The journey to the cemetery had been made in near silence, the ruined landscape of Tokyo blurring past the windows of a nondescript car Merus had somehow procured. The magnitude of the previous night, the deaths, the impossible fight, his own repeated mutilation and regeneration, pressed down on Shinji, a suffocating blanket. The raw, hypersensitive skin of his torso itched beneath his borrowed clothes, a constant, grotesque reminder.
It was only when they stood amidst the quiet chaos of early morning preparations at the funeral home, surrounded by the cloying scent of flowers and the hushed, awkward sympathy of strangers, that Shinji finally broke the silence that wasn't silence at all, but filled with the roaring in his own head.
"Well," Shinji muttered, staring blankly at a framed photo of his aunt and Kiyomi laughing on a beach, a lifetime ago. "This will be just the beginning." The words tasted like ash.
Merus, standing beside him like an azure sentinel, inclined his head slightly. "The beginning of what?" Shinji asked, the question laced with a bitterness that surprised even him.
Merus turned, his glacial eyes holding Shinji's with an intensity that made the mundane funeral parlor walls seem to recede. "You are the Trascender, Shinji." The title hung in the air, charged with impossible weight. "A being prophesied, whispered of, awaited across the vastness of the Multiverse for… years." The timescale was meaningless, monstrous. "You are said to possess… an anonymous potential. A power without defined limits. The potential to dominate the entirety of creation."
A hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up in Shinji's throat. *Rule?*. He couldn't rule his own grief. "It looks like you are talking with the wrong person currently" he said, his voice tight. "I'm just… me. A guy who failed to protect his family."
"No," Merus stated, the single syllable absolute, brooking no argument. "I'm talking totally to the right person." He gestured subtly towards Shinji's abdomen, hidden beneath the shirt. "You literally survived being cut in half. Twice. By a Swordwrath Monarch's blade, imbued with entropy and malice. That wasn't luck, Shinji. That was your first passive ability manifesting. The bedrock of your nature: Immortality. True, unassailable existence. Death cannot claim you."
The confirmation, spoken so bluntly amidst the scent of lilies and death, was jarring. Shinji remembered the sensation; not just the horrific pain, but the wrongness of it, the feeling of being forcibly stitched back together by an unseen, hungry force within him. He hadn't died. He'd been… denied. "That's really complicated and all," Shinji managed, the numbness fighting the rising tide of terror and awe, "but I will believe you for now." It was easier than fighting the evidence of his own mangled, yet whole, body.
Merus's brow furrowed, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his ageless features. "I don't get how you believed me so easily. I anticipated resistance. Denial. I thought I'd need to explain, demonstrate, convince you a dozen times over. Human minds… they are fragile constructs, easily shattered by truths that challenge their perceived reality."
Shinji met his gaze. "It's because it's all quite logical." He paused, recalling years of a subtle, unsettling presence. "I've been sensing… something. An entity. Following me. Watching. Since I was fourteen. It was… cold. Ancient. Powerful." He locked eyes with the God. "It was you, right"
"Precisely," Merus confirmed, no hint of apology. "I've been your unseen guardian since your first breath. Monitoring. Protecting from shadows you never perceived. But you… you had enough nascent spiritual energy, even at fourteen, to feel the echo of my presence. A flicker of the Trascender's potential awakening."
*Guardian*. The word rang hollow when his family lay in coffins nearby. "So," Shinji pressed, clinging to the analytical thread, "my ability is just… Immortality? I just… can't die?" The concept was horrifying in its implications. An eternity of what? Running? Grieving?
"Not quite," Merus said. "Immortality is your foundation. But you have layers, Shinji, depths of power yet submerged. You possess a second passive ability, intertwined with the first: Voidheart Surge." He leaned slightly closer, his voice lowering. "Every time you brush against true death, every time your existence is pushed to the absolute brink… you don't just survive. You evolve. You grow stronger. More resilient. More attuned to the potential within you." Merus's gaze was piercing. "You have stood on that brink twice now. Once when Kokuto bisected you initially, once when the collateral energy cut you apart again. You should be… significantly stronger than you were yesterday. Stronger than when you faced those human aggressors near your university."
A chill that had nothing to do with the funeral parlor's air conditioning went down Shinji's spine. "You were watching me?" The thought of Merus observing his entire life, the mundane moments, the fights, the private grief… it felt like a violation.
"Always," Merus stated simply, without inflection. "My duty was to observe and protect the Trascender. Until intervention became necessary."
