The first sensation was warmth; not the searing kiss of cosmic annihilation, but the patient embrace of woven Acrosian linens. Shinji Kazuhiko's eyes scraped open, gritty and slow, adjusting to the soft amber light filtering through Yamato's crystalline windows. The air tasted of petrichor and ozone, a stark contrast to the void's sterile scream. A low throb pulsed behind his temples, a phantom echo of Khoseph's spatial decay matrix.
"Where... am I?" His voice was gravel, raw as if scoured by stardust.
A shadow shifted near the arched doorway. Yamato stepped into the light, his obsidian eyes softening as they met Shinji's. "Oh, you're finally awake, Shinji!" He crossed the room in three strides, the ancient stone floor silent beneath his boots. A weathered hand, cool and steady, pressed against Shinji's forehead. "You had me weaving worry into my meditation for two solid days. Gave the mountain itself a nervous tremor."
Shinji pushed himself up, muscles protesting like overtuned harp strings. The simple motion sent a fresh wave of fatigue crashing through him. "Old Man... How long?"
"Two days," Yamato confirmed, pouring water from a pitcher into a cup of volcanic glass. "You were deposited like a meteorite," He offered the water. "Drink. Your cosmic core might be infinite, but your throat sounds like it fought a sand demon."
Shinji gulped the cool water, the ache in his throat easing slightly. "Two days?" He blinked, disbelief warring with the lingering exhaustion. "That's longer than it took me to turn the mountain into a giant ashtray! Since when does sleep conquer transcendence?"
A low rumble, like distant mountain thunder, escaped Yamato. "Even cosmic engines need maintenance, boy. Fighting a Monarch who treats space-time like origami paper isn't tending a herb garden." He gestured towards the broad window. Beyond, under the gaze of the twin suns, stretched the vast, shimmering obsidian plain; the eternal scar of Shinji's transcendence, a monument and a warning. "As for how you landed... I believe whoever you were fighting with has thrown you through the divine-repelling field like a javelin. Nearly took the eastern spire clean off. My architects are still grumbling."
Shinji's fingers unconsciously brushed his chest, where the cold echo of Khoseph's decay-matrix still lingered beneath healed skin. "You know about the fight? All of it? And ... About who was with me ?"
Yamato's gaze grew distant, solemn. "The whole planet saw the final act, Shinji. That shockwave... it wasn't just light. It was a song. Lit our sky for hours, painted the clouds in colors unborn. A chord so deep, the ancestors whispered in their crystal tombs..." He placed a heavy hand on Shinji's shoulder, the weight of centuries and pride in the touch. "As for your companion... it's clear who it was... No need to even talk about it. You didn't just save Suchumus. You stitched a hole in the universe's fabric. The Monarch's silence is the loudest testament."
Shinji swung his legs over the side of the bed, the cool stone floor a shock against his bare feet. Act 3 energy flared instinctively, a warm current beneath his skin, smoothing the lingering aches, mending microscopic tears. "My head's still ringing like a cracked temple bell... But I can't stay." He met Yamato's gaze, the stellar blue depths holding a newfound gravity. "The Magikill was just the first stormcloud."
Yamato's hand tightened briefly, a silent acknowledgment of the inevitable. The lines around his ancient eyes deepened. "...I see. The forge cools, the blade departs." He straightened, the North Head's mantle settling back onto his shoulders. "So soon."
"Thank you," Shinji said, the words simple but carrying the weight of the mountain, the wilderness, the sealing chamber. "For the crucible that didn't break me. For the shelter when I was just a spark. For seeing the leviathan inside and teaching it to hold a teacup." A ghost of his old, reckless grin touched his lips. "Even if I still spill it sometimes."
Yamato's stern facade, the mask of the ancient warrior, cracked. A flicker of profound emotion – pride, sorrow, fierce protectiveness; crossed his luminous blue features. "Visit when the stars grow cold and forget their names, you reckless, magnificent fool." He turned towards the terrace, hiding the sudden brightness in his obsidian eyes. "Before you crack my beautiful region again."
At the edge of Yamato's windswept terrace, Shinji paused. Below, the Northern villages clung to the mountainside like clusters of glowing gems. Crystalline spires caught the twin suns, scattering prismatic rainbows. Children, small figures of light and energy, chased bioluminescent moths through terraced gardens. The hum of life, fragile and vibrant, rose on the thin air. His people now. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sharp, clean air of Suchumus one last time. Then, he gathered Act 3 energy. Not for destruction this time, but for flight. Not a leap, but a gravitational unfurling; a gentle push against the planet's embrace.
