CHAPTER 3 - ENCOUNTER
Baadam. Baadam.
When he reached the edge of the crater to survey his surroundings, he immediately regretted it.
Kuro's bronze face paled, and his mood soured further. "Ah— that explosion..." He could help but sigh. "...Left a huge crater to cross."
Before him, the abyss yawned… Jagged, massive, and personally offensive. His own handiwork.
It had looked impressive in the heat of the moment, but the sheer inconvenience of traversing it hit him immediately after.
Baadam. Baadam.
"If only I could just fly out of here," He muttered, scratching his now rough, silver and abyssal hair.
He crouched at the rim, resting his forearms on his knees, and peered down into the pit.
"Well... it seems I have no choice but to use it." He gritted his teeth.
Baadam. Baadam.
'I'll probably run out of Ryoku before it tears me apart.' Kuro's Ryoku reserves were almost depleted, so he decided he needed to use a technique that would at least allow him to cover some distance.
'Haha, here goes.' Stepping over the edge and plunging straight down the crumbling slope.
Both above and around him, dark concentric rings materialized. A black orb with a single point of light at its center coalesced behind him, heavy rotations of force warping the air and propelling him forward at exponentially increasing speed.
"THIRD INTERMEDIATE ART: Pseudo Synchronon"
Kuro traveled a staggering distance, encroaching ever closer to his objective. He didn't know whether heading toward that point of light was the right choice.
However, he would eventually have to start from somewhere. Wouldn't he?
Below him, the jagged twisted rock and obsidian spires that made the eerie landscape have a distorted feeling to it, quickly passed by…
Kuro was far too high up to discern what lurked beneath. His speed did not help either in this aspect.
He ceased manifesting the 'Pseudo Synchronon' and let momentum carry him through the air. It's not like he had any Ryoku left to maintain its manifestation, anyways.
Kuro didn't mind tho, it was a smooth flight. What could possibly go wrong at this speed and altitude?
Immediately after that jinxing thought. Something large, swift, and very much alive dove at him from above. It was a Doxamorph creature of layered scales and membranous wings, its multiple dark eyes locked onto him.
"Whoa—!"
'How cool…' He thought in sheer awe.
Even as the beast's breath hit him like hot rot, he had the audacity to look fascinated.
"It looks..." He watched the beast's silhouette against the clear azure sky. "...so cool!"
As it shifted from his view, the second creature higher up took aim at him.
By the time he realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
"Wa-wait, huh?!" Shock slapped onto his naive face.
The creature's face… if it could even be called that. Appeared directly before him, opening a beak lined with jagged, razor-sharp teeth.
"What the. Tha- that was a decoy?!"
The creature's eyes bore down on him, pitch-black and absolute.
It slammed into him with enough force to send them both skidding across the desolate, rocky plain.It was a tangle of limbs, wings, and one severely put-upon young man.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Each impact bloomed into a column of displaced earth and white smoke.
Kuro, somehow still conscious and largely intact, looked up at the nightmare pinning him down.
The creature snapped its maw near his face. Kuro tilted his head just out of the way. The creature gripped him in its claws. And it was squeezing.
"Not again..." Kuro's voice came out strained but determined, his arms bracketing against the scaled appendages clamped around him as it drove him into the rock below with a resonant crash.
"Not yet," Kuro grunted, choosing pure stubbornness as his primary survival strategy.
He pushed back against its grip, fingers digging into scale and sinew, his body straining against the weight of a Doxamorph far larger and much less exhausted than he was.
The creature bucked and thrashed, losing its footing. Kuro leveraged his strength, hurling the massive beast into the distance.
He looked out at the spreading carnage with the serene expression of watching a sunset.
"From now on... never shall I allow myself to die.
Not anymore!"
"Even if I come back from death, that doesn't stop it from hurting. I must avoid it at all costs. I can't take much more of this."
Having been thrown into the air, the creature's follow-up attack came with a sharp shriek. The monster unleashed a massive beam of pure energy aimed straight at Kuro.
However, he simply leaned forward, slipped to the side, stretched out his arm, and caught the leading edge of the energy beam.
The beam contorted, collapsing into a pulsating orb of pure energy in his palm.
"Haha... this place is already..."
The orb pulsed heavily and violently in his grip. Then, shimmering energy expanded outward in a wide crescent, carving through the landscape as he released the discharge.
The energy struck the creature, sending the massive thing crashing to the ground in a heap, wings splayed uselessly.
"...making me reach my limit."
The blast carved a deep trench into the earth below. The sky above remained pale and still, while rocky spires jutted from the earth like broken teeth.
He watched the dust dissipate. Below, the creature was nowhere to be seen… Perhaps erased entirely. Maybe it survived tho heavily injured.
'Huh... Now, I wonder where that bird creature came from. It must be of the intermediate tier based on its strength alone'
He exhaled through his nose, observing the vaporized rock and molten earth with what could generously be described as sympathy. For himself.
"Sigh."
He turned to survey his surroundings. The landscape remained the same barren hellscape it had always been… volcanic rock, dust, and an oppressive sky.
