and Morgana looked around them, witnessing the pocket universe distort and come apart like it was being torn at its seams.

"She's powering up... I think she wants to break out of this place." Morgana spoke, struggling to rise up on her feet.

"But if she does then everyone will be in danger!" Yomi reminded her of the mission statement and steeled both of their resolves, urging them to dash in and tackle her across the land.

Initially pushed and skidding away, the claws of the metal giant's feet dug into the ground and found firm hold, allowing her strength to bellow and withstand their own. Powering through she began to shove them back the other way for a change, delivering rapid fists all over their bodies that made them thrash and fling about.

"MORTIS!" she exclaimed and landed fists in a black coat of paint directly onto their guts, the dark lightning rippling through their souls and sending them flying off to crash into a distant pillar.

Despite their best efforts Shirogane Demaaga wasn't letting up, increasing her strength while slowly reforming the gem on her crest. At that moment they had less than twenty seconds to beat her, maybe less than even ten if her brother's time stop cut down on that number.

"There's no way around it, either we break through his ability or it's over!" the Grigio exclaimed more so to hear herself past the echoing, roaring pain at the core of her existence, eating away at her very person. Despite everything she struggled and pulled through, rising out of the rubble even with all the chipped scales and gashes that made up her battle damage.

Yomi was grateful for her intellect, finding it unlikely he would have come to the same conclusion as her in such short notice. Still, it would have been for nothing if they didn't find a way to do something with that information. He couldn't let it go to waste, he couldn't let all their progress and their newfound strength be gone that easily. If he wanted her hard work to matter then he needed to go even further beyond.

Beyond strength, beyond weakness, beyond time itself.

As if it was merely second nature, an instinctual drive, Yomi put his hands together and interlocked all fingers bar his index and thumbs which instead met at their ends. Locking eyes with Shirogane Demaaga through the gap between his fingers, he let out a chant.

"Nirarbuda"

Chapter 7[]

Shirogane Demaaga couldn't believe her eyes. One moment her enemies were there, battered and ripe for killing. The next they were gone from her sight, purged by a power other than her own.

In their place, the mortifying sight that got her to freeze up was a single black spot in the middle of space, a blankness that warped space around it, pulling all into itself. A white rim adorned the dark distortion, shredding apart all pulled inward, likely being what brought the undoing to its own masters. She however resisted its pull, its crushing force, its might as if it were nothing more than the bite of an ant. That was because she was stronger, simply better.

Something caught her eye however, like a peasant demanding the attention of his king. The dark distortion seemed to unfold and bloom like a flower, spitting out all caught within now ground up and shred completely, down to the building blocks of their atoms. Everything that had been caught was reduced to nothing, everything but those shadows darker than black that clawed their way out of the crushing pressure triumphant.

With narrowed and fierce glares, with statures upright and firm footing, the two of them advanced out of the black horizon cracking their knuckles and bearing flaming fists. They approached at an agonizingly slow pace but not out of weakness, their bodies were still standing tall despite the smokestacks rising out of them, that couldn't have been a sign of weakness. Rather it was out of patience and certainty that they gave her this time to herself.

She didn't want to admit it, but they made her gulp.

"Stop time, I'm ending this here." she demanded of her brother and watched as the world around them stood still, losing all colour. She'd bide her time in the stop and recover to land her final attack before they could do anything, after all she was unfair like that.

Yet those fists of orange and red speeding right for her face didn't look very fair either.

Direct punches sent her flying, rolling at a breakneck pace pillar-by-pillar to break through them until she landed on the last one, spreading cracks all over. Clawing her way out of the rubble to catch her breath she scanned her surroundings once more, finding them devoid of colour as they should, yet her enemies still moving.

"What's the meaning of this?!?" she barked for anyone to answer, be it her enemies or her brother.

In a calm and dignified voice, the Ultra spoke first. "Nothing escapes the pull of a black hole. Not light, not space, not time. At the centre of one time might as well be stopped." he began, earning a gasp from his opponent. "It was a risky move, it was more pressure than what we're used to fighting under, but by putting out bodies under the conditions of a black hole we adapted to not factor in time any longer, allowing us to move even if your brother stopped it."

Popping out of the hatch on her shoulder, the distraught boy exclaimed "H-how?! Shouldn't you have been crushed completely?!?"

Cracking her shoulder joint, Morgana conceded that it hurt. "We're just that strong."

