Revenge is burning hot, a blazing blade of devastation. It fills men with righteous fury and spurs crusades against those that have wronged them. Those they think have wronged them. Revenge is a dangerous game. I should know, for I played it. And I won. To this day, I wonder if it would have been better if I lost. It should have been impossible. Nero was a being with enough power to ascend a million times over. But when I raged, even the endless ocean of order could not extinguish me. I burned and I burned. And when I finally calmed down, all that was left was ashes. And a new enemy. The cycle never ends.
Kyoko screamed, the sound rippling through the world around him, matter shying back in the face of his despair. Merlin, laying in the corner, stirred briefly at the wave of all encompassing emotion. Leo’s body didn’t budge.
Tears began to stream down Kyoko’s face, as he looked at the battered form of his father, covered in blood and spit. He traced the shape of Leo’s graceful jaw, a mirror to his own now that he had finally reached manhood. Leo’s hair, even in death, was black as the void, an absolute mirror to Kyoko's brilliant gold. Kyoko’s sobs increased in intensity as he realized that his father would never again gaze at him with those azure eyes they both shared. He tried not to look at the gaping hole in Leo's chest, but it drew his gaze like a moth to the flame. His sobbing became silent as it passed that invisible threshold of grief. That threshold where sound no longer served to express its power.
He cursed his slowness. If he had only been there an hour earlier…
It had taken four emperor class inquisitors to pin down Leo an Erduk, and in the end they had been unable to safely capture him. So they had gone with the second best option. They had killed him, plunging an iron covered arm straight into his heart and ripping the life right out of him.
By the time Kyoko had managed to find his father, it was too late. All that was left was the body. Kyoko curled into a ball next to his father, shaking softly. Any mortal that found themselves within a hundred feet of him would find their souls ripped out of their bodies, unable to stand in the face of the pseudo-divine sorrow.
Kyoko always was an emotional child, just like HER.
I watched as he cried, and examined the waves of emotion radiating off of him. They were pure in a way I hadn't seen since HER, and they warped the world in the image of his sorrow. The world around him became dull as all of the color seemed to be leached out of it, giving way to that transcendent emotion.
Kyoko thought about his father, the strength that had guided him and the love that had nurtured him. In the deepest part of him, a pressure began to build a pressure he had been suppressing.
He raised his head and looked at Merlin's prone form. He had been clinging to that shred of hope that Merlin had preserved himself. But there is only so much grief a man can take before further grief becomes unnoticeable. In that ocean of grief, Kyoko finally admitted that Merlin had made no progress over the past decade.
That pressure built further.
Kyoko opened the floodgates, basking in the weight of every tragedy he had pushed away, every truth he had denied. Some might have called it grief wrought delusion.
But Kyoko called it truth, and to him, it was.
The world, now grayscale, darkened, the last hint of white disappearing like mist on a sunny day. In the void, the pressure built and built.
Why had all this happened? Why? Who?! Who had DONE THIS?!
The empire.
Kyoko hesitated. Who?
THE EMPIRE!
That was all that was needed. The void ignited bringing light and purpose back to a dark world. But the light was crimson, the color of fresh blood, and it was furious.
They needed to pay for what they had taken from him.
But not the inquisitors, no those pawns were nothing. The only way to truly avenge his father was to go for the root.
To kill the emperor.
Kyoko rose to his feet, the world shying back at his crimson glow, and began to walk with single minded focus.
The Final Empire's end was upon it.
—------------------------------
The skies above Earth, the fabled homeworld flashed crimson as a presence of endless rage descended upon them. Kyoko stepped off the teleporters, the crowds around him collapsing from his presence. Even in the storm his presence kicked up his movements were absolutely controlled, not a hair out of line.
He was the grim reaper in a sea of rage, a specter of silence in a world of fury.
Step by step he advanced.
