Tanjo was slowly drifting through space, his body limp from the impact of whatever Imperium had launched at him and Yuso. He wanted to move and yell, but something besieged his mind and all of his motor functions. His majestic white wings could not even flap an inch, stuck in an unfurled state as he gradually spun through the new universe he had been pushed into.
The strongest being to ever exist had been slaughtered by Regashi, who continued to stand tall at the top of the food chain. Regashi had pretended to be captured by Imperium, acting belligerent and weak to play a cruel ruse on them all. The peace and comfort Tanjo and Yuso felt when standing before Imperium was a hoax, and Regashi enjoyed every second of tearing it away from them.
He made the omnipotent turn into nothing. From being above all to being above none.
*CRACK!*
The memory of Kaminari Nozomu's head being split open surged through Tanjo's head, brimming the teenager with anguish and melancholy. Old Man Nozomu was his father, and his life was whisked away with no care whatsoever. A kind man who only wanted the best for everyone was now dead because Tanjo was not strong enough to stop Regashi in time.
*CRUNCH!*
Another memory. Even though Tanjo had not been watching, he had heard the moment Regashi had ripped Reberu Manabu's spine out of her back, his heightened hearing picking up the instant her body had flopped to the ground lifelessly. Again, another innocent life was plucked from reality due to Tanjo's inability to be stronger.
*CHOMP!*
His mentor, Asami. She fought with all of her might, feeling an intense weight fall upon her as her closest friends were being mercilessly slaughtered; however, the emotion and power she felt thrumming within her did not matter due to Regashi monstrously biting her head off with one swift clamp of his jaw. The blue-haired woman who had assisted in bettering Tanjo's Aura Amalgamation was gone, just like his lightning-wielding dad.
*SQUELCH!*
Then there were some as young as him, who had merely aspired to live a good life and serve others as a career path: Class 1-AB. The hearts that were previously so full of determination and love had been viciously ripped out of their bodies as a result of mind control used by no one other than Regashi Ketsueki. Teenagers with typical abilities in their society, playing the roles of naive students, were compelled to confront an unnatural power because Tanjo failed to stop the monster using his elder brother's body.
'Mister?'
Mizuki's voice was greatly faded, but it rang through Tanjo's mind repeatedly. A small child who had experienced hardships for as long as he could remember.
It was now obvious what Imperium had done before the omnipotent silhouette's abrupt death. Imperium had not given Tanjo and Yuso a boost in power when propelling them into a different universe—the silhouette had reminded them of why they were fighting, providing them with the necessary motivation to keep going.
A mental image of the Abnormal Regashi Ketsueki surfaced in the teenager's mind, filling him with something passionate.
Then the real Abnormal Regashi Ketsueki could be seen hovering in Tanjo's face, a sadistic grin on the man's face.
"You awake?" Regashi queried with an eerie tone.
*WHOOSH!*
Without warning, Yuso swooped down from where he had been drifting in space and swung at Regashi, his right fist coated in bright pentagrams that were embedded into his skin and the red Aura Sense. He, too, had memories that overwhelmed and motivated him, meaning the Takuetsu bloodline was not over just yet.
"Die!" Yuso screamed, his knuckles ramming into Regashi's shoulder.
The punch had sent Regashi floating backward, enlarging the distance between him and the two rogues.
"Easy, Yu-Yu, I was just making sure my brother was awake!" Regashi chuckled with a toothy grin.
Yuso grunted, his Shirugeto whirling rampantly. Regashi was incredibly elusive, but it had to be possible to land some sort of attack on the man—it had to be. With such determination bubbling within him, the redhead stretched both of his arms outward and spun in a circle, his body glowing red for a brief moment.
*VRMM!*
As Regashi blinked, Yuso vanished from sight, teleporting away. When the man was going to speak up—*VRMM!*—Yuso reappeared in a flash of light, his left palm aimed directly at Regashi's face.
"Be torn away!"
*VRORSHHHH!*
A brilliant crimson light shined for a fraction of a millisecond before immense power had been discharged from Yuso's left palm, making Regashi's eyes widen slightly as his frame was swallowed by the blast. Despite there being no audible sound in space, Yuso's bold move had effectively torn through the fabric of the universe they currently resided in, utterly warping and erasing every inch of space in the attack's trajectory.
"Such improvement!" Regashi's jovial voice rang throughout the vastness of space, "Even Reiwa would have been torn apart by that! A twelfth-dimensional man!"