WHUMPF-CRACK!
The ground beneath the terrace trembled. A web of fissures shot through the decorative stonework. Nearby ponds rippled violently, sending startled water-birds skyward. Loose stones levitated a handspan before clattering back down. Yamato, leaning against a carved obsidian pillar, merely raised an eyebrow as Shinji became a streak of gold-green light, piercing the atmosphere like a needle through silk, leaving only a dissipating sonic bloom and the scent of ozone.
"Careless brat," Yamato muttered, watching the streak vanish into the indigo sky. He touched the trembling pillar, then looked out over the land Shinji had reshaped and defended. A slow smile, fierce and proud, touched his lips. "Fly true, Shinji Kazuhiko. Carry the mountain in your soul. And may the void itself learn to fear the echo of your name." His whisper was lost in the sigh of the high-altitude wind, carrying the benediction towards the stars.
The embrace of space was different now. It wasn't the silent, indifferent abyss he remembered. With senses refined by transcendence and battle, Shinji heard the cosmos. The resonant hum of nebulas cradling infant stars. The deep, sorrowful groan of dying suns collapsing into their own graves. And, clear as a beacon through the stellar chorus, the familiar blue signature of Merus; a steady, worried pulse emanating from the 4th Galaxy's first planet.
*There you are.* Shinji focused. He didn't brute-force his way through space. Instead, he persuaded it. Act 3 energy flowed, not shoving, but gently convincing spacetime to fold, to shorten the path. Distances compressed like an accordion. Stars streaked past, smearing into luminous rainbows before snapping back into sharp points. He moved with the effortless grace of thought made manifest.
The world appeared as a fragile marble; small, improbably verdant, teeming with life that looked like clusters of iridescent ferns swaying in an unseen breeze. Shinji descended with the subtlety of a falling anvil. His landing wasn't an impact; it was a punctuation mark written in seismic force.
CRUNCH-BOOM!
The shockwave flattened a swathe of crystalline forests into glittering dust. Delicate, fern-like habitats trembled on their roots. Small, luminescent beings scattered in panic, emitting high-pitched chirps like shattering glass. A child, its fronds trembling violently, pointed a thin appendage. "G-God's Henchman! He's back!"
Shinji winced, brushing glittering debris from his sleeves. "Oops." He surveyed the miniature world; trees barely reaching his knee, rivers like silver threads etched into mossy ground. "This place is smaller than Yamato's breakfast plate! And the locals..." He eyed the quivering ferns. "Weird."
An elder shuffled forward, its central stalk thick and gnarled, leaves rustling with unmistakable indignation. "Why arrive like a supernova, offworld runt? Come to crack our sky and steal our light?"
Shinji's eye twitched. The lingering headache spiked. "Listen here, you walking little salad bowl-"
Before he could finish, a taller, thornier fern-being lunged from the crowd, razor-sharp fronds glinting. "Disrespect the Root-Elder? Perish, star-scum!"
Shinji sighed, already calculating the minimal flick of Act 3 energy needed to send the attacker spinning harmlessly into low orbit. But before he could act, a wave of calming, azure light washed over the clearing. Merus materialized between them, one hand raised, palm outward. The charging warrior froze mid-lunge, suspended in a bubble of shimmering cerulean energy.
"Lord Merus!" the warrior gasped, its aggression instantly replaced by awe and terror.
"Fools!" Merus's voice cracked like glacial ice splitting, sharp enough to make the ferns recoil. His glacial eyes blazed. "This boy," he gestured sharply at Shinji, "stood before the Cosmic Eye of Nullification! He held back the unraveling of reality itself while you were busy debating soil acidity! He saved your universe, your pathetic little planet, and every chlorophyll-filled cell in your bodies!"
Silence descended, thick and heavy. The Root-Elder's leaves flushed a deep, embarrassed violet. It dipped its central stalk low. "Our... our deepest apologies, Star-Savior. Our roots are shallow, our perception dim." The suspended warrior, released, thumped to the ground and prostrated himself. "Honor us! Partake in our Feast of Blooming Stars tonight! We shall bathe you in nectar-light and sing the Song of Cosmic Gratitude!"