Shinji absorbed this, the pieces clicking with terrible clarity. His sudden speed against the delinquents, the effortless power in his strikes… had that been Voidheart Surge's first subtle effect before the cataclysm? "I see," he murmured, the numbness returning as a defense. "So I already have those two abilities. They sound… quite amazing." Amazing and terrifying. Tools for a destiny he never chose.
"You have more," Merus corrected. "You unlocked a third ability yesterday. Triggered by trauma, by the violent activation of your core. Act 1: Instant Regeneration." He pointed again to Shinji's torso. "As long as you retain consciousness, as long as your will to exist holds, your body will repair itself. Rapidly. Efficiently. The grievous wound Kokuto inflicted in your home… the one that should have spilled your organs onto the floor… it knitted itself closed within minutes. Didn't you notice?"
Shinji remembered the strange pulling sensation, the warmth flooding the injury site amidst the shock and horror, the way the blinding pain had receded faster than seemed possible. He'd attributed it to adrenaline, to shock. "Oh," he breathed, the realization cold. "So that was it." His body wasn't just his own anymore. It was a machine, programmed by cosmic forces he didn't understand.
The practical question surfaced, sharp and urgent. "So… why? Why are they going after me? Why kill…?" He couldn't say their names. Not here.
"Saganbo," Merus said, the name a dark invocation. "The God of Destruction. He commands it. He sees your potential not as a marvel, but as the ultimate threat. A variable he cannot control. He sent the Monarchs; Kokuto was merely one. They are his elite cadre, Shinji. Each one a sovereign force, capable of subjugating or obliterating an entire universe on Saganbo's command. And Saganbo himself…" Merus's voice grew graver, "…stands above them. A force of annihilation made manifest."
The scale of the enemy was staggering. Universe-destroyers hunting him. "That's crazy," Shinji whispered, the word inadequate. He turned fully to Merus, the question burning: "However, who are you, precisely? Why protect me?"
Merus drew himself up, an unconscious mantle of power settling around him, making the fluorescent lights flicker. "I am Merus. The God of Creation. The fundamental counterpart to Saganbo's Destruction. Where he unravels, I weave. Where he ends, I begin. I stand on your side, Shinji Kazuhiko. I will protect you." There was a solemn vow in his words, etched in cosmic certainty.
Relief warred with a new kind of pressure. A God on his side! "Oh, I see," Shinji said, a flicker of hope igniting. "If you're his counterpart, his equal… then you can fight him! You can stop the Monarchs! You can…"
Merus looked away as he hesitated and appeared to be thinking of something. The silence stretched, thick and heavy, broken only by the muffled sounds of funeral preparations in another room. When he spoke again, his voice was low, stripped of its earlier certainty, laced with a weariness that seemed older than stars. "...The thing is…" He met Shinji's eyes, and for the first time, Shinji saw not invincibility, but profound limitation. "I'm way weaker than Saganbo." He held up a hand, forestalling Shinji's disbelief. "And as you saw," he gestured vaguely, encompassing the memory of the shattered city, the desperate fight, "I barely handled one Monarch sent to assess and bait me. Kokuto was holding back, Shinji. Testing. If he had fought with full intent to kill me from the outset…" He left the grim possibility hanging.
*It can't be*. The thought was instinctive. *The God of Creation, admitting weakness?* The foundation of Shinji's newfound, fragile hope trembled.
"However," Merus continued, forcing conviction into his tone, "I'll do all I can to shield you. With every fragment of power I possess. And Saganbo… he won't come himself. Not yet. Hunting the Trascender personally? Beneath him. We have time. Not much, but some."
*Time. To do what?* Shinji grasped the lifeline. "How? How do I unlock the rest? The other Acts? The other abilities you mentioned?" If he had power, real power, maybe he could fight back. Protect others. Avenge.
Merus shook his head slowly. "That's a question even I cannot fully answer. Your potential is unique, unprecedented. The triggers… they are deeply personal. Emotional. Psychological. Tied to your experiences, your will, your very soul." He looked pointedly at Shinji's torso. "Your Regeneration… Act 1… it ignited in the crucible of profound loss, of witnessing the slaughter of those you loved. The shock, the rage, the desperate need to survive to defy the destruction… that was its catalyst. You must discover the paths to your other abilities yourself. Through trial. Through adversity. Through understanding who you are becoming."
Shinji closed his eyes. The image of his aunt falling, Kiyomi's cry cut short, flashed behind his lids. The searing pain, then the unnatural warmth flooding his gut. The trigger. Bought with their blood. "I see," he said, his voice thick. The acceptance wasn't easy; it was a stone settling in his stomach. He opened his eyes, and the grief was still there, but now it was molten, channeled. "I'll avenge them." The words were quiet, but carried the weight of a vow. "By killing Saganbo."
