(FLASHBACK BEFORE THE CRISIS OF THE FAKE WORLD – LOCATION: PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE, TOKYO NINJITSU ACADEMY – December 29/12/2013)
The atmosphere in the office is heavy. Motoki, the principal of the Tokyo branch, sits behind a heavy oak desk, her eyes fixed on the young man standing in front of her and on Akos, who stares at the couch.
In a heavy voice, Motoki asks, "Why did you interrupt us and walk into my office, Mohamed?"
In a calm voice, Mohamed answers, "Sorry for interrupting, but I came here to speak, or rather to say my last words in this ACADEMY. You know, outside Japan there are dozens of sorcerers with different origins."
Suddenly, Motoki cuts him off. "You said you wanted to say something quick, and now you start explaining what's happening outside. I don't care. Say what you came here to say."
"Fine, fine. Apparently it doesn't concern you or interest you anymore. I'm moving on."
"I came to ask for your permission to retire, ma'am. The role of sorcerer ends here for me. I'm tired of this job. I've lost far too many friends. Some died screaming, others simply vanished into the fucking darkness, and others don't know what to do and go off blindly."
The atmosphere in the office fills with silence. Motoki looks toward the outside. "If this is your will, then I accept your departure." Her voice sounds so heavy and sorrowful. "I wish you a good road, whatever you choose after you leave. I won't force anyone to stay here against their will."
Mohamed turns toward the exit and puts his hand on Akos's shoulder. "I hope the guide of the blind doesn't lead you off blindly. Goodbye, Akos Tasaku."
Mohamed walks out through the door.
After a few seconds of silence in the office, Mohamed's departure leaves the scent of his name lingering in the room. Motoki turns and looks at Akos.
"I know you died, Akos."
"I know you died, both as a human and as the person you once were. The Infinite Eyes are the only thing that can change the very core of a person's abilities, turning them into whatever they desire. That's exactly what you did, isn't it?"
Akos lowers his head. In a quiet, weak voice, he says, "It wasn't a choice in this world, right, Miss Motoki?"
Motoki places her hands on the desk and looks at him with a cold gaze.
"Your Universe Zone is the most powerful phenomenon in existence. In the entire history of the Tasaku Clan, no one with the Infinite Eyes ever managed to activate the Universe Zone. You are the only one."
Akos rises slowly. "Miss Motoki, this is my last mission. In SINISH, I either kill Reino Shino and dissolve the entire NON-SYSTEM NINJUTSU ACADEMY in this city, or I force them to become dogs of the system."
Motoki swallows, her eyes wide with shock. "What...?"
Akos opens the office door. His voice is full of sorrow, barely above a whisper. "The less you know, the better for you."
Akos walks down the corridor and turns his head toward the windows. Outside, great chaos and enormous destruction, blood everywhere, and birds perched in a huge hole. His face is dead, without any expression, and he whispers:
"The pain isn't inside the fight. The real pain comes after the fight. We don't live in a movie with a dramatic ending where everyone is happy, because the ending is one of the biggest pieces of pain. If I weren't human, what would my life be like? If I were an animal or something else, where would I be in this world in ten years?"
(IN THE STREETS OF TOKYO)
Akos stops in the middle of the sidewalk. Pedestrians split around him like water around a rock, and he does not move.
Ten steps ahead, a homeless man sits against a shuttered storefront. A sheet of cardboard rests against his knees, the letters scrawled in marker: "I WANT SOMETHING TO DRINK. PLEASE HELP ME." His lips are cracked, and his hand shakes as he holds the sign higher.
A man in a gray suit walks past with a juice pack in his fist. He sucks on the straw, and his face twists.
"What the hell is this juice?" he mutters. "Strawberry? It tastes like nothing."
He drops the pack on the concrete beside the beggar's shoe, and juice pools around the sole. The man in the suit looks down at him with a thin, bitter curl of the lip, then walks on. The beggar's eyes follow the pack. He does not touch it.
Akos watches. His face holds no expression at all.
Across the street, a woman wrings a bundle in her arms and pushes it toward a stranger. "Please, milk for my baby; he hasn't eaten all day." The bundle's blanket slips, and a plastic arm sticks out, pale and stiff. The stranger does not look closely. He pulls out his wallet and presses a few bills into her palm.