The wide streets, separated from the skyscraping monstrosities most cities had become, seemed to widen in his presence, struggling to contain something so vast. The short one and two story buildings, equipped with incredibly advanced technology, shied away. The people cowered, struggling to get out of his way.
Finally, he arrived in front of Araxta, Nero’s seat of power, the famed floating castle. When no escort descended to show him to the gates, he took to the air, forcing reality to bend to his whims and striding on it as if it were solid ground. He knocked on the azure gates, carved in the relief of ancient dragons, maintained mostly for show, with tremendous force, sending clanging echoes ringing through the castle.
CLANG!
CLANG!
The gates swung open silently, and Kyoko, not questioning his purpose, advanced without hesitation. His presence billowed out, the harbinger of chaos, but the denizens of the castle didn't flinch back, protected by a greater power as they were. They merely looked on with curiosity as he passed, confident in their emperor. His surroundings were a dense cluster of metallic buildings, finished with futuristic edges and flashing lights. Besides being known for its floating, Araxta, despite its relatively small size, was one of the most advanced cities in existence, home of the universes’ greatest.
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Kyoko advanced relentlessly for the greatest concentration of power he had ever sensed, one even greater than his own. But he was furious. And he would let something as arbitrary as reality stop him.
He had declared the emperor would die.
So he would.
Simple.
He threw the doors to the throne room open with a tremendous bang revealing the simple hall. It was white, with walls that seemed to glow, devoid of anything except a simple wooden throne at the end. It reminded him of the room he had found Merlin in so long ago.
The thought flared his rage higher and blazing as he never had before he focused his full attention on the man sitting in the wooden throne.
Eyes of the deepest oceans met eyes of the endless skies. Kyoko's rage met Nero’s calm and the world seemed to break.
The world shook as two beings that never should have existed matched their might against each other. For a second, it seemed like the world would shake itself to pieces.
Then, Nero let out a sigh, and ended the confrontation, sharply cutting it off.
“So you are the real deal. Fascinating. I thought myself the only one.” —he got to his feet, silver crown gleaming— “why are you so angry?”
Kyoko's face twisted, “You killed my family!”
“The rebels? They deserved what was coming to them.”
“HOW D-”
“Quiet. Look at the world around you. There is peace. There is order. What do you think would happen if that order crumbled?”
Kyoko opened his mouth angrily, but Nero cut him off with a raised hand.
“War. And death. A billion children denied a billion parents. Death on a scale you couldn't fathom. Should I have let it happen?”
Kyoko snorted, “Don’t pretend you care!”
“I do. They are my children. If I must kill one to save the rest, I will not hesitate. Order will rule, and you must consider the consequence of destroying that order.”
Nero struck Kyoko with waves of essence to accompany his words, showing Kyoko war and death on a scale beyond mortal comprehension. He showed him true order, its majestic power. He showed him the world as he saw it.
Nero struck with the full force of his path and will, but not on a physical level. He tried to corrupt Kyoko's path, making it subordinate to himself. He spoke with such conviction that the world around him obeyed his words, reversing entropy on a localized scale to obey his commands.
On any other being, it would have worked, shattering their paths and making them a mere subordinate of Nero.
But Kyoko had HER purity and that purity was defined by one thing. Pure, unwavering focus. When they committed to a path, nothing could stop them.
Kyoko had vowed the emperor would die.
So he would.
Kyoko didn’t reply, merely returned the favor. He stepped forward and struck Nero with the force of his truth. A churning maelstrom of Passion. Love, hate, sorrow, rage, joy, despair struck Nero with the full force of a collapsing star.
Nero, the Final Emperor, Apostate of Order, took a half-step back in shock. He looked back at Kyoko, looking vaguely confused.
“That is… chaos. You are chaos.”
“And I will tear your empire to the ground!”
Nero matched him, an aura of deep blue appearing around him, forcing away the crimson one. “Chaos has no place in my kingdom. Begone.”
For a second, the world held its breath. Then, in a thunderous exhale, it began.
