Mika's boots slammed against the cracked, steaming earth, her breath sharp in her throat. The devastation of the flood still lingered in the air smoke rising from shattered structures, pools of toxic water reflecting the blood-red sky. But she didn't slow.
"I have to heal him…" she whispered between gasps. "I have to use my Shen… I have to save him"
Ahead of her, Lord Arcade was already gliding toward the fractured remains of the Suha dome, his white cloak drifting like smoke above the poisoned flood. Behind her, Minister Alfred's voice tore through the air.
"Hey You! Stop! STOP!"
But she didn't.
Arcade's eyes, cold and analytical, caught sight of the figure barreling toward Sakamoto. His pace slowed. His gaze sharpened.
A strange smile flickered across his lips.
"So she's in love with him," he said to himself, amused. "Knowing she's weak… and still running like a rat being hunted. Interesting."
He lifted a hand, fingers spread like a god handing down judgment.
"Very well."
Three white spears of gleaming energy formed above his palm and shot forward with silent ferocity.
Across the battlefield, Sakamoto's eyes widened as he recognized what was happening. The haze cleared enough for him to see Mika sprinting directly into Arcade's line of fire.
"MIKA—NOOOOOOOOOO! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"
But it was too late.
The spears soared.
Mika twisted her body, throwing up a golden Shen shield to her right. It formed just in time the first spear slammed into it with a violent clang, and the second sparked against it before the barrier cracked
Then shattered.
The third spear darted forward like death itself.
But it didn't hit her
Just before it could pierce Mika's side, the rod broke apart in midair splitting into fragments, then vanishing entirely as if unraveled by unseen hands.
Silence fell for a heartbeat.
Even Lord Arcade paused, his brow twitching.
"…Did I miss?"
Inside the Suha command ruins, Minister Tenzy's eyes went wide. "Sir Varion…" he whispered.
"Even asleep, he manipulates fate."
All eyes turned back to the battlefield.
Mika was still running.
Unaware of the invisible hand that had protected her, she charged forward and fell to her knees beside Sakamoto.
"I'll save you," she said through panicked breath. "I'm here. I can heal you. I"
Mika's hand hovered just above Sakamoto's bloodied chest, her fingers glowing faintly with healing Shen. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but her expression was resolute. "I won't let you die… I came for you…"
Sakamoto's lips parted. His eyes were glazed, dazed from blood loss, but recognition flickered. "Mika…you made it how???"
Before she could respond
Thwip.
Three rods of white light slammed into her back.
They pierced with ruthless precision spine, shoulder, lung.
Time seemed to freeze.
Mika's body jolted forward, mouth falling open. A small trickle of blood spilled over her lip. She gasped not in pain, but in disbelief eyes wide.
She collapsed.
Right beside Anuman and Sakamoto
The battlefield went deathly silent.
Lord Arcade hovered a few meters away, the smoking remnants of the rods evaporating from his hand. He didn't smile. He didn't mock.
He simply watched.
And then said, almost conversationally, "Ichabod Reminant… do you now understand?"
He gestured with one hand toward the broken girl on the ground.
"This is what happens when the weak pretend they're brave. She ran into war with hope… and died with regret."
His tone was cold. Clinical.
"Now she's gone. And her blood rests on you. Forever to bear the pain and the burden of someone trying to save you and yet dies from it, what do you think then happens to the mere ordinary humans?."
He floated a step closer, arms spread.
"So join me. Let us erase this kind of pain from the world."
Sakamoto stared.
The words didn't register.
All he could see was Mika her body still, her fingers just inches from his own, her blood painting the rock beneath her. Her eyes, still open but fading fast.
He reached toward her, shaking.
"Mika…?"
His hands trembled violently.
His breath turned jagged. Then shallow.
He clutched the broken staff that had fallen beside Anuman.
It crumbled into dust in his hand.
His scream shattered the silence.
"MIIKAAAAA!!"
A shockwave of dark Shen burst from his chest, rippling through the broken terrain. His scream became an animalistic howl, and the skies trembled in response.
Above, Lord Arcade tilted his head slightly, a hint of curiosity creeping into his eyes.
Sakamoto's head dropped.
Then
He vanished into his subconscious.
It was completely Silent.
Then a slow echo, like breath moving through.
Sakamoto opened his eyes to find himself suspended in a world of shadow and void. Nothingness extended in every direction, a dreamscape of floating lights and drifting fragments of memory.
He stood. Alone.
Until a ripple moved through the space and from it, Jushin emerged, shapeless and fluid, a presence more than a form.