"W-wait, does that mean I'm useless now?!" asked the boy with puppy-dog eyes, pointing at himself and looking at his monstrous sister in her giant face.

Her only response was to shut the hatch and sealed him back in.

Shirogane Demaaga clenched her fists, bringing them closer to her chest while she held onto a breath and hung her head low. Her metal veins popped on her temple, her bloodshot eyes widened, her teeth cracked under the pressure she was applying on them. Her aura turned only fiercer, distorting and threatening the pocket space itself as she stretched forward and let out a howl.

Raising their fists, Yomi and Morgana could only howl back twice as loud.

The metal dragon and the Ultra sprinted closer towards each other while Morgana conjured of a flaming sphere between her hands, shoving it forward to burst into three homing shots whose long streaks swung across the air as they caught up with and outran her partner. Two of them were swatted away with ferocious backhands before the orange giant leapt over her and landed a kick to the back of her head, throwing her directly into the third. Even with her face scorched she turned back to swing at him just for him to flip out of the way and land behind, delivering a weight-increased axe kick to her head that sent it plummeting down just to land on an uppercut from Morgana.

Two opposing forces rattled her skull, mashing in her chin and sending teeth flying. With a claw seeking blood on its own she swung to behead the Grigio just for her to sidestep and wrap her tail around her arm, superheating it so that its temperature and constricting pressure can bend the armoured plating like paper and crush it. Her free arm tried to move in and break her out only for it to be held down with a chop from Yomi, his revolving spiked bracer jammed into her throat to tear through it and make her gurgle blood.

Breaking their hold, the two entered a exchange of fists and kicks knocking the Shinigami between them like a ragdoll. A punch to the face knocking her into a strike to the gut, a swing of a tail sending her flying into a cutting chop, a strike to the back throwing her down to fall onto the kick of the other, tripping her over and throwing her flailing back and front from their assault putting dents into her frame. Every time she tried to hold up an arm in an effort to block or counter it was thrown out of the way and space was cleared for a punch of their own, Shirogane Demaaga's sloppy attempts to counter being intercepted time and time again.

Yomi stretched his arms forth and swung wildly with whips of turquoise light, slicing and searing all over to render her full of cuts before detaching from his fingertips to wrap around into a net that restrained her. Morgana's flame coated claws swung at her while she made a spin and sliced both her and the net at once, leaving deep trails of scorched slag on her stomach.

Shirogane Demaaga thrust both fists like a rampaging animal only for them to be caught and used to pull them into her opponents' range, leaving her wide open.

"MORTIS!" they both cried out with fists marked not by black flames, but a refined black coat of paint. Morgana's landed right into her right rib and caved in an entire portion of her chest, propelling the Shinigami to have her face meet with Yomi's own attack that made her neck snap sideways.

Her eyes rolled back white as a slush of blood gushed out of her mouth, enduring wounds deeper than any organ right into her soul.

This insufferable onslaught vexed her, it drove her mad with primal fury and her lack of any tricks to counter only further pushed her to the brink of insanity. Shirogane Demaaga stumbled away and nearly fell backwards before securing a her footing with a stomp that dug into the ground.

"How could it be..."

Colour returned to their surroundings, not that it made a difference. Her crest fully recovered before breaking apart once more, sending a white beam to flow upwards. It wasn't directed to any enemy, but rather all of its energy amassed into a massive sphere on top of her, one that her aura flowed to envelop and charge with red lightning.

"HOW COULD IT BE THAT WOTHLESS, DREAMLESS NOBODIES CAN DO THIS TO ME?!"

The two of them stood side by side, bracing themselves and readying an answer, though they were cut off before they could speak.

"If I win this battle then I'll be strong enough to be the freest person alive! I'll be able to do anything, to run wild, to chase after every dream I have! What kind of dreams could you two possibly have to give you this much strength?!"

"Isn't it obvious?" asked Yomi while eyeing his partner, both of them raising up their fists.

"It's to be happy!" she added on his behalf.

Their answer only aggravated Shirogane Demaaga further, getting her to shout "WHAT A PITIFULLY SIMPLE FINAL DESTINATION!" before thrusting her hands forward and bringing down the massive light sphere. "LIGHT BEARER EXTINCTION, FIRE!"

Even higher speed, even higher power, if the base variant of that move could be so strong then one would dread meeting this one, but only if they weren't equipped to face it.