Nero, wove a thousand laws into existence, reinforcing the chamber around them while simultaneously augmenting himself and suppressing Kyoko. He wielded the whole world as his weapon, leveraging it to devastating effect.
Kyoko only had his Passion, but somehow, impossibly, it was enough.
With a primal roar, he shattered the laws binding him and launched himself forward like a missile. Nero danced around his strike, flowing like a stream, calm as ever. But if one looked in his eyes at that moment, they would see a faint hint of surprise.
Then, his blues eyes seemed to deepen as he drew upon more of his power. The deep blue light slowly began to overtake the crimson domain, but Kyoko didn't care. He had one goal and one goal only.
Again and again he launched himself at Nero, so fast the space around him cracked ominously, striking in blindingly complex patterns, seemingly based off of nothing. Nero danced as he always had, flowing like water and striking like a raging river. But even he was having problems keeping up with Kyoko’s seemingly random attacks.
Even he couldn't find patterns on the Passion filled attacks of one who had lost everything.
However, it must be mentioned, that even as he fought Kyoko, Nero maintained his universal aura and wove a true edict to bind Kyoko, one tuned especially for him. It was a blindingly potent display of skill and power.
Yet Kyoko’s Passion was the thing that truly captivated me. Ever since he was a young child, he had been forced to restrain himself out of fear of hurting those around him. Yet at that moment… he was free. Free to fight. Free to be.
I saw it in his eyes. Beyond that rage. Beyond the pain. He shone. And he loved it.
But all good things must come to an end. For all of Kyoko’s potential, all his power, he was simply too young, too inexperienced to match up against a monster like Nero.
Slowly, the tide began to turn as even Kyoko chaos failed to slow Nero’s gaze.
In the end, it was the crown that spelled Kyoko’s doom. He had no divine artifact of his own, and Nero’s had grown mighty indeed over the years.
The crown shone with brilliant silver light, like a star being born. The only thing visible through its light were a pair of deep blue orbs, calm and imperious.
“Bind” Nero commanded in the voice of divinity, and the world, bolstered by the newly finished edict, rushed to do his bidding.
The air around Kyoko grew heavy as every muscle in his body was sealed and severed from his mind. Even the stands of fate seemed to diverge in order to bind him, trapping him in infinite possibilities. His mind began to go dark as the edict sealed his thoughts, but Kyoko managed to summon his Passion to stay aware.
It was a strange sight. One was bound and the other free. Yet it felt like the opposite, Kyoko’s struggle against his bonds contrasting Nero’s unnatural stillness, even in his dance.
Nero was silent as he mustered power for the final blow, dancing in predetermined patterns, drawing power from his path to create a death edict. There was no escaping this blow, but Kyoko tried anyway.
Instead of mustering more power, he condescend the power he had, in the way only SHE could have. He set a new goal, escaped this edict, and poured everything he had into it.
The working he created was stable and chaotic, a raw mess of emotion and focus, but it was oddly fitting for the task on hand. Then he condensed it further, forgetting even the goal of escaping. This was an expression of his path, of him. Nothing more.
It was.
“Die” Nero commanded.
So when Nero struck him with the edict of death, Kyoko erupted.
Waves of Passion and pure LIFE poured off of him, shredding the edict to nothing and rippling throughout the fabric of the universe before Nero could stop it. As the echoes of transcendent passion and life, the echoes of chaos, reached the citizens of the Final Empire, they began to cheer, and cry, and fight, and love.
Nero reacted instantly, flaring his aura to its fullest capacity, but life was not so easily ended. Passion was not so easily snuffed out. Riots broke out on some planets, festivals on others as chaos invaded the Final Empire.
Nero immediately started intervening, weaving new laws to enforce his empire while summoning a full council of governors.
In his desperation, he didn't notice Kyoko using his last moment of consciousness to launch himself in the air, binding his destination to a familiar sensation. One that felt like his father.
Kyoko’s last thought was rage at his failure.