Words: 248k+
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/11926873/1/Requiem-Universus
(The might to create stars. The energy to burn planets. The ability to warp reality to his very Will. All of this Power...was NOT meant for Kirigaya Kazuto. He was just a boy who had been trapped inside a Death Game. Now, free and confused, he has to deal with having the powers of some sort of Space God. [DROPPED/UP FOR ADOPTION])
Chapter 1: Prologue: When the Universe hates you
Okay, so, to everyone who knows me and is confused with this, I want you know that no, this doesn't mean I have stopped working in my other SAO fic. It's just that the next chapter is coming along slowly, both because of real life-things and because it's being harder than I thought to set everything for the 'last' arc. For everyone else who has no idea about me, I invite you to go and read my other fic, One Punch-Gamer, a crossover between SAO and One Punch-Man. I guarantee you're going to get some laughs out of it :P
Okay, as for the reasons for this fic? Honestly, the idea just…'popped' into my head out of nowhere and it just wouldn't freaking go away, so I HAD to write it so it would leave me alone and free to concentrate in my main fic. Don't expect regular updates for it, and I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it. I will just state that I plan this to be what OPG was going to be before I got serious with writing it, a story to 'relax my brain' and written purely for shits and giggles. It will have a plot, yeah, but it will still be mostly crack, despite the 'weird' beginning you're about to read, so if you're not up for it, go back now. If you still want to go, onwards, my dear readers, to a trip of insanity, weirdness and hilarity :D
Disclaimer: SAO and its characters don't belong to me, but to Kawahara Reki. If they did, I would make 'There is But One Ultimate Way' the official canon epilogue of the series so as to everyone could be happy.
Prologue: When the Universe REALLY hates you…
The three stars that illuminated that particular stellar system had definitively seen better days on their millions of years of existence.
Then again, it probably had to do with the fact that countless of reality-rending explosions were taking place all around them almost every second, while millions of ships flew around their orbits, a couple hundred THROUGH them, and many more simply exploded by being too close to them, not having the proper defenses to withstand being directly exposed to the stars.
They were also about to go supernova at any moment, but no one from the army numbering in the thousands of millions seemed to be focusing on that particular fact.
All of their attention was fixing in bringing IT down.
On the system's center, standing over the charred husk that was once his origin planet, the core of all his domain, the Great One faced off against the impossible legion, standing as tall as a celestial body, unleashing a scream of rage powerful enough to make the void around him shake in answer, many of his closest enemies turning to cosmic dusk.
How could it have come to this, the Eternal Conqueror wondered? How could he, who had the power to bend the heavens apart and rip through dimensions with just his will, be reduced to this pitiful situation?
Even as a hundred Giganto Titans, colossi made of star-alloy and powered by dwarf stars, came forth from the Aether to face him, unleashing energies that rent through space-timee in the shape of swords, he wondered if perhaps it had been because of his greed. Maybe he should have stopped when a thousand galaxies were under his control.
But he had wanted MORE. He had wanted to make the entire universe bow to his will.
After all, wasn't he the last one of the Ancient Rulers? Wasn't he the only one who had survived, when his brothers and sisters had all destroyed each other in the Great Clash? Didn't he, who had emerged victorious over all the others, who had a power that was unrivaled in this Reality, deserve to govern it all?
Even as his mighty blade, the Nebula-Slayer 'Nephilim', tore through space-time and defied causality itself, taking down the Titans trying to bring him down and the thousands of souls piloting them in a single slash, He nodded to himself once again. Yes. It was his right to Rule. That's why he kept going, expanding his power and subjugating them all, forcing them to worship him, to know that He was the one Eternity would have to bow down to…
The Great One had never expected them to Unite. Not in such an outrageous and impossible way. It was such an unprecedented event that not even his Foresight had been able to predict it.
They put it all aside. Beliefs, species, race, gender, nature…all of them, just to defy Him. Just to destroy him.
The entire Universe, HIS Universe had united to bring about his end. And to the Eternal Conqueror's chagrin… they were winning.
He could feel it, on his once glorious physical vessel, now marred with scars and wounds that bleed into Unreality and warped the Aether, staining the Great Void with his divine essence. His once unmatchable reserves were now barely bigger than a hundred stars, opposed to the galaxies-worth they used to be. Even his precious Nephilim was now filled with cracks, the blade forged from the core of a thousand planets now seeming about to break apart.
They had been fighting by almost 30 solar cycles. Millions upon millions had fallen to his supreme might.