"Happiness isn't a final destination!" exclaimed Yomi who put interlocked his hands once more. He broke apart the sign he performed and rubbed them together, slowly sliding his left palm over the side of his right arm while a turquoise flame flowed between them. Drawing it backwards, he cast a strong gravitational pull to fashion it into the thin shape of an arrow, dubbing it "Tapana" in a hushed voice.

"It's a way of living!" Morgana added, charging her own power to flow out of her in the form of streaking, lashing lightning bolts. Stitching themselves into her skin, their shine made way for her red armour to adopt a caramel colour and her gold regalia to shift into turquoise, sprouting two large wings that didn't waste a second to begin flapping. "Heaven Splitting Arrow!" she declared and accelerated, taking flight for towards the incoming beam while Yomi unleashed his own attack to catch up to her.

Matching the enemy attack's speed, the flying Grigio who had become coated in an aura that made her a living arrow dove into the massive burst of white and red, accompanied by her partner's attack by her side. The two of them tore through it and closed the distance, slicing energy apart before she pierced Shirogane Demaaga's stomach and the energy arrow her chest, coming out the other side and landing past her scarred form.

The metal armour of the Shinigami cracked and gave in, erupting in purple flames that overflowed from the inside to send out a massive burst which ignited the vastness of space in its heavenly light.

At last, as the room around them began to fade the two took a moment to catch their breath. It didn't vanish from their enemy's overwhelming power, that was now just a cinder Yomi's leer looked down upon while Morgana had her back turned to it disinterested on the other side. Rather it served as a marker of their success.

「 BATTLE IN SHINJUKU: FINISHED 」

「 OUTCOME: GRIGIO MORGANA AND ULTRAMAN YOMI ARE VICTORIOUS 」

As the light vanished, Makoto and Hitori appeared once more in their human forms, surrounded by POD agents in a field of tattered infected footsoldiers. Between them all remained a purple flame slowly losing its vigor, leaving behind the Shinigami siblings purged of any traces of Possession writhing against the floor.

Agents rushed to apprehend and bring them to safety, leaving behind only the key players.

"What are we waiting for?" asked Shigeru while raising his cleaver to support on his shoulder. He spoke in a haughty tone as if what he meant was obvious, but regressed when Dorothy was the one who answered.

"I don't know, what are we waiting for?" she asked with hands on her hips and a stern voice, making her vice captain back off and lower his weapon. Snickering off her serious mask, she turned to Makoto and Hitori, bruised but winners, renewed in body and soul.

"Let's go take down the leader."

Chapter 8[]

Bodies lined the decrepit roads under the dark of night. Some of good men who had fought for the liberation of this land, others of fiends brought to life from the corpses of innocents to stand in their way. For the sake of honouring their sacrifice POD would march on and never falter, one unit making haste towards Kabukicho.

Their steps rang out against the darkness, louder than the roars of lashing flames and sizzling metal. Like a tidal wave they boomed and echoed in once synchronized stampede, almost as if they were the steps of a giant beast.

But they weren't, the distinct clatter of flesh and claws striking and denting the land could not be mistaken for their unified efforts -strong as they might have been. Rather when a titan made its move the sounds it made, the recoil of digging through the road and compressing all under its wake into submerging in stone was absolutely clear, overshadowing any other sound it growled over.

Turning back to face its source, POD's agents stood static as they witnessed a beast of peachy skin and blue scales dash forward, swinging its mace-like tail and sharp talons while various lights went off on its mechanical helmet contraption.

"Is that... Kelbim?" asked a puzzled Dorothy as it ran past them, its towering frame casting a shadow on the humans who ducked to take cover.

"I think it's Zor-Kelbim now." replied Toshihiro, his eyes fixated on it like a mere child's.

The hotel that started it all became the target of this cyborg, the object at the end of its march. Zor-Kelbim eyed it, warning of its presence and the imminent destruction it would bring out. In turn, it triggered a reaction.

The top floor of the hotel was one reserved for those accustomed to luxury, yet in its current state it was no home for the rich or prestigious, but rather a den of parasites. All its furniture, its walls and floors, from the pricey replicas of paintings to the chandelier loosely hanging onto the ceiling were all coated in a firm black substance of wax-like composition. It made streaks and clumps like thick webbing filling every space in the room, overgrowing it with a sticky and malleable puss oozing out sludge that compiled on the floor and grew into every opening, filling the elevator shaft and leaking out the windows where it hardened into wart-like growths. At the heart of the infection lied a coffin of organic material, a pillar connecting ceiling to floor where all the webs sprouted out from to fill the room in cords like entrails strung about.

