The glassed plain still radiated heat beneath Yamato's boots as he approached Shinji. The air crackled not with energy, but with the absence of it; a vacuum left in the wake of transcendence. Shinji stood motionless, his back to Yamato, gazing at the horizon where the mountain had once scraped the sky. Now, only shimmering obsidian stretched to infinity.
"Shinji?" Yamato's voice, usually resonant with ancient certainty, held a tremor. "You're... shining."
Not with light, but with an implication of power. Shinji's very presence seemed to warp the sunlight, bending it subtly around a core of terrifying density. He turned slowly. His eyes, deep-sea blue yet holding the cold, distant glint of neutron stars, met Yamato's obsidian gaze. There was no triumph there, only a profound, unsettling stillness.
"...Shining?" Shinji echoed, his voice unnervingly calm, devoid of the youthful energy Yamato remembered. "I feel... hollowed out. And full. Simultaneously." He flexed his hand, watching dust motes swirl away from his skin without touching it. "The power... it's not in me anymore, Yamato. It is me. And it terrifies me."
Yamato stepped closer, the raw, glassed earth crunching underfoot. "Terrified? Good. That means you haven't lost sight of what this power means. Of the responsibility it carries." He managed a grim smile. "And Yamato is fine. The 'Old Man' title feels... inaccurate, given the entity standing before me." He gestured broadly at the devastation. "This? This is still nothing compared to what you will become. The path only steepens from here."
Shinji absorbed this, the terrifying truth settling deeper. "The final step," Yamato continued, shifting into his instructor's tone, a lifeline of normalcy. "Sensing the spiritual energy of others. This process requires delicate–"
"There's no need," Shinji interrupted, his voice soft but absolute.
Yamato blinked. "Why so?"
Shinji's gaze drifted past Yamato, focusing on the distant Northern Village, kilometers away, shielded by the remnants of its barrier. "I already can. The wrecked barriers..., weeping energy everywhere. Some other signature in the South that is higher than yours. Even the insects in the scorched earth... tiny sparks." He closed his eyes briefly. "It's... overwhelming. A symphony of signatures. I need to learn to mute it or control it at least."
Yamato stared, a wave of awe and finality washing over him. The pupil had not just caught up; he'd vaulted into a realm beyond his master's perception. "Then... your training with me is concluded, Shinji Kazuhiko."
Shinji met his gaze again, the stellar distance in his eyes softening fractionally. "Yeah. Thank you. For everything. the guidance... the shelter."
"You are welcome, Shinji," Yamato said, sincerity warming his voice. "Always."
"However," Shinji looked towards the untouched, primordial forests bordering the glassed wasteland, "I'll stay on Suchumus a little longer. There's... more I need to understand. About this." He touched his chest, where the core metaphysically resided.
"Stay as long as you need," Yamato affirmed. "You are family to the North now."
With a nod that held the weight of unspoken gratitude and shared trauma, Shinji turned. He didn't run. He simply wasn't there anymore, vanishing into the dense, shadowed canopy of the distant forest like a wisp of smoke.
Deep within the Unscarred Forest:
Silence, thick and ancient, enveloped Shinji. Towering, bioluminescent trees pulsed with soft, internal light, their roots twisting like sleeping serpents through moss-covered earth. He stood in a small clearing, breathing air rich with decay and vibrant life. The cacophony of spiritual signatures he'd sensed earlier was still present, but here, he could focus.
*Restrained,* he thought, the feeling nagging at him. Like wearing armor ten sizes too small. *The power is there, integrated, but... channeling it? That's the key to my evolution.*
He closed his eyes, reaching inward. Not to the crushing density of his core, but to the interface between his will and the cosmic energy suffusing his being. He visualized it; a river of liquid starlight held behind a dam of his own consciousness. He didn't release the floodgates. He opened a sluice.
"Act 3: Spiritual Energy Manifestation."
The air around Shinji's fist warped. Not violently, but visibly, like heat haze over a desert. Pure, condensed spiritual energy, shimmering with an opalescent sheen, coalesced around his knuckles, humming with contained potential. It wasn't an aura; it was solidified will.
He faced a colossal, ancient tree, its trunk wider than three men. No theatrics. No roar. Just a simple, piston-straight punch, driven forward with the precision of a scalpel and the inevitability of a tectonic shift.
THOOOM!