Nothing had changed, except that he was somehow even more tired than before. His vast Ryoku reserves were completely depleted. It would take days to restore fully.
He glanced toward his objective in the distance, his mood sinking further. The pillar of light seemed even farther than he had initially thought. Or didn't seem to get any closer.
"Argh— It's still pretty far from here. Flight is out of the question, too. It seems the only option left is.."
He faced the distant pillar of light marking his next destination and began to walk. One step, two steps…
He walked without stopping. His injuries showed no signs of recovery… Each cut stayed open, each bruise remained dark, his body refusing to grant him even the small mercy of a closed wound.
He deliberately avoided looking at them. Looking didn't help anyway. "What was even the point?"
What he hadn't yet realized… Or chose to ignore, was, injuries did not heal in place. At least not by natural means. And the one method available to him was one he wasn't willing to use.
"I've covered some distance, but it feels like I'm moving farther from it."
Regardless of the inconsistent terrain that became flat one time then jagged and twisted the other, he didn't stop moving forward.
…
Baadam. Baadam. Baadam…
Within the crater he had left behind…
A faint thrumping hum of glowing ball of resplendent light lingered. Each beat followed the rhythm of a heartbeat.
Baadam. Baadam. Baadam.
If one were to go closer to it, they would notice the shape of a human fetus within that ball of light.
…
"Damn this accursed condition... Where was I going before I got attacked again?... Wait, was I even attacked? …when did it even happen?
Ah— why is this happening to me now?"
He mumbled to himself while he scratch
He paused, squinting at the horizon.
"Oh yeah... I need to head that way."
He turned and kept moving, walking for so long that the isolation began to grow its own physical weight.
Time moved strangely in this realm. Seconds stretched into what felt like days, the light never shifting, the terrain never changing. Yet he kept pushing forward. One foot, then the other.
The distortion of the order of events solely made him lose himself and his perception of time. Maybe he walked for hours, days, months or even years. He had no way to know, so why bother worrying about it?.
All this continued until... between two towering dark rock formations that framed the path like an ancient gateway, a silhouette of a man appeared.
Kuro slowed his pace as he approached.
"Who stands there? If you can understand me, make yourself known."
The figure didn't flinch. Tall, draped in layered robes the color of aged wood, a wide-brimmed conical hat shadowed the upper half of a face that gave nothing away.
He looked as though he had been standing there for an eternity, entirely unbothered by the passage of time.
From beneath the shadow of that wide brim, the figure's eye met his,and something shited in the air.
An abysmal scaled goldfish slowly turned lusory and appeared above them. Its mythical golden luster shimmered at every subtle turn…
Instantly, the mood seemed to cool down a little, even the air itself turned cold. However, it had a soothing effect.
"You must be Kuroshiraga Arufa. I've been waiting for your arrival. For now, I shall accompany you." The indifferent silhouette declared.
" Should I consider you my enemy?" Kuro asked, his voice steeped in fatigue.
"I'm a friend... for now," the figure replied, measured and calm. "You're severely injured. Consider taking a rest, kid."
Kuro stared at him, then looked down at his own state, the open gashes still stung, the blood dried in dark streaks, the ruined remnants of his shirt. He looked back up.
"'For now'?" Kuro scoffed. "Are you going to betray me later, then?"
"Your injuries are near fatal," the figure replied, sidestepping the question. "You look exhausted." A pause, almost casual. "I suggest you rest."
Kuro narrowed his eyes. Far too exhausted to think, he went along with it. "Fine."
He couldn't help but notice the unnervingness about this stranger. Maybe it was his absolute stillness, or the way the hat cast just enough shadow to make his expression perpetually unreadable.
Yet Kuro didn't tense up. He filed the man under 'probably not immediately lethal' and let himself sink to the ground, resting his forearms across his knees.
Before the thoughts in his head could form into words, an object appeared right in front of his face… a small vial. The figure had moved without making a sound.
'Heavens, he's rather quick on his feet.' Kuro noted internally, tracking the movement a half-second too late.
"Drink this," the figure said. "It will help heal your wounds."
Kuro looked at the vial, then at the figure, then back at the vial. "How do I know it's not poison?"
"Then you'll die if it is," the figure replied, pleasant and gentlemanly. His tone didn't shift in the slightest. "There's only one way to find out."
Kuro took the vial containing the clear, transparent liquid. Delirious and exhausted, he abandoned all caution and gulped it down without restraint.
"Well?" the mysterious man muttered, glancing sideways. "...Is the poison working yet?"
Kuro blinked. "What do yo—"
Before he could finish, the figure's hand shot forward, clamping tightly around his throat.
"What is this..." Kuro demanded, his voice flat.
"What are you doing?"
"Isn't it obvious?" the figure replied.
Kuro's eyes narrowed. "You son of a—"
The figure's single exposed eye remained fixed on him, chillingly calm.
"I need answers from you. Understood?"
"First question..." The figure crouched to Kuro's eye level, the brim of his hat tilting forward as his sharp eye caught the dim light.
