The silence after Ignis's stellar judgment was deafening, thick with the ozone stench of vaporized rock and the fading heat of annihilation. Kuro's grim smile of victory froze on his face. Netsudo sagged, the volcanic fury draining away to reveal the exhausted Pyrasian beneath. Merus, pinned to the far wall, managed a weak, bloodied sigh of relief. In the center of the colossal, smoldering crater, where only cosmic ash should remain, the air crackled.
Not with residual energy. With potential.
A low, resonant thrum vibrated through the dimensional bedrock, growing louder, deeper, shaking loose shards of obsidian. The thinning smoke wasn't dissipating; it was parted by an invisible force, shoved aside like unwanted curtains. And rising from the epicenter of the solar fury, unhurried, terrifyingly composed, stood Daganu.
But not the Daganu they knew. The stark white hair was gone, replaced by a shock of brilliant, electrified blue, each strand standing rigid as if charged by a captive lightning storm. His eyes, no longer cold obsidian voids, blazed with captured thunder – pupils of actinic white lightning set in irises of swirling, furious storm clouds. Dark energy, laced with crackling blue arcs of raw electricity, writhed around his form like a living tesla coil. His event-horizon armor seemed darker, sleeker, humming with a terrifying, contained power that made the air itself ionize, tasting metallic and sharp. He hovered, not with effortless speed, but with the coiled, devastating potential of a lightning bolt held at the precipice of release.
Kuro's analytical mind, usually a fortress of logic, cracked. "Impossible...!" he breathed, his voice raw. "The HeartDeath effect... his hair totally changed... he bypassed the negation completely! Even though he pretty much did that already, remnants were left. The fact that none are left is..." The Rod's power was supposed to lock spiritual expression, manifesting as hair color change. Even though his hair was gradually back to normal throughout the battle due to the continuous augmentation of his spiritual energy. This time it totally changed with no residue; electrifyingly fast. The Monarch hadn't evolved under pressure; he had simply removed the limiter.
Netsudo felt the heat of his own fading power, the exhaustion of Ignis, the terror of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd personas cowering within his fractured psyche. They didn't know this 4th one – the one forged not in fear or rage, but in absolute, desperate resolve. I'm the only ember left, the 4th Netsudo thought, the core of Pyrasian stubbornness hardening into diamond. *The others... they never faced this. They hid. I won't. Even if I burn out... this ends NOW.*
Lava, not summoned from the environment but willed from the deepest, untapped reserves of his planetary core, surged over Netsudo's form. It wasn't the chaotic fury of Ignis; it was focused, incandescent, white-hot purpose. His right fist became a crucible, drawing in the surrounding heat, the lingering stellar radiation, compressing it into a singularity of solar fury – the Absolute Sun Magma Fist. "Sun Magma Fist" The declaration wasn't a roar; it was a death knell.
He moved. Not with speed, but with the unstoppable momentum of a dying star's last collapse. The fist, radiating heat that warped vision, lanced towards Daganu's chest. Netsudo saw the impact point, felt the energy focus... and then felt a wet, tearing agony blossom across his own torso. He looked down. Dark blood, his blood, was already welling from a deep gash across his chest. Daganu stood behind him, having moved not just faster than Netsudo's strike, but faster than his perception of time itself. The Monarch hadn't dodged; he had simply been elsewhere when the attack passed through the space he occupied.
Daganu turned, his lightning eyes holding a spark of genuine, chilling respect. "I admit it. Your power... your resolve... is formidable. Truly." The electric blue hair crackled. "But acknowledgment isn't concession. Did you truly believe revealing my true self meant revealing my limit?" A cruel smile touched his lips. "This... is Absolute Infinite Speed Mode. The frictionless state. Movement divorced from causality. I traverse distance not by crossing it, but by erasing the concept of 'between'." His gaze locked on Netsudo's shocked, pain-filled eyes. "I may well be faster than Lord Saganbo himself within this domain of pure velocity."
He vanished. Not a blur. A deletion from existence in one location and an instantaneous inscription in another. He reappeared directly in front of Netsudo. A casual backhand, moving with the impossible speed of thought itself, connected. CRACK-THOOM! Netsudo was launched like a comet, hurtling across the vast chamber before impacting the far wall with a sound like a mountain collapsing. Stone shattered, dust plumed. Before the debris settled, Daganu was there again, hovering before the crater. He raised a finger. A single, effortless Light Bullet, dense and humming with dark energy, lanced out and struck Netsudo's prone form. KRA-SHUNK! Lava armor splattered, flesh tore. Netsudo didn't even scream; a wet, choked gasp was all he managed before slumping, consciousness flickering, blood pooling rapidly.