*KRSHH!*
Once again, Regashi was forced to evade an incoming attack as Tanjo soared through space at speeds far faster than light. Imbuing a four-phase Aura Amalgamation into his Disruption of Reality—the use of all four Aura Sense—the teenager hastily launched a barrage of punches toward the brown-haired man, his fists flickering in and out of visible existence.
'Since I happen to be missing, I just have to cover the directions I'm not hitting…' Tanjo thought to himself, narrowing his eyes.
*KRSHH!*
Clones of Tanjo made up by the Disruption of Reality appeared around Regashi, proceeding to throw punches of their own to make up for the boy's fruitless strikes.
"Damn!" Regashi hollered excitedly.
*PUFF!*
Regashi instantaneously turned into a cloud of smoke, blinding Tanjo and his clones as the man ostensibly made his getaway.
"Black hole!"
*HOOSH!*
*SMACK!*
As the smoke cleared, Regashi struck Tanjo on the side of the head with a black hole he had created with his right palm, knocking the teenager billions of kilometers away, with the black hole following. After Tanjo was taken away far enough, the black hole grew tremendously, devouring everything in its part of the universe.
"Always gets 'em!" Regashi laughed.
Suddenly, a winged redhead soared at him.
"Hold still!" Yuso returned with a shout, launching a kick at the man.
Swiftly, Regashi clutched onto the redhead's leg and pulled him closer. In the blink of an eye—*SPURT!*—Yuso's leg had been sliced off by the brown-haired man's other hand, leading to droplets of blood dripping into space and floating away.
*SMACK!*
Using Yuso's severed leg, Regashi slapped the redhead across the face and sent him flying backward.
"Just like your grandfather! Flawless in everything, up until you face me." Regashi claimed loudly, gazing at Yuso intently. "You're also lucky you don't have two dragons hunting you down—!"
*BLIP!*
Once again, after using the Disruption of Reality to teleport, Tanjo's knuckles had been lodged in Regashi's face, this time striking the man in the cheekbone. Immediately, the blue rifts transferred from Tanjo's fist to Regashi's body, arcing up and down his frame.
*KRSHH!*
The instant Regashi was knocked back by the punch, his jaw was torn off by the sheer force that Tanjo had exhausted, his body proceeding to twirl through space limply.
"Don't let him recover!" Tanjo shouted vehemently.
Both Tanjo and Yuso surged toward Regashi while he was still undergoing the effects of the sudden punch to the face, wanting nothing more than to keep the brown-haired menace down for the rest of the fight.
Unfortunately, such a reality was difficult to manifest.
*THWACK!*
Regashi grabbed his jaw and reattached it with one hand while he used his other one to violently toss Yuso's severed leg at Tanjo, momentarily shoving the teenager away and preventing him from landing any more potentially devastating blows.
"Almost—!" Regashi tried to admonish them, shifting his body and reaching for Yuso.
*SHRRM!*
Before Regashi's free hand could grab Yuso, a crimson-red pentagram materialized, swallowing the man's hand and redirecting it to face horizontally in front of the redhead—*SLICE!*—which, in turn, allowed him to slice Regashi's arm off.
With an annoyed grunt, Regashi removed the hand fixing his jaw and grew claws on the end of his remaining fingers, raising them to slash at Yuso.
*CLINK!*
Unexpectedly, crimson chains sprang from the pentagram in which Regashi had sliced his arm stuck inside of, holding the man rigid while Yuso opened both of his hands, causing the pentagrams embedded in his palms to become hot and bright.
*VRORSHHHH!*
Subsequently, Regashi sat through the destructive blast that was expelled from Yuso's palm, similar to the one that Yuso had attempted to use before but missed.
Every square inch around Regashi had been encompassed by the blast, causing every planet, every solar system, and every galaxy to be erased. Yuso's pentagrams were no longer similar to black holes but were capable of swallowing the fabric of any reality they inhabited. The ability to transport material from one location to another had been upgraded to rearranging parts of the cosmos, ultimately warping everything, including the Abnormal Regashi Ketsueki.
Tanjo had to shield himself with his Disruption of Reality, creating a bubble around his frame. Although dangerous, they could not risk letting Regashi retaliate.
"Where is he?" Tanjo queried, squinting his eyes as he searched through the bright light of his partner's attack.
After a few moments of searching, only a hand floating through the distorted universe could be seen, with the rest of the body completely obliterated. Allowing his bubble of protection to shrink, Tanjo fluttered his white wings and propelled himself toward the hand, scrutinizing it.
"Is he dead?" Yuso questioned, his Shirugeto eyes glued to the body part.