The impact wasn't a crack. It was a localized detonation of pure spiritual force. The energy coating his fist didn't just hit the tree; it displaced it. The trunk vaporized mid-section in a silent flash of light, not burning, but unmaking. The upper half of the thousand-ton giant hovered for a surreal microsecond before crashing down like felled timber, shaking the earth. No splinters. Just clean, molecular severance. Dust, imbued with residual energy, shimmered as it settled.
Shinji examined his fist. The energy wisped away like dissipating smoke. A fierce, focused grin touched his lips. "Not half bad." The potential was staggering; offense, defense, propulsion. A new language of power. *Mastery,* he thought. *That's the next task. Precision. Control and Efficiency.*
He clenched his fist again, then deliberately relaxed. The vast, terrifying signature he radiated like a beacon folded inwards, compressed, sealed beneath layers of conscious will until he felt like nothing more than a particularly dense piece of the forest itself. "No more signals," he murmured. "Not until I choose."
He raised a finger, pointing at a smaller sapling across the clearing. Focusing a minuscule fraction of the energy he'd just unleashed, he flicked his wrist. A needle-thin beam of condensed spirit lanced out silently.
FZZZT!
The sapling ceased to exist from the point of impact upwards, leaving only a smoldering, perfectly circular stump. Act 3, refined to a whisper.
"Alright," Shinji breathed, settling into a meditative stance amidst the ancient trees while smiling. "Time to learn the grammar of godhood."
Three Weeks Later - Edge of Universe 3:
The fabric of space rippled like disturbed water. A figure stepped through the instability, his passage marked by a faint scent of ozone and old paper. He brushed a strand of messy brown hair from warm hazel eyes, a look of profound contentment on his utterly ordinary face. A holographic panel hovered before him, displaying the final, tear-jerking panels of a long-beloved saga.
"Man," he sighed, wiping an imaginary tear. "One Piece. Always delivers the emotional gut punch. Perfection." He closed the panel with a nostalgic sigh. "Right. Focus, Khoseph. Duty calls." He stretched languidly, looking like an office worker after a long commute, not a cosmic executioner. "934th Universe was scenic, but this detour took ages. Should've packed more snacks." His hazel eyes, moments ago warm with fictional emotion, hardened into chips of flint. The shift was chilling. "Just you wait, Trascender. Lord Saganbo doesn't appreciate disrespect."
He took a step, not into a ship, but through space itself, vanishing towards the heart of Galaxy 12. Minutes, not months, separated him from his prey.
Planet Suchumus - Forest Clearing:
Shinji's eyes snapped open. His meditation shattered not by sound, but by a pressure.
It wasn't Yamato's contained power, nor the primal fury of the Bear King. This was different. Cold. Precise. Infinitely vast. It pressed against his newly refined senses like an ice-cold blade against his throat. It radiated not just power, but authority, the chilling certainty of a being accustomed to erasing stars. And beneath it... a faint, incongruous echo of mundane satisfaction, like the lingering scent of cheap printer paper.
*Tremendous force...* Shinji's Danger Sense screamed, painting the void beyond Suchumus with a signature of pure, annihilating potential. A wave of icy dread washed over him, colder than the void itself. *Just finished practicing Act 3... Am I ready? Can I face something of this level? A Monarch?* He pushed the fear down, replacing it with steely resolve. *Underestimate nothing. Give everything.*
He rose, the forest floor undisturbed by his movement. With a thought, he shed Suchumus's atmosphere, phasing through the planet's divine-repelling field like a ghost. He stood in the silent, star-studded void, facing the direction of the approaching storm.
Planet 8, Galaxy 12 - Merus's Observation Post:
Merus felt it a fraction of a second later. He jerked upright from his vigil, the cracked pauldron of his pearlescent suit forgotten. His glacial eyes widened in pure horror, fixed on the psychic scream tearing through the cosmic fabric towards Suchumus.
"SHINJI!" The name was ripped from him, raw with terror. "That signature! The Magikill!" His mind raced, calculations of power levels, probabilities, defenses. All came up horrifyingly short. "At that magnitude... aimed directly at him! Shinji's strong, but Khoseph is a bad matchup! He'll extinguish him!" Panic, a sensation Merus rarely experienced, threatened to paralyze him. *No. Not again.*
He didn't hesitate. He folded space, tearing himself from Planet 8 in a violation of physics that left the barren world trembling. He reappeared in the void, a streak of desperate cerulean light hurtling towards the point where Shinji's suppressed signature met the oncoming tidal wave of The soldier's power.