And yet, more kept coming. From all corners of the Universe, they came, appearing through arcane portals, jumping from the Aether to make battle, aboard glorious ships of massive power or riding upon beasts able to defy the Laws of Reality. From the most pitiful being to those who could be called Gods and Demons, even those Entities just a couple of echelons lower than himself. All of them; united against Him.
The combined might of the many was defeating the Great One. Such were the horrified thoughts running through the complex network of arcane and warping energies that was his mind, even as a platoon formed by a thousand beasts from the Void Beyond, as big as the Titans he had just slain, came forward, aided by a hundred thousand ships, each one the size of a small moon..
When the combined power of those before him crashed against Nephilim, as he raised it to protect himself, he realized that he had underestimated them too much: The beasts wore Armor of at least Level-235 Tech. And there were Sorcerers (Not pathetic mortal magicians, but true Warpers of the Natural Laws) aboard the ships, using their arcane arts to give more power to the weapons.
His once mighty sword, big enough to split a High-Tier Celestial Body in half with one swipe, exploded into countless fragments of power, the explosion devastating the ones that had managed to do such feat.
But they also took one of his limbs, his once glorious body now looking like a titanic ruin. Even more, the damage made into his very Essence had been the greatest so far.
Encouraged, with battlecries screamed in a million different tongues, the army of the Universe charged with renewed spirits.
They no longer cared for how many died that day, or how many species went extinct. All of them had a single purpose, uniting them for the first and last time in the story of the Universe.
To slay the Almighty Tyrant. To win their freedom. Their future.
Even as they charged at him again and again, the Eternal Conqueror kept fighting back. Even so, now everyone could see how much his power had diminished. Where once he would throw Mysteries that tore apart the immaterial plane in different points of space-time, now he was only attacking them with raw power or tongues of star fire. The Great One is on his last legs.
His End drew near. And He knew it.
Looking forward through eyes made of compressed Red Giant Stars, the Celestial Being glared with hate to the ones opposing him. That alone was enough to send another hundred thousand enemy vessels to the dark embrace of Death. It's still not enough.
There was no other option. He had no weapons left, his armies had been decimated, his sanctuary reduced to ruins, his physical vessel damaged beyond repair…
The only thing he could do was 'run away'. Far Beyond, where they would be unable to follow, to gain time, to recover strength…
They wouldn't allow him to do so, of course. The Great One knew they would try their best to crush him the moment he tried to gather all his pitifully small remaining energy to execute the forbidden Mystery he had to use. He needed to distract them.
And so, as a great and last 'Fuck you!' to them, the Eternal Conqueror set his gaze on the three stars that had illuminated his birth galaxy for eons, since he was but a newborn with only power enough to shatter continents.
Drawing from his now almost non-existing power, He Accelerated them.
From a moment to the next, they became Red Supergiants.
And finally, with a glorious shine that overcomes it all, 3 Supernovas explode, blinding everything and everyone, unleashing waves of annihilation that devastated everything in their path.
Cursing them to then Depths of the Eternal Silence, the Great One abandoned his physical vessel, losing even more of his power with the incredibly arduous and damaging process. Then, as the galactic explosion reached it, He jumped.
Not through the Aether or from a point of space to the other, no. He's going Beyond.
For a brief instant, he was outside Reality. Out of Everything that Is. Even just that moment, less than a millionth of a second, was enough to almost destroy his very essence and tear apart his once glorious existence, for Nothing is allowed to be Outside All.
Then, it was over. Blind, his Mystery finished and he was thrown like a bullet of pure energy back into the Omniverse, several Multiverses away from his own. The power he had left now, even as just essence without physical form, was less than a small celestial body worth of it.
When he managed to recover his awareness, the Eternal Conqueror looked 'down' through inexistent eyes. He was floating above an unknown planet, pitifully small compared to his home world. It was mostly blue, three-quarters parts of it being water, and it had only one satellite that wasn't even a quarter of its size.
Tired and almost unable to kept his unstable existence together, He descended, heading towards the nearest mass of earth he could find. On the way, with his jumbled mystical senses, he felt souls, millions of them. It was an overpopulated planet, with many areas that apparently weren't suited for the life of the dominant species.
Humans. Of course it had to be humans. Even in a different corner of Reality, it seemed that those dammed mammals, whose only worth was in that they never stopped expanding, would exist to annoy him.
It didn't matter, in the end, for he liked what he saw. The planet was primitive, immensely so compared to most of those in his Universe. Their tech didn't even reach Level-10. They hadn't even discovered a way of travelling instantly within their own stellar system.
