[Kenji Sato (MC) POV]
I scrambled to my feet, wiping cold cemetery grit from my palms as my breathing raggedly evened out. But as I spun around to look for Jeanne and the others, the world hit me with a profound, suffocating stillness.
Nothing was moving.
A dead leaf hung suspended in mid-air three inches above a cracked headstone. Jeanne was frozen mid-stride, her face contorted in frantic concern, her hand locked in the act of reaching toward me. Arthur stood entirely still, the swirling winds masking his sword frozen into jagged, glass-like ripples. Even Nobu was caught mid-snarl, an ember from her flintlock lingering motionless against the stagnant air. Time itself had been pinned to the board like a dead butterfly.
A strange, prickling heat bloomed at the base of my neck.
I turned around, and my breath caught in my throat.
Floating just above the withered grass was a terrifying, incomprehensible nightmare of interlocking brass rings, roaring golden fire, and dozens of unblinking, bloodshot eyes rotating along intersecting geometric wheels. It was a biblically accurate angel ripped straight from the book of Ezekiel, radiating a pressure so immense it felt like my eardrums were about to implode.
A voice resonated directly inside my skull, gentle yet ringing like a cathedral bell.
"Ah. Forgive me. I often forget this vessel is distressing to mortal perception."
The churning rings of fire and wandering eyes collapsed inward with a soft, chiming hum. The blinding radiance condensed, reshaping itself until the entity landed softly on the dead leaves.
It was a tall, elegant figure clad in pristine, layered white robes stitched with delicate golden geometric embroidery, draped in an immaculate white coat. But from where its head and shoulders should have been, several pairs of radiant, snow-white feathered wings arched outwards like a living crown, overlapping to completely veil its face. Set deep within the downy feathers were luminous, piercing cyan eyes that blinked in calm unison.
I blinked, thoroughly rattled. "...What are you?"
"I am you," the winged figure replied smoothly. "Or rather, the Kenji Sato of another history. A Lostbelt."
My mind tripped over the words. "A... Lostbelt?"
"In my timeline, I was granted grace. I ascended beyond humanity, took on the mantle of an angel, and stood as a faithful sword at the side of God," he explained, his hands resting serenely inside the wide sleeves of his coat.
"Yet, human history is cruel. Chaldea arrived. The Master, Ritsuka Fujimaru, severed our Tree of Emptiness. Our world was pruned. My Lord fell, and my timeline vanished into nothingness."
'Your telling me ritsuka just beat the god of christ?! Meh, fair enough.'
"If your world is gone," I asked slowly, "why are you here?"
"I burned the last embers of my Saint Graph to cross the void and find you before the end," the angel said, those striking blue eyes within his plumage watching me intently.
"I came to impart a truth regarding this world. Proper Human History does not have an active God. In truth... He never truly came to exist as an eternal, enduring entity."
I furrowed my brow. "What does that even mean?"
"A supreme creator whose authority rivals the Root itself cannot coexist indefinitely within the boundaries of mortal history without unraveling it. Such omnipotence operates on a timer—a finite descent before the world naturally rejects it to preserve the Age of Man,"
the alternate me stated, stepping forward with outstretched, reverent hands.
"The throne in Heaven sits vacant, waiting for an anchor. You carry the spark, the capacity, and the curse-borne vitality. You were brought here to inherit the empty seat. You are destined to ascend and become the new God of Christianity for Proper Human History."
I looked at the serene, six-winged version of myself. I thought about dealing with a possessive saint and queen.
I stared at him deadpan.
"I refuse."
The cyan eyes nested within the pristine, feathered crown blinked in unison. A sharp, irritated click of teeth echoed.
"Tch."
"Don't click your teeth at me," I deadpanned, crossing my arms over my chest. "You drop a cosmic responsibility on a guy who was working retail three days ago and expect me to jump for joy? Besides, you never even explained what you're supposed to be. If you're an angel, you usually have an aspect or a jurisdiction. Michael is divine judgment and holy fire, Raphael handles healing, Azrael is the Angel of Death... What's your whole deal?"
The winged version of myself tilted his head. A soft, shuddering hum vibrated from somewhere beneath the downy wings, followed by a breathy, almost sensual moan.
"Mmm... Azrael..."
A violent shiver ripped down my spine, every single hair on my body standing on end. I physically recoiled, stepping back against a mossy headstone.
"Did you... did you just moan another archangel's name?!" I sputtered, staring at him in sheer, unadulterated horror. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"Divine beings are not bound by the fragile, binary constraints of mortal biology," he replied smoothly, as if he hadn't just made the cemetery five times creepier. "In the presence of the Lord, form and gender are fluid currents. We shift, adapt, and embody desire depending on our vessel and divine duty. In Heaven, all grace is shared."
"Okay, fantastic, divine gender fluidity, good for you," I said, rubbing my temples to stave off a headache. "Put that weirdness aside. Why me? Out of every soul in the infinite multiverse, why do I have the qualifications to sit on the throne of God?"
The angel adjusted the immaculate white coat draped over his shoulders, his luminous blue eyes locking onto mine with absolute, unwavering solemnity.
"Because in your destined convergence... you slept with the mortal vessel embodying both Alaya and Gaia."
Silence hung over the frozen graveyard.
I stood there for three solid seconds, my brain stalling out like a broken engine. Slowly, carefully, I lifted my hand and pointed a single index finger squarely at my own chest.