Kuro took an involuntary step forward, instinct warring with cold analysis. *Dammit! Done! We're atomized! What variable did I miss?! What equation solves THIS?!*
"STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!!" Netsudo's voice, weak but laced with absolute, desperate command, rasped from the wreckage. He lifted his head, blood streaming from his mouth and the horrific wound. "This... is magnitudes beyond you now! You step in... you become collateral! Dead weight in a hurricane! STAY!"
Kuro froze, the scientist in him recognizing the brutal truth, the friend in him screaming in silent fury. His knuckles whitened on the useless tech-glove.
"KUROOO!" Merus's voice, ragged but burning with divine defiance, cut through Kuro's despair from across the chamber. The broken god, one leg gone, torso a ruin of cerulean blood and burns, had pushed himself off the wall. He swayed, a candle in a supernova, but his eyes blazed with the undimmed light of Creation. "DON'T YOU DARE LAY DOWN! PUSH PAST THE BRINK! WE SHATTER LIMITS HERE! FOR SHINJI! FOR THEM ALL! DEFEAT IS NOT AN OPTION!"
The words struck Kuro like a physical blow, shattering the paralysis of analysis. A raw, primal yell tore from his throat, fueled by fury, grief, and Merus's impossible hope. "HELL YEAH!!" He ignited his thrusters, not towards Netsudo, but straight at the lightning-wreathed abomination that was Daganu. Merus, summoning the absolute dregs of his divine essence, became a streak of flickering cerulean light beside him. A final, suicidal charge.
Merus unleashed a torrent of Creation energy, a desperate shockwave meant to stagger, to distract. Daganu didn't dodge; he simply ceased to exist in its path, reappearing beside Merus. A contemptuous flick of his wrist sent a Light Bullet smashing into Merus's already shattered ribs. The God of Creation folded, hurled backwards, crashing to the ground in a spray of light and blood, finally still.
Kuro saw the opening, the micro-second Daganu was focused on Merus. He lunged, the HeartDeath Stick shard held like a dagger, aiming not to kill, but to disrupt, to sting. Daganu's lightning gaze snapped to him. A negligent backhand, moving faster than Kuro's neurons could fire, blasted him off his feet. The Stick flew from his grasp. Kuro hit the ground hard, ribs splintering, vision graying at the edges, blood filling his mouth. He couldn't move. He could only watch as Daganu calmly caught the spinning Rod shard.
"Asset recovered," Daganu stated flatly, examining the pulsating shard. He turned his storm-lit eyes towards Kuro, drifting closer like death incarnate. "Nirvana's conduit... It could prove useful. She might even have it back if she's on her way."
Kuro spat blood, trying to push himself up, arms trembling uselessly. "Y-you b-better... get b-back..."
Daganu's eyes flared, the lightning within them intensifying, the blue of his hair seeming to sharpen, becoming almost crystalline. He was adapting, refining the infinite speed, becoming more attuned to its terrifying potential. "Bravery in futility," he mused, raising the Rod shard. Dark energy and blue lightning coiled around it, transforming it into a crackling spear of negation. "Admirable, but terminal. One strike. Swift. Painless. Consider it... mercy." He leveled the charged point at Kuro's heart.
Daganu froze. Not by choice. An invisible force, complex and multi-layered, clamped down on his nervous system, his muscles, the very flow of energy to the Rod. It originated from the Rod itself – energy Kuro had subtly woven into its structure during his brief hold, a final contingency, a microscopic lattice of control waiting for contact.
"Activation code: Desperation Gambit," Kuro choked out, a trickle of blood at the corner of his lips. "Implanted... while you gloated."
Daganu strained, dark energy flaring, blue lightning arcing violently. "Clever... insect! But energy... pure force... breaks any chain!" He roared, focusing his monstrous power. The blue hair flickered, darkened, then blazed back to its sharp, electric blue. The immobilizing field strained, fractured... "SEE?! USELESS!" He surged forward, the Rod spear aimed true.
FWOOOOM-SPLUTCH!
A fist of incandescent white magma, burning with Netsudo's very life force, punched through Daganu's back, erupting from his stomach in a geyser of dark blood, molten rock, and vaporized armor. Netsudo stood behind him, eyes burning with the ferocity of a dying star, his body a ruin held together by sheer, volcanic will. "REST... IN... PEACE... SPEEDOFF MONARCH!" he ground out, every word an agony.
Daganu gasped, a wet, ragged sound, looking down in disbelief at the lava-coated arm protruding from his abdomen. Kuro scrambled back, grabbing the Rod shard as it fell from Daganu's suddenly slack hand. "It's over!" Kuro declared, the words tasting like ash. He was spent, broken, but alive.