It beat and convulsed until it tore open, human hands breaking out of the dark womb to bathe the one held inside with the amniotic slime of a second, conscious birth. Her head emerged first to gasp out for breath while the rest of her body wrestled to break free, digging and growing out of the flesh clumps to leave them a flaccid bed behind her. Panting and in search of a new breath, her mind was instantly assaulted with distress signals urging her to take action.

Pulling her way through the gangrenous jungle she reached the cracks window and leaned against it with her blindfold, sensing what approached from the outside while she remained drenched in black slime.

"Is everyone-"

Like little candles, the flames of life were snuffed out in her mental space, alerting her to the defeat of her comrades. She grit her teeth and scratched the glass with her fingernails, having no reading on anyone, not even Braun.

Instead something big approached her, a screaming voice muffled by a metallic filter.

"So they turned you into one of them, huh? Poor you."

Sliding its talons through metal and glass, Zor-Kelbim sunk a hand into the hotel in the heart of Kabukicho, unleashing a flurry of rubble and sparks to rain out.

From ground level Rika and Naoki took cover with their respective Shinigami, watching the cyborg's reckless assault rope them into its rampage. "Watch out!" ordered POD's bloodhound and called forth her Metamorphosis, warping all four of them away before the rain of rubble could crush them.

As the building tilted over and its top floor as shaved off, something other than debris flew out- the image of a person speeding through the air, landing on the side of another building with one hand jammed into the glass window to hold her in for support. She clicked her tongue an turned to the direction of the beast, knowing even if she couldn't see it that this wouldn't stop it.

Digging its claws deeper into the hotel, Zor-Kelbim ripped it out of its foundations and swung it across the air to the direction of the one she'd landed on, crumbling apart as it flailed through the air. The leader of the Shinigami sprinted up the building's side while the shadow of the one flying at her closed in, managing to jump over its roof when the two collided and toppled over. The cyborg however insisted in its pursuit, running into and on top of them to use the collapsing buildings as a stepping stone to lash out and claw at the air trying to catch her flying self like a fly. The buildings crumbled under its weight and ultimate Zor-Kelbim lost altitude, giving its target the opening to land on another roof.

Still, no time was wasted for it to give chase, running into and through building after building while she ran and jumped from roof to roof, leaving behind a trail of destruction as rubble was flung about. Making a broad spin the cyborg used its mace-like tail for a change to catch up to her, pounding it into the side of a building directly in front of the one she was in. The weapon sunk into the metal and blew back all the glass, wiping away her next landing spot. Improvising, the leader of the Shinigami instead leapt on the tail itself, running up the rugged terrain of Zor-Kelbim's back while it tried to swat her away. If the swings of its manic tail couldn't knock her off then the claws scratching its own back had no hope, the pursuer merely thrashing and flailing about trying to throw her away until she jumped over its head and onto safety, these miraculous leaps of faith being of no strain to her body.

Enraged, Zor-Kelbim insisted on its pursuit, when it found her running up the side of a building even taller than itself it dug its talons into the side and climbed up, closing in while the floors beneath it buckled under its weight, reducing its great size into the road below. She reached its top before it, but in the nick of time the cyborg swung her way just close enough for the repulsive gust of wind to send her flying, smashing through the window of a distant building.

Smashed through glass and office equipment, the Shinigami's leader was momentarily stunned while she struggled to get up, feeling the back of her aching head. That beast had the gall to interrupt her growth from a maggot to a queen bee and the arrogance to insist. It was desperate, but at this point she was too.

Searching for the nearest window, she jumped out of it and landed on the side of the building next to hers but only made contact for a second. Her optimal route of getting to the top was to jump between one to the other, confusing her approaching enemy on which to target. So, to fulfil the orders engraved into its brain it clutched both and pulled them out of their foundations, bringing the two buildings together.

The Shinigami's leader felt the distance between them closing, each alternating jump covering less distance. At this rate she was going to be crushed by them both, so in one final leap she flew straight up while the two buildings pounded together, their frames coming apart as their materials became one unified block of debris.

Upwards in a straight line she jumped, yet gravity took her back downwards to trace the same line- falling upside down.

Zor-Kelbim had her right where it needed her, coming right into the palm of its hand. It reached out and opened wide, stretching as far as it could even if it meant dislocating its own joints just to catch her.