"...Me?"
The angel mirrored the motion, lifting a white-sleeved arm and pointing directly at me.
"Yes. You."
"Surely not," I muttered, shaking my head in pure disbelief. "You're telling me I somehow seduced the collective unconscious will of mankind and the physical soul of planet Earth? In one body?! That makes zero sense!"
"I witnessed the communion with my own eyes," the angel insisted, taking a quiet step forward. "If your mortal intellect doubts the truth, I can open the divine record and let you experience the memory firsthand. Every touch, every breath, every—"
"Hold on! Stop, stop, stop!" I waved my hands frantically, feeling heat creep up my neck. I paused, the gears in my head violently turning as another, far more terrifying thought surfaced. I cleared my throat, shifting my weight.
"...Hypothetically speaking. If I pulled that off... exactly how many people did I end up sleeping with in this future?"
The angel folded his hands into his wide sleeves and began counting aloud:
"Ten... twenty... thirty... forty... fifty—"
"Alright, that's enough! Stop! I get it!" I cut him off, groaning loudly as I buried my face in my hands.
The Isekai God's so-called 'average guy' build was spiraling into an apocalyptic harem catastrophe, and I didn't even want to know how many mythological figures were on that roster.
I took a deep, steadying breath and dropped my hands, meeting the gaze of the eyes watching me from the wings.
"Look," I said, my tone firming up. "I'll let you stick around. We can work together, pool our power, whatever you need to do to survive now that your Lostbelt is gone. But I am making one thing crystal clear right now: I'm not taking that throne. I'm not aiming to become the God of Christianity, or a god of anything else. I am going to stay exactly what I am. A human."
The angel was quiet for a long moment, the feathers of his crown rustling faintly against the frozen air. Finally, he bowed his head in a slow, elegant nod of acceptance.
"As you will it, my other self. So long as your soul endures, I shall serve as your divine shield."
"Good. Glad we cleared that up."
I turned my heel toward the frozen figures of Jeanne, Arthur, and Nobu, waiting for the temporal lock to break and get back to reality. But as I took a step, a sudden, desperate curiosity flared in my chest. I stopped, glancing back over my shoulder at the winged entity.
"Hey... one last question before we unfreeze everything." I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly. "In that future... did I end up sleeping with Barghest? Or... that female Gilgamesh from town?"
The eyes nestled within his snow-white wings crinkled into an unmistakable, knowing squint.
"Yeah. You did."
I couldn't help myself. If the floodgates of my future degenerated absurdity were already cracked wide open, I had to know the full extent of the damage.
"Wait, wait, don't unfreeze time yet," I blurted out, leaning in with shameless, burning curiosity. "What about Nobunaga? But, like... the mature version? The towering, red-haired Demon King of the Sixth Heaven with the crazy rack and the absolute empress energy? Do I... do I pull that off too?"
The eyes nestled within his feathered crown curved into an amused crescent.
"Yes. Her as well."
"YES!" I threw both fists into the air, practically jumping off the dead cemetery grass. A radiant, tearful beam of absolute triumph spread across my face. "I am a god among men! The Isekai God can eat his heart out! Hard work pays off, baby!"
"You also slept with her brother."
My arms froze mid-cheer.
Every single drop of joy, triumph, and vitality evaporated from my body in a fraction of a millisecond. The celebratory grin melted clean off my face, replaced by the hollow, soul-crushed gaze of a man staring directly into the abyss.
"...Who?" I asked, my voice completely devoid of life.
"Oda Nobukatsu," the angel replied smoothly, without a shred of hesitation. "Her devoted younger brother. You took him to bed as well. Quite passionately, if the records hold true."
The silence in the frozen graveyard was deafening.
I slowly dropped my arms to my sides. I stood there, staring at the winged abomination of my future self, feeling like a withered husk.
"I take it back," I whispered hoarsely, rubbing the bridge of my nose as my soul physically tried to leave my body. "Erase my memories. Prune my timeline. Throw me into the Sun. I don't want to live in this reality anymore."
A melodious, chiming sound echoed through the clearing. The angel wasn't just smiling beneath those white plumage wings—he had thrown his head back, laughing with pure, unrestrained delight at the sheer horror painted across my face. It was the most human, expressive thing he'd done since manifesting.
"Take heart, other self. Destiny has a rather wicked sense of humor," the angel chuckled, his laughter fading into a fond, gentle hum. "Our time here has expired."
He raised a pale, white-sleeved hand and snapped his fingers.
Snap.
The fabric of space shattered. The world violently lurched forward, time violently catching up to reality like a snapped rubber band. The frozen autumn leaves whipped through the air, the wind howled through the cypress trees.
My knees folded, completely giving out beneath me. The cemetery spun in wild, sickening spirals as the edges of my vision collapsed into pitch black.
"Master!" Jeanne's frantic, desperate scream pierced the rushing air as she lunged forward to catch me before I hit the stone.
As the darkness pulled me completely under and the temporal rift quietly mended behind my falling body, the six-winged entity dissolved into fading motes of divine, golden light. Beneath the crown of feathers, the cyan eyes watched me collapse into Jeanne's arms with a quiet, aching tenderness.
——
[??? Pov]
Feeling the familiar warmth i remember as a child being held i began feeling cozy as i settled for a nap.
'Glad to see you again... Dad.'
——
[(Author: have fun trying to guess the mother... Ehehehehehehehheh)]