"Saka…"
Sakamoto's fists were clenched at his sides. His voice was hoarse and low. "She's not… she's not dead. We can still save her, you can heal right?."
Jushin drifted closer, its tone unusually somber.
"If you take a rod to the spine especially that of the material white which is connected to the god tree, there's no going back. Not for mortals. Not even for warriors."
"Then I'm not a warrior anymore," Sakamoto snapped. "There has to be something. There has to be anything? She's just a store girl "
"No healing I can grant will undo what was done," Jushin said quietly. "Not when death has already begun its work."
Sakamoto's knees buckled, but he didn't fall. The energy inside him flared erratically, as if mourning with him.
"There has to be a way…"
"There is," Jushin said softly.
Sakamoto's head rose.
"You can't save her," Jushin said, "but you can make sure this never happens again. That no one else dies because you were limited."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Jushin's voice deepened, "you don't have to hold back anymore. No seals. No constraints. Go beyond what Ichabod couldn't and understand the power you carry."
Sakamoto's breath hitched.
Jushin lifted a spectral arm and gestured behind him.
"Look."
The void around them began to shift. The shadows twisted, then peeled away revealing a different place entirely.
A realm not of mist, but of flickering flame and primal chants all in darkness and the sound of a hundred drums.
The Shadow Plain.
And in it hundreds of monkey warriors stood in perfect ranks, dark fur glinting with ethereal sheen, spears and staffs at their sides.
They saluted.
And one stepped forward.
A towering figure with a crown of feathers, kneeling.
"My king," he said, voice resonant and proud. "Today, for what you did during our destruction you saved the monkey tribe … we give you the highest honor of our people."
Sakamoto stepped forward slowly, breath catching.
"The title of Monkey King. Ruler of the Shadow monkey Warrior Tribe. And the full memory of our ancestors."
Behind him, the legion moved in unison m dropping to one knee.
A sound like black thunder filled the air as a massive object descended from above.
A pillar of black iron, twenty feet tall, as thick as a tree trunk, crashed into the earth before Sakamoto. Its surface shimmered with ancient glyphs. Power pulsed from its core.
He reached out.
His fingers touched the metal.
And golden fire surged into his eyes.
The moment Sakamoto's fingers touched the black iron pillar, the ground beneath his feet pulsed with life.
Flames not of fire, but of memory erupted from the pillar's surface, spiraling around him. Golden, orange, and deepest black an echo of the Shen that had always flowed within him, now amplified beyond comprehension.
The pillar shrank slightly, molding itself to fit his hand. It was impossibly heavy, yet when his fingers curled around it,it lifted as though it weighed nothing.
Across the plains, the assembled monkey warriors banged their staffs to the earth in unison.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The sound reverberated like a war drum through the shadow dimension.
The kneeling monkey elder rose slowly, pride etched across his face. "You have walked through pain and death. You have fought with honor, fire, and shadow. You have protected our tribe when the world cast us into the void."
He lowered his head respectfully.
"Today, we give you not just our title but our history. Our rage. Our wisdom."
One by one, warriors behind him reached toward their chests pulling out fragments of glowing memory. Shards of light. Crystalline and sharp.
They flew into the air hundreds of them then spun like stars and embedded themselves into the air around Sakamoto.
Then into him.
Each shard that touched his chest became knowledge. Generations of battle technique. Sacred rituals. Hidden maneuvers. The spirit of a warrior race burning, eternal now nested within him.
Sakamoto's body straightened.
His spine felt like fire.
His mind like lightning.
He lifted the staff.
Its name slipped into his thoughts not from speech but from blood memory.
"Saru no Tengoku…" Heavenly Monkey Rod
The golden flames in his eyes flared. He spun the staff once its mass enough to shatter worlds and then whispered:
"Shrink."
In an instant, the enormous staff compressed into a thin rod just longer than his arm, just heavy enough to remind him of its true form.
Back in Greenland, the earth had grown eerily still. The toxic floodwaters had calmed into a reflective pool, the air unnervingly quiet. Lord Arcade stood in the epicenter, his cloak unmoving, watching as the last smoke from the broken dome curled into the heavens.
Sakamoto's body standing until…
Wind shifted.
The sky groaned.
Every cloud pulled away from the center.
And then
It ripped.
A shriek of dimensional fabric split the atmosphere above the battlefield. A jagged tear opened across the sky, white light pouring out of it like the gaze of a god.
Arcade looked up, puzzled for the first time in hours.
Then a shadow moved behind the light.
Something enormous.
A shape began to fall.
"Come, True Saru no Tengoku ."
Sakamoto commanded