Back at the edge of the Armament Kingdom, Aoto stood facing Auren, the Absolute, Aone.
The air around them suddenly felt different. It was hard to describe, but everything looked brighter, like it was glowing. At the same time, it felt fake, like looking at a picture that was slightly out of focus. The ground seemed to shimmer, and the trees in the distance looked wavy, as if he was seeing them through heat.
Aoto's heart started thumping hard in his chest. "No way... no way," he thought, a cold knot forming in his stomach. "This can't be... reality manipulation? The same unique skill as me?" Without even thinking, his hand moved to his chest, clutching his shirt as a wave of fear hit him.
If Auren had the same power, he was in huge trouble. Auren was old, who knows how much. He must have had years and years to learn how to use his skill. Aoto, on the other hand, still felt like a beginner. He didn't even know the basic things about his other power, Fate Manipulation. He'd spent more time trying to get girlfriends than actually training.
The only time he'd really pushed his reality powers was against Orihime, that idol girl from the Holy Knights. He'd gotten stronger then and could change things further in surrodings as well. And his ideas for using it were simple, almost silly.
He'd thought about turning Auren into a frog or making his clothes turn to dust so he'd be naked. Basically playing with him before defeating him.
But now, looking at Auren's calm face, none of those ideas seemed like they would work.
Aoto took a step back, A part of him wanted to just turn and run. But then, a thought pushed through the fear.
"Two people can't have the same unique skill," he told himself, his thoughts racing. "It has to be a little different." He remembered that it was a fact—two people with the exact same unique skill couldn't be alive at the same time.
Meanwhile, Auren just stood there, watching him, not saying a word.
"Now then, Mr. Aoto," Auren finally said, his voice calm and steady. "I'll show you what it means to kill the stars." He lifted his right hand and his fingers bent into a weird shape.
"Domain Expansion — Closed-System Entropy," he said clearly.
The second he finished speaking, it felt like a giant, invisible bubble had been placed around them. The glowing, wavy feeling got much, much worse.
"An illusion, it's got to be an illusion," Aoto yelled out, the words popping out of his mouth.
But he couldn't be more wrong.
As the surroundings settled inside this "domain," nothing looked different, except for the weird reality glitches. Then, all of a sudden, Aoto felt a strange sensation. His body felt light, empty, like something was being pulled out of him very, very quickly.
He looked down at his hands, and his breath caught in his throat. His eyes went wide with shock. His hands were falling apart. They weren't bleeding or breaking. They were turning into shiny shimmering dust, like glitter, and just disappearing into the air.
Aoto gritted his teeth, using his skill to fix his hands. But he could feel the strange, draining feeling all over his body, and it wasn't stopping.
He understood that he would have to keep using his skill, constantly, just to keep himself from turning to dust.
"What is this?" Aoto asked, his tone confused as he stepped back again.
Auren looked at him struggling, and Aoto could see him smiling faintly inside his helmet. "Ha! I thought you'd be gone the second I use my domain. It's a miracle that you survived, huh? Let's see..." he said, walking in a slow circle.
"Aoto Takahashi... unique skill, Reality Warping. So that's how you're still here. If only that skill had to me... Oh my... oh my, Fate Manipulation too? What a pair of powers. And what a waste on someone like you," he said, letting out a long, disappointed sigh.
Aoto's eyes widened once again, a fresh wave of shock washing over him. "How does he know my unique skill? I even have the rare skill: Block Interference?" he thought to himself, a cold knot of confusion tightening in his gut.
Now, it felt even worse than just facing reality manipulation. It felt like Auren had become truly absolute, a force operating on a level he couldn't even comprehend.
"Confused are we?" Auren asked, a mocking smile in his voice. He sounded like a teacher enjoying a student's struggle. "Well, how about I tell you? I'm here to waste my time anyway. This domain is a combination of my two unique skills and this suit," he said, throwing his arms open in a grand gesture, as if presenting himself on a stage.
"Tell me, have you heard about a quantum theory usually called 'Apple in a Box'?" he asked, his tone shifting to that of a lecturer.
Aoto's lips couldn't help but twitch twice. He felt a flicker of embarrassment mixed with his fear. "Sorry, sir," he mumbled, "but I was quite bad in science."
"Hmm... Then let me explain," Auren said, "Imagine you take a fresh apple, lock it inside a perfectly sealed, indestructible box, and leave it there for eternity." He paused, letting the image sink in.
"First, the apple rots into a puddle of mush. Millions of years later, chemical bonds snap, and it breaks down into a completely randomized soup of raw atoms, energy, and dust bouncing off the walls. But here is the trick: the box is sealed, so the number of particles inside is finite. But time? Time is infinite."
He held up a finger, as if making a crucial point. "Think of it like shuffling a deck of cards forever. If you never stop shuffling, you are mathematically guaranteed to eventually hit every single possible combination. Those chaotic atoms will randomly slam together and arrange themselves into a piece of wood, a functional lightbulb, a block of steel, or a diamond. And eventually, after trillions of years, they will inevitably slam back into the exact cellular structure of a fresh, perfect apple, just like it was placed inside." He finished his explanation with a look of profound satisfaction.
"That's just how my unique skill—State Recurrence—works, just at a higher level. And instead of turning an apple into an apple, I just skip billions of years of time and choose whatever shape I like. It's as if I'm manipulating reality, even though I'm just playing with possibility and doing that causes many glitches in fabric of reality," he added
A hint of realization dawned in Aoto's mind,"So this domain of yours is the box," he said slowly, "and everything inside is the apple?"