The Void - Convergence Point:
Shinji sensed Merus's arrival before he saw him; a familiar, ancient signature flaring with desperate urgency. The God of Creation materialized beside him, his pearlescent suit gleaming faintly under the distant starlight, his expression grim.
"Merus," Shinji acknowledged, his voice calm but edged with the tension of the approaching maelstrom. His eyes never left the point in space where reality was beginning to distort.
"Shinji," Merus breathed, relief warring with deeper fear. "Long time no see. but we got no time. He's–"
A figure coalesced out of the distorted space before them. Not with a thunderclap, but with the silent inevitability of a shadow falling. He was unremarkable: average height (185 cm), messy shoulder-length brown hair, warm hazel eyes that now held no warmth whatsoever. He wore simple, earth-toned robes, utterly nondescript, looking more like a lost bureaucrat than a Monarch. Only the impossible stillness in the vacuum and the crushing aura of power betrayed his true nature.
"Troublesome," The man stated, his voice a calm, conversational baritone that vibrated unpleasantly in Shinji's bones. He scratched his stubbled chin. "Two pests instead of one. Lord Saganbo did grant permissions for collateral... but efficiency is preferable. Paperwork, you understand." He offered a bland smile that didn't touch his cold eyes.
His gaze flickered towards Merus, a hint of weary annoyance replacing the false warmth. "Ah. The failed guardian. Persistent, aren't you? Like a stain."
Before Merus could react, before Shinji could even fully process the insult, Khoseph moved.
It wasn't speed. It was spatial translocation. He appeared directly before Merus, his movement a blur even to Shinji's enhanced senses. A simple, unarmored foot, clad in worn-looking boots, lashed out with contemptuous ease. No visible energy flare, just a subtle warping of space around the kick.
Merus brought his arms up, pearlescent energy flaring in a desperate shield of creation.
KRUNCH-SHATTER!
The sound was of breaking reality. Merus's shield vaporized. The boot connected with his chestplate. Not a kick, but an unmaking; a localized spatial collapse.
Merus vanished. Not just knocked back, but seemingly kicked in a way that no speed was involved; erased from his position. Shinji's Danger Sense shrieked a trajectory; a line of pure destructive spatial shear punched through the fabric of space.
Light-years away, in the silent dark of Universe 3's outer belt, three barren, rocky planets exploded. Not from impact, but from the catastrophic spatial distortion generated by Merus's body being displaced through them at trans-light speed. One moment they were ancient celestial bodies; the next, expanding clouds of incandescent debris.
Khoseph lowered his foot, adjusting his simple robe as if brushing off dust. He turned his hazel eyes fully onto Shinji, the weariness replaced by focused, terrifying intent. That bland, ordinary face was now the mask of annihilation.
"Apologies for the mess, Trascender," Khoseph said, his voice still calm, almost bored. "Disposing of distractions is a necessary chore. Like taking out the trash." He tilted his head, examining Shinji with clinical interest, like a scientist observing a specimen. "Now... where were we? Ah, yes. I am Khoseph. The Magikill Monarch. And you, Shinji Kazuhiko, are coming with me. Willingly..." He raised a hand, palm open. The space around his fingers rippled menacingly. "...or in component particles. The choice, while ultimately irrelevant to the outcome, is technically yours. Standard retrieval protocol."
Shinji met Khoseph's gaze, his own deep-sea blue eyes reflecting the distant starlight. The terror was gone, burned away by cold fury at Merus's fate and the absolute certainty of survival. He thought to himself *What was that kick just now? That was not pure speed...*. Act 3 energy, dense and controlled, began to shimmer like contained starlight around his clenched fists. The void around them grew colder, heavier, charged with the promise of annihilation. The unassuming clerk stood opposite the transcended human.
"Choice?" Shinji's voice cut through the silence, sharp as a monomolecular blade. "There is no choice, Monarch. The only choice is survival. And yours ends here."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was the held breath of the cosmos, waiting for the detonation. The Magikill Monarch versus the Transcended Trascender. The war for existence had found its first true battlefield in the cold, infinite dark, and one of the combatants looked like he'd rather be reading manga.