Mere meters from falling into the enemy's clutches, the defenseless Shinigami with no escape route in sight took a fraction of a second to think to herself, to gauge at the progress of her ascension. Though incomplete, she had grown enough to have one last weapon to turn the tides.

"Guess there's no other way-"

With her hand rushed for her blindfold, she ripped it off in one fell swoop and revealed her widened, dilated eyes.

"Metamorphosis: Infectious Womb Maggot"

Her pupils shivered and shook before growing, breaking out of their irises and splitting off like the crumbling yolk of an egg. Like cells performing mitosis her pupils broke off from each other again and again and multiplied, leaving little room for her white sclera as her gaze looked to the furthest reached of the land.

From her body went out a shockwave, one that ordered the incoming claw of the cyborg to stand still and turn into stone. Before its sensors could fully register it, both the organic and metal parts of Zor-Kelbim converted into solid rock as it stood still like an outstretched statue carved in the most dynamic of poses, but her power didn't stop there. The building beneath them, the surrounding roads and city blocks, birds flying by and even the clouds hung on the air were caught in her wave and converted as well.

Out it expanded and coveted everything in its range, rising smokestacks and wild flames stopping still like daggers and tendrils of rock fixed static, her power and influence coveting the land to create a city out of earth.

The eyes of POD's agents widened at the sight of her power growing out and rushing towards them. A yellow blur sped past them and attempted to run in and intervene only for it to be halted as it too was caught. The jittering body of the electric Zephyr stood still as he too became a statue, cluing them all in on what living beings would become.

Shigeru might not have been able to see it, but the mumbling of his coworkers clued him in on what was happening. "Second Metamorphosis!" he cried out and let Black Blood bathe his blade, transforming it into a pair of jaws. If He were to get a snapshot of the city as it currently was then he could return it to this state later and minimize damage, however that would prove a fruitless dream when his weapon fell apart in his own hands.

"I... I still don't have enough?!" he grunted, realizing he had yet to recover all the Black Blood he needed to pull off that move. That was when he was sent into panic, into worry as he heard screams and quakes race across the rocky surface. They had to get out of there fast, but there was no way they could run fast enough, even if his housemates transformed they would have been to slow to run out of its range and even then couldn't get everyone to safety. Furthermore they weren't even all together, various groups and divisions were still scattered around, Finzo and the Prime Inquisitor remained underground, there was too many people to save and too little time. He had to do what he could even if it was not enough.

Settling on his first Metamorphosis only, he made a broad sweep with all of the energy he had left and caught the agents around him and himself in a field of black, painting them out of the canvas of life when the shockwave brushed past their place.

The leader of the Shinigami landed on the palm of Zor-Kelbim, its body now immobile and its hand open to make a platform for her. Around her she gazed, watching her shockwave eventually fizzle out after covering multiple kilometers in diameter. Far and wide the city had been turned into one solid mass of bronze-brown rock, little people who looked more like ants were visible in the distance, stuck in place with pathetic looks of horror. Some stumbling away, others running for their lives, few pretending to brave the danger. All of them trapped.

Even the clouds above fell down with their new weight and composition, becoming a meter shower that devoured Shinjuku, sending it remains crashing down and collapsing while earthquakes sounded.

Pangs of pain and drums of war, that's what this wailing from kilometers away reminded her.

Jumping from the petrified monster's claw onto the roof of the closest building, she lost balance and fell on one knee upon feeling a sharp pain. Leaning forward with a hand on the ground for stability, she shut her eyes while blood dripped from their corners.

In a weak voice she admitted "Guess... it wasn't complete after all." upon feeling the effects of the recoil on her.

No matter the cost she'd bought herself time, but what could she do with that time was the question? The message she wanted to be known had undoubtedly been heard across the whole world, she had the sheer speed that information reached people nowadays to thank for that. But even so it's take a bit for it to take effect and impact society, so the question still remained, what could she do at the present without her team?

As if to pull her out of those contemplative thoughts, she sensed a presence behind her and swung a hand back in a chop, stopping it mere centimeters away from the neck of a figure dressed in white. Boots and gloves of strapped leather underneath the blank sheet that covered their frame, a hood housing a silver arrowhead-shaped mask with a visor- whoever this was she wouldn't have hesitated to behead them if they hadn't raised their hands on time, palms open to the left and right of their head.

"What do you want?" she growled back with a scowl and a fierce leer.