"Hahaha... Quite a weird way to put it, but yeah!" Auren nodded, giving him an approving look.
"Of course, nothing is possible without this armor," he continued, tapping a finger against his metallic looking chest plate, "It's the reason I'm not constantly turning into dust and vanishing into the fabric of reality. Without it, my unique skill is no better than even a regular skill."
"Can you believe it? It takes one-fifth the energy of a kilonova just to start it. It's a relief that I only need to start it and pull my domain. Once that happens, I can stop the energy from vanishing and keep it functioning as long as I'm in my domain," he said, pointing to a glowing blue crystal embedded in the center of his chest. "See this? It's a space-path artifact. I can directly pour energy into it from my faraway space station, which is harnessing the energy of a kilonova explosion."
As he said this, he looked up, his gaze turning distant as he stared at the shimmering, glitch-filled sky. "Facing four-fifths the energy of a kilonova is not different from facing a full kilonova. She'll die regardless," he whispered to himself.
Although he was standing right in front of him, Aoto couldn't help but let a small, confident smirk touch his lips. "What an idiot," he thought, a surge of hope cutting through his despair. "Explaining your weakness to your enemy? So I just somehow need to destroy that armor and I'll win." The plan seemed so simple, so clear, His fear was starting to vanish now.
But then, at the same moment, Auren turned his gaze back to him, his eyes seeming to pierce right through Aoto's thoughts.
"You must be thinking that I'm stupid for explaining all this to you, right?" he said, his voice flat and knowing.
Aoto flinched, biting his tongue by accident. Auren had literally nailed his exact thought.
"Well, you could say that," Auren said with another light, disarming smile. "It's my first time using it against any opponent. It's quite hard to harness this much energy. All I ever did was practice with myself," he admitted.
Aoto couldn't help but scoff, trying to regain his composure. "Is that so? So how about telling me about your other unique skill?" he challenged, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"No worries. It's called Assessor," Auren said, completely unfazed by Aoto's tone. "It could only look into some status, but in the domain, its ability gets enhanced. The longer you are inside, the more I'll know about you," he said, his words hanging in the air like a death sentence.
With his explanation finally done, Auren started moving, the sword in his hand looking perfectly at ease in his grip.
"I got no personal grudge against you, so stay still and I'll make it painless. Just make sure to spread my name in your afterlife," he said, his grip tightening around the hilt of his sword.
"As if," Aoto shot back, taking a deep, shaky breath and bracing himself for another fight to the death.
But then, Auren's forward momentum slowed to a stop, as if he'd been frozen mid-stride.
And then his eyebrows frowned.
"So... are you that Takahashi?" he said, his voice completely different from the uncaring, calm tone he'd used before. This time, it was laced with a raw, simmering anger.
"Huh, what?" Aoto asked, completely lost. He had no idea what Auren was talking about.
"Your family has fifteen percent shares in that Thomas's company," Auren said, his voice growing louder and angrier with each word. "I changed my mind. You won't receive an easy death from me!" he shouted, the words a roar of fury as he immediately charged towards Aoto.
He slashed his sword, but instead of a simple sword wave, twisted waves of pure reality shot out towards him.
Aoto immediately took a few hasty steps back, frantically using his unique skill to dissolve the reality waves into nothingness.
"I forget what he said, but it's definitely very similar to my unique skill," he thought to himself, his mind racing to keep up.
The next moment, he went on the offensive, immediately manipulating reality to turn Auren's sword into a flimsy paper sword.
But Auren didn't seem to care at all. He slashed his paper sword down, and just a split second before it would have uselessly bounced off Aoto, it shimmered and returned to its normal, deadly steel form.
It was too late for Aoto to dodge.
So instead, he desperately tried to turn his own body into metal.
But once again, just as the sword was about to make contact, his body snapped back to normal, the transformation failing.
KACHA!...
The sharp steel pierced his skin, giving him a quick, deep stab. Blood oozed from the wound as he stumbled back, trying to put distance between them.
But Auren didn't give him a single second of relief. He attacked again immediately.
Somehow, Aoto barely managed to manipulate reality to heal the stab wound, but in just the next few seconds, he received several more cuts.
Their fighting style was unnervingly similar. It was just that Auren was far faster and quicker in his manipulations, constantly nullifying whatever Aoto was trying to do. Unlike before, he wasn't even saying anything anymore; he was just completely focused on beating him to a pulp.
Yet, every time his sword struck, he only gave Aoto shallow wounds, nothing that would kill him immediately. It was clear he was just trying to make him suffer as much as possible.
In just a few minutes of fighting, Aoto was covered in bleeding wounds all over his body, finally falling to his knees on the ground.
Taking a deep, painful breath, he forced his power to heal his wounds again and stood back up.
For some reason, he felt completely confused by Auren's behavior. Why did he suddenly turn so angry? Who was this Thomas, that it was enough to make Auren this furious just because his family had shares in the man's company?
"Now that I think about it, he said that he's from our world," Aoto thought to himself, his mind trying to connect the dots through the pain.
"Man from future... Man from future..." The same line echoed in his mind. Even when he'd first heard it, it felt familiar, like something he'd read in a science book.
A flicker of a second later, his eyes widened in disbelief as the pieces finally clicked together.
"Don't tell me... You are Nicola Tesla?"