"How long do you think you've been in this place?"
Kuro at this moment was far too tired. His thoughts were sluggish and his limbs were numb. Even if he tried he couldn't fight back.
Kuro's expression shifted, the question striking a tender nerve. "How long...? I. Don't. Know."
"How many times have you died?"
A long silence followed. Kuro stared blankly at the ground. His vision started to blur and dim.
"How... many times... have I died...? Hm." He drew a slow muffled breath. "I... think... I... lost... count."
He lay somewhere between consciousness and sheer exhaustion, gazing up at whatever passed for a sky in this realm.
"This place is so weird... I've been here for I don't know how long. Oh yeah... how many times did I die? Haha, let me think."
"I don't know." He let out a short, hollow laugh,
'I can't really fight back now. I can't even focus properly.'
Kuro's Ryoku reserves hadn't been restored yet, which in itself was strange, he felt like the world itself pressed against his very soul body. His body felt as if it were on fire.
'I really did it this time, huh? I'm tired. I pushed myself too hard… i don't wanna die…
I….'
The world went eerily silent, and Kuro's vision went blank; he saw nothing, he felt nothing and thought of nothing. The pitiful patchborn died. Alone.
***
[RESURRECTION PROTOCOL INITIATED]
[Analysis of the subject vessel initiated...]
[Analysis complete.]
[Malformation detected.]
[Internal damage detected.]
[Multiple bone fractures detected.]
[Compound soul detected.]
[Curse remnant detected.]
[Possible chimerism detected.]
[Seal detected.]
[Damaged psychic detected.]
[Proceeding to restoration...]
[Beginning restoration.]
[Restoration complete:]
[Malformation, internal damage, and bone fractures repaired. Stamina restored.]
[Total restoration incomplete.]
[Error encountered.]
[Analysis of compound soul -- access denied.]
[Analysis of curse reminants -- access denied.]
[Analysis of chimerism -- access denied.]
[Analysis of seal -- access denied.]
[Unidentified entity issued warning.]
[Analysis aborted.]
[Proceeding to resurrection.]
[Resurrection complete.]
[Underlying psychological trauma unexpectedly maintained.]
***
"Rise and shine, kid."
The voice arrived before the light. Kuro surfaced from the darkness slowly, his senses returning one by one.
The figure sat nearby, his eye tracing the dark markings visible across Kuro's torso and arm… the very marks that had been present when he first woke up in this realm, the ones he had spent this whole time pretending to ignore.
"Say, mind explaining what those marks are?"
"A curse, perhaps?" the figure murmured.
Kuro pulled himself upright. The pain was gone… completely gone, not merely numbed. He rolled his shoulder experimentally and flexed his fingers.
"Well... do you mind explaining what those scars across the side of your face are instead?" he replied, a clear grudge lacing his voice.
Kuro did not bother facing him and asked, "I'm leaving. Is that the way out...?"
He was already moving toward the edge of the glow beneath him… an intricate formation of glowing runes and geometric lines that had been shining softly since before he woke up.
"Too bad, kid." The figure didn't raise his voice.
"We can't leave yet."
Kuro stopped at the perimeter. Beneath his boots, the carved lines pulsed, vibrant and luminous.
"Because of you, I had to use one of my runic resurrection circles to heal your internal injuries and restore your mental state," the figure explained simply, gesturing downward. "
If you step outside this circle, the other runic arrays below will activate. Since this is the domain of Sovereign Doxamorph or what you Earth folk call a Chōrastreble, I had to make a deal with it.
To activate the resurrection circle, I needed concentrated amounts of dark matter... which is where we are."
The figure's gaze drifted toward the pale, corrupted landscape surrounding them.
Kuro turned back to face him, looking down. "Before I leave... Who gave you permission to kill me?"
The masked man chuckled. "Didn't you notice you were recklessly oozing Ryoku all over the place? That's what made nearby Doxamorph attack you at random. Oh, did you also forget you lost your perception of time, too? You should be thankful I put you out of your misery."
Kuro stared at the floor. Atop the platform, dozens more runic circles were layered into the earth, their light faint.
"Wait..." the man warned.
Kuro stepped directly onto the incantation circles below.
The runes flared with brilliant light, and in an instant, both Kuroshiraga Arufa and the mysterious man in the wide-brimmed conical hat vanished.
***
Far away, somewhere in the desolate plains of Makai, far beyond the cracked, rocky terrain and the glowing circle... something was watching.
It did not possess a face in the conventional sense. It had an eye— or something resembling one. A single, vast orb set within a lattice of organic ligaments, whorls, hollows, and concentric rings of matter that suggested a skull the way a nightmare suggests a place.
Around it, smaller eyeball-like spheres drifted like satellites, each staring in a different direction.
The creature was framed by obsidian towers. Before it lay a massive platform carved with a great runic circle.
The platform was connected to a large straight path made of stone. And on this stone path, two figures stood…
One indifferent, the other with deep regret.
— END OF CHAPTER III —