"I come in peace." he calmly replied with the voice of a man, but judging by her unwillingness to lower her guard he continued. "A few POD agents managed to escape your move, any moment now they should be running in here to have their revenge."

The leader of the Shinigami shivered, finding her fighting ability diminished at the moment. It was unlikely she could walk out of a confrontation successful as she were, needing to complete her growth and recover first if she aimed to fight again. Still, she had to look past what was an immediate threat to her and gauge at the situation objectively.

"And why are you telling me this?"

"I have something to gain from helping you."

Despite the tension she found herself in, the leader of the Shinigami felt a chuckle fly out of her lips, the muscles on her thin arm losing strength when she lowered her hand. "I like that you're honest, speak."

Lowering his own hands now that he had confirmed her intentions, the masked figure spoke. "I have a hypothesis about Enma that -after asking a few questions to a certain someone- I am almost entirely positive is true. I just need a muscle to help me confirm it and I believe that your cause will greatly benefit if you helped me. Let's just say... I know how to make Enma's influence spread to every corner of the Earth."

She could almost picture it: a world of Possessed, a world where everybody was free to be their truest self. It was a prospect too perfect for her to pass up on and it was certainly more beneficial than sitting in place waiting for the aftershocks of the Shinigami's attack to shake the world. If he was right, then this would be like doubling down and going one step beyond for her cause. Knowing she had nowhere better to go and nothing else to do, she took up his offer.

"Very well then." she answered and lifted herself up. "You have my support."

Stretching out a palm he said "I am glad." while he received her thin hand atop his own.

Black ink flowed through the air around them, expanding into a long and dark scarf that swirled in a vortex to encompass them both. As it moved and curled it made it made them vanish from bottom to top as if wiping them away with an eraser, removing them from its presence until it rolled up into itself and shrunk, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Epilogue[]

The air was hot and humid, great heat radiating from the cracks across the vast rock surface. Cutting away at the encompassing silence, a splash of black painted POD's forces back into the petrified wasteland. They scurried to recover and get back up on their feet but were awestricken at their surroundings, watching as the land around them had turned to stone as far as they could see.

Shigeru collapsed on one knee as his weapon reverted to its base state. Though many gave him their thanks and hurried to ask if he was okay, he deep down knew that this gratitude would be short lived and unearned.

His captain made a frantic call to Finzo, but received no response. She tried the Prime Inquisitor next, but once again there was no answer.

"This is bad..." she murmured underneath her breath, catching the attention of Toshihiro who looked to the distant statue of Zephyr stuck in place.

"Can it get worse than this...?"

"It already has... if- if Finzo got turned to stone then he can't deactivate his Metamorphosis which means-"

"The civilians... are trapped in his pocket spaces." grunted Shigeru, now acknowledging just how futile all the thanks he was given had been.

In the distance a statue of a petrified Bijou curled up on the floor began to move, its stone body cracking apart as her geokinetic powers enabled her to break through. Rising high she revealed Rika and the two former Shinigami sprawled out on the floor, spared by her power.

"That's it, that bitch it getting a bullet through her brain and I'm going to be the one to plant it!" Rika grunted as she jumped up and bore her weapon, only for the Ultra to scan across the city. With soft rays flowing out of her eyes she looked to every nook and cranny, detecting nothing.

"I'm afraid to say... she's already left." replied Naoki from within, clenching her fist.

Makoto and Hitori could only stare at what had become of Shinjuku, the panicked voices of their coworkers turning dull and muffled as they lost focus. People lost, people saved, ground covered and ground that had been spared were all roped together under the Shinigami's influence.

For all their battles, for all their hard earned victories against the team of elite Possessed, the outcome of it all remained the same.

What impact would this have on the world? How would the government respond? How would people react to this tragedy as it reached the ears of everybody? Everyone who lost someone here, everyone who fought here. Would they weep? Would they despair? Would they hate?

The triumphant drums of war were put to an end right at the crescendo, interrupted by a deafening silence from the slaughtered orchestra.

What would dawn on them the next day... was a question they couldn't answer.

They stared at the body of the petrified Zor-Kelbim while weeping sounded behind them, they watched it reach for the moon that now appeared visible after the meteor shower of rocky clouds that cleared up the sky. In the end, not even it could have an answer.

「 KABUKICHO INVASION: FINISHED 」

「 OUTCOME: SAINT GARGORGON IS VICTORIOUS 」

Chthonic Ultraman Episode 31 (2024)

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