Tanjo, with an anxious look in his eyes, reached out to touch the hand. "I don't know what he looks like when he's dead… He always comes back after everything."
The hand was warm from the blast, sitting loosely in Tanjo's palm. Oddly, blood was not trickling out of the severed hand, but it could have been due to Yuso's attack practically cauterizing it from the extreme heat.
"Are you going to destroy it?" Yuso asked, floating closer.
Internally, Tanjo was torn. If only Nyx had not been so cruel, there could have been an infinitely better world—a place where crime and brutality were prohibited. Just a little understanding would have spared so much of the bloodshed that occurred.
The boy squeezed the severed hand tightly.
Then it twitched.
"Yuso!" Tanjo hollered, watching the hand pick itself up using its fingers.
*FLICK!*
Leaping from Tanjo's palm, the severed hand hurriedly flicked the boy in the nose, distancing itself from him. Yuso, who witnessed the events, had his Shirugeto eyes swirling dangerously as he prepared to strike the hand down permanently.
Flesh and bones quickly formed from the severed end of the hand, presenting a greatly disheveled Regashi when his body was fully recovered. His cloak and undershirt were missing, while his pants were tattered.
"Sorry, Yu-Yu, but one of us has to go." Regashi declared, meeting the redhead's gaze.
With an angered grunt, the pentagrams scattered across Yuso's body became brilliantly illuminated, attempting to muster the energy to recreate the previous blast that heavily damaged Regashi.
*SQUELCH!*
Yuso's magic was cut short as he no longer felt his bottom half. In an instant, Regashi managed to appear behind the redhead and cleave through the middle of his torso with one precise motion, draining the life from the youngest Takuetsu's body.
"It was fun, but I need Tanjo to be pretty pissed off. Nothing personal." Regashi commented, watching Yuso drift away.
Speaking of Tanjo, the teenager watched as his partner was cut in half, healing his broken nose after being flicked by Regashi's once-severed hand. Tremors rolled through the boy's body as the realization swept across his mind.
"Yuso!" Tanjo screamed, flapping his wings urgently.
Could Tanjo prevent Yuso's death? The Disruption of Reality had to be capable of such. Death is merely a concept in reality, so it had to be a viable option. It had not taken long for Tanjo to reach Yuso, gripping the redhead by his shoulders to keep him still.
"Hold on, Yuso, you'll be fine!"
*KRSHH!*
Despite pouring a monumental amount of power into Yuso's body, nothing had happened. He was not healing.
"Yuso!" Tanjo cried, shaking his partner repeatedly.
Gradually, Yuso's eyes began to dim, the crimson-red pentagrams that formed in his pupils fading away and being replaced by two different colors: blue and green. His heterochromatic eyes had finally returned, but only moments before his death.
Why did there have to be such evil that caused the redhead's natural look to be veiled for most of his life?
"Tanjo… he's not going to let me come back from this." Yuso muttered, his voice strained.
The boy grit his teeth. "I'll think of the proper command for the Disruption of Reality to heal you! Just give me a minute—!"
*PUNCH!*
Regashi's fist swooped in and collided with Tanjo's cheek, removing the boy from Yuso's upper body.
"You dropped your guard, Brother! If I'm able to touch you without being hurt, that means you stopped thinking about hurting me!" The brown-haired menace laughed sadistically.
Tanjo grasped his face as his body floated back a few kilometers, looking down. He was not going to be able to save Yuso—not when Regashi was still breathing down his neck. Furthermore, It was obvious that Regashi had Yuso's body under some type of hold, preventing any basic forms of healing from taking place.
Yuso was gone.
The Disruption of Reality around Tanjo's body became unstable, forming crooked streams instead of more refined and straightened rifts. Tanjo knew he had to keep his calm, but it was immensely difficult with the main perpetrator behind nearly every mishap hovering right before his very eyes.
"It's just us, Brother! No distractions!" Regashi stated, throwing his arms up.
Silently, Tanjo clenched his fists, attempting to sedate his nerves. Shakily, the boy lifted his head, his blue eyes glowering at Regashi.
*BRRMM!*
Tanjo's fists were blanketed in each of the four Aura Sense.
"...This will be your last fight, Nyx."
XXX
Heyo! Yuso is, unfortunately, dead! I hope you've realized that there hasn't only been one main character, but three! Tanjo, Yuso, AND Regashi. We have witnessed them both gradually grow or emerge throughout the story, watching their lives become unraveled as they were the center of almost every conflict! What will happen now? Stay tuned for more!
Have a Great Day!
Peace - Cr1ticalz_