She is already running. The door of the convenience store chimes behind her. Through the glass, Akos sees her slam the bundle on the counter and point to the shelf behind the clerk. A pack of cigarettes slides across.
Akos raises his eyes.
On the edge of a rooftop, a devil crouches with its claws curled over the ledge. Its mouth stretches too wide, a crooked grin full of crooked teeth, and its stare is fixed on him. It does not blink. A flake of ash drifts down from somewhere above and lands on Akos's sleeve.
He stays where he is. His lips barely move.
"Pain. Lies. The arrogant. Fate." A breath. "And thousands of other things, all happening around me, each in its own way."
The beggar's cardboard sign trembles. The cigarette smoke drifts out of the shop door. The devil's grin does not change.
"Why am I here?"
Akos looks down at his own open hands, then slowly closes them.
"Whatever I've become, I'm still only human."
(FLASHBACK END. PRESENT: TOKYO)
Sakoura stands over Akos, who lies on the ground.
"Will this fight end here?" Sakoura says. His voice is flat, almost bored. "I don't think I'm that strong. But, ahhh... whatever. Out there, there are others I have to kill. Or what exactly am I saying? I've waited thousands of years for this fight. And now it passes by like this, in such a simple way?"
On the ground, Akos moves his hand. It leaves a smear of blood on the concrete. His lips part, and a cough splatters red across his chin.
"Is this not enough?" he whispers. "How much does this world want before it says it's enough?"
His eyes turn to the sky. Black clouds roll above the broken towers.
Akos pushes his palm against the ground. His arm trembles. He drags one knee under him, then the other, and his body rises inch by inch, in spite of the blow he took. He lifts his head and looks at Sakoura.
Sakoura does not smile. His eyes are cold, but the corner of his mouth tightens, as if he is impressed against his will. He raises his hand, and the energy of the universe swells around him. The air hums. Loose stones lift from the street and hang in place.
"Fighting is not a choice," he says to Akos. "It is survival. If you haven't realized that by now, I'm reminding you."
The ground begins to glow. Asphalt blisters and curls at the edges. The cracks in the road turn orange, then white. A bent streetlamp sags and melts down to a puddle. The wind that rolls over them carries no breath of cold; the heat climbs to 9000°C.
A few seconds pass. Akos stands upright, motionless.
The heat has burned away the oxygen. The air itself has stopped moving. Pebbles on the road glow red, and the melted streetlamp has hardened into a dull, blackened lump. Nothing stirs except the shimmer rising off the asphalt.
Sakoura watches him, and a thought runs through his mind.
*It's truly impressive that his determination has no end. It really does depend on his resolve, just as he told me before. I thought it was one of the psychological games he plays in battle. How foolish of you, Akos, to reveal something so important about yourself to an enemy. He knows that I can't do anything to him at all.*
Akos, still standing in the heat, lifts his eyes. "Come on, let's finish this."
In the absolute silence of the place, the two exchange a long look. Akos whispers, "UNIVERSE Galaxia's determination SPREAD SPACE."
Suddenly, a small circle appears around Akos, colored purple, yellow, and blue. In an instant, the circle spreads and becomes a gigantic wave of energy, blue, purple, and yellow, striking like a storm. It expands in a radius of 650 meters. Its terrifying gravity reaches the edges and drags everything down, and earthquakes tear through the ground across the whole 650-meter radius.
Sakoura, in a loud and crazed voice: "You should be more terrifying, Akos!"
The place turns into hell, made of fire and ice and every color. The floor freezes into glass, cracks, and sinks. Flames and lava swallow the ground. The gravity pulls in the fire, the ice, and everything else, even the oxygen, into one spot, carving out an enormous, deep basin. A huge explosion fills the sky, so powerful that its light strikes the earth across Japan, kilometers away from Tokyo.
For a few seconds, the place sinks into absolute darkness. And suddenly...
The sky fills with multicolored swirls like the Northern Lights, lighting up the whole place in red, purple, yellow, blue, and green. The Aurora falls on them like rain.
Sakoura, who was standing upright, screams at Akos in a loud voice, "GODDAMN! THIS IS INSANE! THIS IS WHAT HE WANTED! THIS IS WHAT WASN'T HERE! AFTER THOUSANDS OF YEARS, THE FINAL BATTLE HAS REACHED ITS FINAL STAGE! "