Merus placed a hand on his shoulder again. "That's the spirit, Shinji. A necessary fire. But…" His grip tightened slightly. "…you probably can't go for him now."
"But why?" Shinji demanded, the fire flaring. "If I have this potential…"
"Because you are too weak," Merus stated bluntly, no cruelty in it, only hard truth. "You are likely the strongest purely biological human alive now, amplified by your passive. But against a Monarch? Against Saganbo? You are less than an insect, And I mean significantly so. You are not even worth the effort of swatting in direct combat." He paused, his expression grave. "And I forgot to mention the core vulnerability. Your Trascender power… it isn't just in you. It is you, anchored to a core deep within your soul. It's the source, the wellspring. If that core is shattered… by a force capable of reaching it… every ability, every shred of your potential, vanishes. You become mortal. Fragile. Terminally so."
The revelation was a bucket of ice water. Immortality, but with an off switch. His power, his only weapon, his only shield, could be ripped away. "I should get stronger then," Shinji said, the resolve hardening into something colder, sharper. "Fast. Without getting…" He touched his stomach. "…injured ?" Relying on near-death experiences was a horrific growth strategy.
"Focus," Merus urged, his voice low and intense. "Focus on unlocking the rest of your abilities. Understand your nature. Immortality makes you hard to kill, Shinji, but it does not make you invulnerable to suffering. They can capture you. They can imprison you. They can torture you for millennia, trying to break you, to control you, to use you." He leaned closer, his glacial eyes boring into Shinji's, radiating absolute dread. "And I am telling you, with the certainty of a God who has seen the depths of Saganbo's ambition… if he captures you, if he subverts the Trascender's power to his will… it will not only be your end. It will be the end of everything. Every universe. Every galaxy. Every flicker of life. The final, absolute victory of Entropy."
The pronouncement echoed in the sterile silence of the funeral home, a chilling counterpoint to the scent of flowers and the distant murmur of mourners. The weight of existence itself settled onto Shinji's shoulders, heavier than grief, colder than the grave. His journey hadn't just begun. He was standing on the precipice, and the fate of all reality trembled in the balance. Planet Suchumus wasn't just a hiding place; it was his first, desperate trench in a war for everything.
The silence after apocalypse was a physical weight. Shinji Kazuhiko stood on rain-slicked grass, the scent of wet earth and funeral lilies thick in the chilled air. Two fresh mounds of earth lay stark against the manicured green of the cemetery. His aunt. Kiyomi. The only family he had left, now gone, murdered as fuel for a power he never wanted. The small gathering; a handful of neighbors; university staff; Kiyomi's bewildered school friends; felt like actors on a stage he no longer belonged to. Their murmured condolences were distant buzzes, their pitying glances like insects crawling on his raw skin. He felt detached, encased in a shell of numbness that only cracked to let in shards of pure, incinerating rage.
*Damn it.* The words were a silent snarl in his mind, echoing the hollow ache in his chest. He clenched his fists, the phantom sensation of Kiyomi's high ponytail slipping through his fingers replaced by the chilling memory of Kokuto's blade.
Merus stood beside him, a statue of cerulean stillness. His pearlescent suit was immaculate again, the wounds from the battle hidden, but an aura of profound weariness clung to him, deeper than physical fatigue. He didn't blend in; he was a discordant note of cosmic power in the mundane grief of a Tokyo cemetery. His glacial eyes scanned not the mourners, but the horizon, the sky, as if expecting annihilation to descend anew.
As the last mourner drifted away, leaving them alone with the raw earth and the drumming rain, Shinji finally spoke, his voice rough, scraped raw by unvoiced screams. "Staying on Earth…" He didn't finish. The implication hung heavy: *…will get more people killed. Like them.*
Merus turned his ancient gaze on Shinji. "It will bring harm to this planet. More victims will fall, caught in a conflict they cannot comprehend." He paused, the weight of millennia in his sigh. "I cannot leave you here, Shinji. But hiding… hiding from Saganbo's gaze, from Amado's sight… may be impossible."
A spark of Shinji's analytical mind pierced the grief. "How can they find me? Among all the planets, all the galaxies… it should be like finding one specific grain of sand on a beach stretching to infinity."
A humorless, almost admiring, glint flickered in Merus's icy eyes. "Amado. Saganbo's servant. His knowledge… it borders on the omniscient. He perceives the threads of existence across the multiverse. Not infinite, perhaps, but vast enough to make any hiding place precarious. A mind like his, allied with Saganbo's power… is a weapon beyond comprehension. He is the architect of their hunt."
Shinji stared at the graves, then out at the rain-shrouded city skyline. "So… we go somewhere dead? A planet with no life? Nothing for them to destroy, no one to hurt?"