Daganu coughed, a spray of dark blood. "Over...?" He rasped, swaying. The lightning in his eyes dimmed but didn't die. "I'm... not dead... am I?" Before Netsudo could react, the lava-covered arm twisted violently inside him. SCHRIIICK! Netsudo screamed as his own attack was turned against him, the brutal motion shredding Daganu's internals but also tearing Netsudo's arm and draining the last of his power. The lava snuffed out. Netsudo collapsed, unconscious, a broken, smoldering heap.
Kuro staggered to his feet, every movement agony. "Netsudo... Come on..." He limped towards the fallen Pyrasian. Merus groaned, stirring feebly nearby. "Help me... carry him..." Merus managed, dragging himself towards Netsudo.
The chamber door, the exit from this pocket hell, remained sealed. They turned towards it, a silent plea on their lips... and froze.
Daganu stood between them and the door. His stomach was a horrific, open ruin, dark blood and viscous internal fluids pouring down his legs. His breathing was a wet, bubbling rasp. Yet, he stood. Upright. The electric blue hair crackled weakly, the storm in his eyes a fading, but still present, squall. The sheer, impossible will to exist, to function, radiated from him like a dying star's final pulse.
"I still... di-dn't... di-e..." he choked out, blood frothing on his lips. "...DID I?" The lightning in his eyes flared one last time. Absolute Infinite Speed Mode re-engaged, a final, terrifying surge of power fueled by pure, annihilating spite. He became a bolt of blue-white lightning aimed at Kuro and Merus.
Kuro, driven by instincts honed in Archive Zero, threw himself sideways. Merus, too broken, too slow, took the full force of the kick directly to his shattered torso. CRUNCH! He was flung like a broken doll, crashing down beside Netsudo, utterly still, a final sigh escaping his lips.
Daganu skidded to a halt, turning his fading lightning gaze on Kuro, who knelt, gasping, energy fizzing uselessly in his glove. He raised a hand, crackling with the last dregs of power, ready to erase the scientist.
Kuro braced, gathering every scintilla of energy for a final, futile shockwave. His finger tightened on the trigger... and paused. Daganu wasn't moving. The crackling energy around his hand sputtered and died. The fierce lightning in his eyes guttered out, replaced by a sudden, profound emptiness. The electric blue hair faded rapidly back to stark white, then seemed to lose cohesion, strands falling limp.
The chamber door hissed open, revealing the chaotic energies of the Labyrinth beyond.
But Kuro wasn't looking at the door. He was staring at Daganu... no, at the being who stood where Daganu had been. The posture slumped. The terrifying aura vanished. The figure swayed.
58 Million Years Earlier: Kawabakomo
The air was warm, scented with blooming crystal flowers and ozone. Fourteen-year-old Hayate bounced on the balls of his feet, energy crackling around him like static. "So, you're joining the Kawabakomo Research Team?" his mother asked, worry etching lines around her nebula-blue eyes as she adjusted his tunic.
"YEAH!" Hayate beamed. "It's the BEST! Top explorers in the whole universe! And Daganu's already there! Says it's amazing!"
His mother cupped his face. "It sounds... dangerous, sweetheart. The deep field surveys... the unstable sectors... I just worry."
Hayate placed his hand over hers, his young face alight with boundless, innocent confidence. "It's all right, Mom! No need to be scared!" He puffed out his chest. "Because after all..." His eyes shone with the untarnished dream. "...I'll be the fastest in the entire universe!"
In the present, the figure that was Daganu, that was Hayate, took one stumbling step forward. Not an attack. A lurch. The storm was gone. The infinite speed was gone. Only a profound, echoing emptiness remained in his white-haired, thunder-less gaze. He looked down at his hands, slick with his own dark blood and Merus's cerulean ichor. Confusion flickered, then a dawning horror that had nothing to do with battle.
His legs buckled. Not from injury, but from the sheer, crushing weight of 58 million years, of training voids, of erased galaxies, of a name sacrificed, of a dream perverted into an engine of annihilation. He didn't crumple; he folded, collapsing to his knees, then pitching forward onto the blood-soaked, smoldering stone of the pocket dimension. His body hit the ground with a soft, final thud. The stark white hair pooled around his head like a fallen halo. The terrifying SpeedOff Monarch was gone.
Only Hayate remained. Broken. Empty. Finally, impossibly, still.
Kuro stared, breath caught in his throat, the energy for his shockwave dissipating unused. The only sounds were the sizzle of cooling rock, the ragged, fading wheeze from Netsudo, and the oppressive silence radiating from the fallen white-haired figure. The door to the Labyrinth stood open, an exit from the battle, but the victory felt hollow, drenched in the blood of gods, mortals, and a boy who dreamed of speed. The Multiverse's Fastest had run his final race.