Shinji blinked, momentarily disarmed. The prospect of alien nectar and weird plant songs actually sounded... intriguing. "You know, I'd totally love t—"
"He absolutely cannot," Merus cut in smoothly but firmly, clamping a hand on Shinji's shoulder and steering him away. As they walked towards the edge of the tiny clearing, Merus leaned close, his voice dropping to a tense whisper only Shinji could hear. "One dead Monarch is a declaration carved on Saganbo's throne. His eyes are everywhere now. Lingering is a luxury we can't afford."
Shinji glanced back at the cluster of disappointed, glowing ferns. The Root-Elder waved a frond sadly. "Right," Shinji muttered, the brief flicker of normalcy extinguished. "Priorities." He raised a hand in an awkward farewell. "Uh... don't blow yourselves up! Try landing pads!"
A chorus of mournful, glassy chirps followed them as they lifted off: "Farewell, Starlight Warrior! May your roots find strong soil!"
They soared past silent asteroid belts, leaving the miniature world shrinking to a verdant speck behind them. The vastness of space pressed in, colder now. Merus's expression was grim, etched with lines Shinji hadn't noticed before. "Khoseph was Saganbo's scalpel; precise, efficient, disposable. His next move? A hammer. A sledgehammer forged in dead stars. We jump universes tonight. The 7th. Its background entropy is higher, harder for his trackers to parse."
Shinji flexed his hand, watching Act 3 energy dance like captive starlight between his fingers. The power felt deeper, more integrated, yet the memory of Khoseph's spatial traps and the crushing weight of the Cosmic Eye was a stark reminder. "That 'scalpel' nearly erased me from existence. If that was Saganbo's idea of playtime..." He let the thought hang, the implications chilling.
"Exactly," Merus murmured, his eyes darkening as he scanned the void ahead. "The real war begins the moment he stops underestimating you. When he sees you not as a troublesome spark, but as a wildfire-"
Space rippled.
Not a violent tear like Khoseph's portals. This was subtler, more insidious. It was as if the void itself remembered a shape and allowed it to coalesce. The fabric of space-time seamlessly rewove itself ten paces behind them. A figure stood there. Skin of drowned moonlight blue seemed to absorb the surrounding starlight. Eyes like chips of frozen event horizon fixed on them.
*Amado.*
Merus whirled, ancient reflexes snapping into place. Creation energy flared around him like a suddenly ignited blue sun, throwing stark shadows across nearby asteroids. His voice, when it came, held a tremor Shinji had never heard; not fear, but the shock of confronting a nightmare relic. "Shinji! BEHIND—!"
"Hello there, Lord Merus!" Amado's voice was a scythe-blade drawn across silence, echoing with the hollow chill of dead galaxies and extinguished universes. His lipless mouth curved into a smile devoid of warmth. "Eight hundred billion years since we last... conversed? How remarkably... nostalgic."
Shinji's Danger Sense didn't just scream; it shrieked a symphony of pure, existential dread. This wasn't spatial manipulation like Khoseph's art. This was deeper, older; a violation of cosmic memory, a puppetry of time's forgotten threads. The void itself seemed to recoil, the ambient starlight dimming as if afraid, as Amado took one impossibly silent step forward on the fabric of space-time. It was pure speed!
The Suchumus Arc ended not with a triumphant fanfare, but with the cold, silent click of a cosmic trap snapping shut. Shinji leaving the comfort of his own home and planet after his first fateful encounter, the warmth of Yamato's mountain, the frantic chirps of the fern-people, the crushing weight of the Cosmic Eye; all condensed into a single, crystalline moment of understanding. Suchumus had been the forge. Khoseph's defeat, the first true strike against the encroaching night. Amado's arrival was the chilling wind that snuffed the forge-fire, marking the end of apprenticeship, the end of refuge. The road ahead was paved with dead stars and the laughter of gods who, perhaps, remembered when time began. Shinji Kazuhiko, the boy who bargained with hell for the power to protect, felt the terrifying weight of the multiverse settle onto his shoulders, and met Amado's frozen gaze with eyes that held the newly tempered fire of a Transcended storm. The real fight and war for survival and knowledge would soon restart.
[Suchumus Planet Arc : END]