Merus was silent for a long moment, as if listening to cosmic frequencies Shinji couldn't perceive. "Not dead. Protected. There is a place… In this Universe, the 12th Galaxy, the 9th Planet. Planet Suchumus. A world shielded by a unique cosmic phenomenon. A magnetism field, ancient and potent, woven into its very core and atmosphere. It resonates at a frequency… opposed to the essence of divine beings. For a God to set foot upon it…" He paused, choosing his words carefully. "…would be akin to forcing a magnet's north pole onto another north pole with the force of a supernova. Catastrophic self-annihilation."
Shinji's brow furrowed. "This Universe? Are you saying… there are more?"
Merus nodded, a gesture conveying the immensity of creation. "Three thousand, nine hundred, and twenty-six confirmed universes. Each a vast tapestry. An average of twenty galaxies per universe, Shinji. And within each galaxy… an average of four hundred planets bearing life, or the potential for it. The cosmos you knew… is but a single room in an endless mansion."
The scale was paralyzing. Shinji tried to grasp it; billions upon billions of stars, countless worlds, entire realities existing alongside his own shattered one. It dwarfed his grief, his rage, making them feel insignificant and yet, paradoxically, the focal point of it all. "And this magnetism… it would stop Saganbo? But…" His eyes narrowed, landing on Merus's blue skin. "Wouldn't it stop you too? You're a God."
"Yes," Merus admitted without hesitation. "I cannot tread upon Suchumus. The field would tear me apart at the fundamental level. But its prohibition extends to Saganbo as well. He cannot enter. He cannot send Amado." A shadow crossed his features. "However… the shield is specific to total, perfect divinity."
Shinji's blood ran cold. "The Monarchs. Like Kokuto. They're not Gods?"
"They are ascended mortals, beings of immense power granted by Saganbo, but their core essence is not divine. They are… constructs of will and amplified energy. The field of Suchumus would not repel them. Not immediately. It might weaken them, make their presence uncomfortable, even detectable, but it would not destroy them. Kokuto could enter."
"Then how is it safe?!" Shinji exploded, the numbness shattering. "If that monster can just walk in?!"
"Amado," Merus emphasized. "Amado is considered divine, a being of pure knowledge and perception aligned with Saganbo's destructive core. He cannot pierce the field's interference. Once a Monarch enters Suchumus, they are effectively cut off from Amado's guiding sight. They become… isolated hunters in a very large forest. The planet is immense, Shinji. Three times the size of Earth. Dense, varied ecosystems, towering mountain ranges, labyrinthine cave networks, vast, irradiated deserts left by ancient wars. Hiding is feasible. Training," Merus added, his gaze intent, "is essential. And you won't be entirely alone."
"The inhabitants? You mentioned… Acrosians?"
"Warriors," Merus confirmed. "A species forged by a harsh world and shielded from direct divine interference. Their culture revolves around strength, honor, and survival. They are fiercely territorial, deeply suspicious of outsiders… but they possess a rigid code. Once trust is earned, it is unbreakable. They are not 'friendly' by Earth standards, not initially. But they are predictable. And crucially, they are not pawns of Saganbo. They value their independence above all. They are… one hundred percent friendlier than Earthlings to those who prove worthy and respect their sovereignty." He amended Shinji's hopeful simplification with grim reality.
Shinji looked back at the graves. The rain plastered his yellow and green hair to his forehead, mixing with tears he hadn't realized were falling. Hiding. Running. Leaving Earth, leaving the only home he'd ever known, leaving the graves of his family untended. The thought was a fresh wound. But the image of Kokuto's blade, the memory of his aunt's cry, Kiyomi's terrified eyes… the vision of another city crumbling because of him…
He took a shuddering breath, the cold air sharp in his lungs. "I see." The words were flat, heavy with resignation and the dawning weight of cosmic exile.
Merus placed a hand on Shinji's shoulder. The touch was cool, not human-warm, but it held a steadying firmness. "So then, Shinji Kazuhiko, Trascender… should we get going? The longer we linger, the higher the risk Amado pinpoints this moment."
Shinji closed his eyes for a second, imprinting the sight of the graves, the smell of the rain and the lilies, the distant skyline of a city already scarred by his existence. He opened them, meeting Merus's ancient gaze. There was no fear in his deep blue eyes now, only a hardened resolve forged in grief and fury. "I guess so." He squared his shoulders, the movement feeling alien, like wearing armor too heavy for his frame. "I'm ready. Are you?"
A ghost of something resembling approval, or perhaps relief, touched Merus's lips. "Totally."