It had been a few days since we got back from Kyoto.
Not much happened after the dinner with Yasaka. The next day we found ourselves on the flight back to Tokyo. Sona sat beside me, quieter than usual. We both knew what was coming.
As soon as I got back, everything I did was focused on preparing for my departure.
The timeline was still uncertain. I'd told Sona a year at most, but that wasn't guaranteed. The Dimensional Cube I'd designed had limitations I was still working around. I could control which world I traveled to — that part was solid. But time dilation between dimensions? That was trickier.
I'd built in safeguards to prevent extreme disparities. The last thing I needed was to spend a month training in another world only to return and find out decades had passed here. That would defeat the entire purpose. But "safeguards" weren't the same as "control." I could minimize the risk, ensure the difference wouldn't be catastrophic, but I couldn't guarantee perfect synchronization.
A month there might be two months here. Or three weeks. The margin of error existed whether I liked it or not. The reverse could happen though. A month there, only a day here. That was more favorable. Hell, that was ideal. But I couldn't guarantee it.
So I prepared for the worst and hoped for the best.
E.V.E. would remain behind to manage the Mishima Corporation. She was more essential here than wherever I ended up. After all, the corporation couldn't run itself and E.V.E. had full access to everything needed to keep the corporation running smoothly in my absence.
Still, I spent the next few days establishing contingencies.
Then came the harder conversations.
Breaking the news to Koneko, Kuroka and Rossweisse.
Each of them took it differently, but they all landed in the same place eventually. Rossweisse was, predictably, Rossweisse. Though she asked if she could come along — which I half expected — but I told her no. Not because she wasn't capable. But because I had something more important I needed from her. Someone had to protect everyone while I am gone.
Koneko was silent and didn't say much when she heard that I was leaving, though I felt her nervousness. But she nodded and understood why I had to leave.
Especially Ophis.
Speaking of Ophis…It was complicated. Currently, there was nothing I could do about her situation right now and it wasn't something I could fix before I left. What I could do was make sure she wasn't left exposed. So I assigned Rossweisse to her personally, and that was a decision I felt good about.
Ever since Loki, I'd been training Rossweisse consistently. Sparring with her every chance I got.
While Rose was still far from my level, she could hold her own against major gods now without breaking a sweat. Against something like Hades, she wouldn't fold. That wasn't an exaggeration.
That was how broken the Zodiac pieces were.
Speaking of which — the Aries Prote, the Divine Sheep of Adamantine, finished just in time before my departure and gave it to her when I told her I am planning to leave.
The Aquarius Hendekatos had been completed considerably earlier, and I'd managed to give that one to Sona during our time in Kyoto. Both of them already knew about the Zodiac pieces. Knew what they were, what they could do. Needless to say, they were happy.
Understatement of the year, but it would do.
Kuroka, on the other hand, had her own way of handling things.
What she did instead was make absolutely certain that every remaining day I had before departure was accounted for. Thoroughly and repeatedly. With zero regard for my sleep schedule or any prior obligations I may have had. The sex was constant. Exhausting in the best possible way. She treated every night like it was the last one and every morning like a fresh argument against me ever leaving at all.
What I could say was that by the time she was done with me, I wasn't walking away with any complaints.
By the morning of my departure.
It was quiet.
I stood in the preparation room alone with the Dimensional Cube in front of me.
No ceremony. No sendoff. I'd specifically asked for that as the last thing I needed was everyone standing around watching me leave like a funeral procession.
It wasn't my best work. That was the honest assessment. I'd designed and built it while under a time constraint I hadn't been entirely comfortable with, and the result reflected that. It functioned but the limitations were there.
I ran through the final checks one more time. Made sure everything was okay.
E.V.E.'s voice came through quietly.
"All systems confirmed on my end. Contingencies active. The corporation will be in order when you return."
"Thank you E.V.E."
A pause.
"Leon."
She almost never used just my name without a title. "Come back."
I looked at the Cube for a moment.
"Keep the lights on," I said.
She didn't respond to that. She didn't need to.
I exhaled and turned the Cube over in my hands one last time. Then I activated it.
Sparks of blue energy crackled outward from the construct, and a wormhole tore open in front of me — circular, humming faintly, casting pale blue light across the walls of the room. Exactly what I'd expected from the design. Nothing more, nothing less.
I stared at it for a second.
Only a second though. I knew exactly how short the window was — I'd built the thing myself. A few seconds before the portal collapsed. Months before it could open another one. There was no room to stand around being contemplative about it.
So I didn't.
I stepped through without another thought, and just like that everything fell away behind me.
All of it gone.
As I travelled to a new world.
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??? POV
The room had no windows.
That was intentional as he who occupied it had no particular interest in the outside world — not the sky, not the city, not the carefully constructed facade that the factions had spent centuries maintaining. All of that was noise. Mere Backdrop. The scenery of a stage that was about to be cleared.
He stood with his back to the room's only other occupant, hands clasped behind him, eyes fixed on nothing in particular.
"The Biblical God is dead, has been for some time now. And yet." A pause. "They carry on. Propped up by momentum and the fear of what admitting it would mean. An entire faction running on the fumes of a corpse."
The shadowed figure across the room said nothing.
He didn't need them to.
"Michael holds it together through sheer stubbornness. The Fallen cling to Azazel's coattails and call it survival. And the Church—The Church sends their little warriors out into the world and pretends the foundation beneath them isn't already cracked through."
"They're already finished, have been for a while. They just haven't admitted it yet."
The shadowed figure shifted.
"And Mishima?"
The name sat in the room for a moment.
"Right," he muttered. "Mishima."
"That's the whole problem isn't it. On their own the Biblical faction is nothing. A name. A history. The kind of thing that coasts on reputation until someone calls the bluff…But Mishima's standing behind them. And everyone knows it. And nobody wants to be the first one to find out exactly what that means."
"So we wait."
"For now."
He was quiet for a moment.
"But there's something we can do in the meantime. There's a traitor that needs dealing with."
"Hel," he said.
"Her domain—"
"I know."
"Everything has a way in. We'll find it."
He moved toward the door. Stopped just before it.
"We start with her."
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