He stopped looking into the souls of the planet after that. The Great One didn't need to know more, nor did he care for what they had developed in their own world. It was perfect for him because he could recover now. The Eternal Conqueror just needed a new physical vessel, and then to wait. It would take him millions of star cycles to recover his full power, but he didn't really need that much. Within less than a hundred cycles, he would have enough to bend that entire world to his will. Not even the mightiest of their primitive weapon would be able damage him by then. And after that, with that world they called 'Earth' (What a bunch of unimaginative apes, he thought) as his new powerbase, he would start anew. If the planet was any indication, this Universe would probably pose no challenge for him. And once he had enough power, he would return to his own and enact his vengeance…
Getting out of the machinations for his future plans, the Great One refocused his will into keeping his breaking essence together. He had neared something that could be called an 'island', despite its massive size, but he vaguely recalled from the soul-reading of before to be a 'country' called 'Japan'. He was floating above a city, so primitive (With vehicles that moved on wheels and still ran on freaking fossil fuels instead of Cosmic Energy!) that it hurt his immaterial form just to stare at them.
Just under him, a moderately sized building, mostly white and filled with windows, stood in silence under the setting light of their pitifully small star. Willing himself closer to it, the Eternal Conqueror realized it probably was some kind of medical facility, detecting the feeling of dread and the essence of Death in the building's aura, not to mention the energy of weak human bodies.
Just what he needed.
Phasing through simple concrete walls as if they were nothing (They would have needed to have ultimate ethereal seals to stop even his pathetically diminished state, though), the cosmic being stared down at the room he was now in, examining everything.
Lying on a bed, there was a young black-haired human male, his body seeming sickly and malnourished, a strange helmet-like device around his head and several machines, that he deduced to be some kind of primitive medical equipment, apparently monitoring his vital signs. The Great One also deduced that the human must have been in some kind of coma, not really caring for the reasons or causes. At the feet of his bed, a human female rested her head hear his legs, apparently having fallen asleep watching over him, the evening light of the system's star illuminating her face.
The Eternal Conqueror took a moment to examine her and ponder what her relationship with the other human was. Perhaps they were mates? It could be possible, and he knew enough about humans to know that, despite being barely entering adolescence, the female was noticeably attractive by their standards. Once again, he dismissed those thoughts, only caring that she wouldn't get in His way as he turned towards the comatose boy.
If the cosmic being could have, it would have frowned. Despite knowing the necessity of it all and knowing he was running low on time (Keeping himself together without a physical anchor was suicide with such little power), he was still reticent to take over such a primitive body. His previous physical vessel was not only strong and mighty, but it had also been made from materials extracted from the confines of a black hole, powered by a thousand compressed stars (And not pathetic things like the one of that system, but true massive superstars that he had crafted himself). Despite knowing he could make himself a new and better body with time, having to wear the flesh and bone of a human felt immensely degrading for him.
Even so, beggars couldn't be choosers, and, resigned, He started to work.
Once again thanking his luck for whatever it was that had put the boy into a coma (As he wouldn't have to spend unnecessary energy restraining him), the Great One restored his primitive body to top physical condition. Then, he added a bit more of energy to go even beyond that, just surpassing every limit of what was 'possible' for humans to accomplish with their bodies, the most he could without damaging the vessel. He didn't wish to experience any primitive illness or be forced down by degrading human limitations while he recovered.
Quickly realizing that this would probably lead to questions, the Eternal Conqueror also crafted a small, insignificant Mystery and weaved it around his future body. Now no one would find anything strange with the boy's body having suddenly been restored; in fact, they would still see it as sickly as before, and they would accept how it would recover 'amazingly fast' without more questions. It took a lot from him, but it would be less expensive than having to alter the soul of every single human that tried to question it just to erase their memories. After all, he couldn't afford to attract unwanted attention until he had recovered enough power to subdue this primitive world. It would be not only embarrassing but outright pathetic if he was killed while in his diminished state just because he grew overconfident. After all, it would take thousands of cycles before he had enough power to even attempt to return to immaterial form.
Satisfied with his handiwork, even if the young human still seemed like an extremely pitiful thing to him, the cosmic being concentrated his whole self and willed It to materialize.
Shining with blue and white energy, the room was suddenly bathed by the pure Power of something this Universe could not comprehend. The 'thing', barely the size of a tennis ball, didn't have any real shape, and it would most likely drive mad any human that tried staring at it, seemed to have endless silver points inside it.
Despite the tremendous effort the process was taking, the Great One still took a moment to admire his Aether Core,the very source of all his powers.
Despite no longer being the size of a super-galaxy and having been reduced to this pitiful state, it was still a glorious thing to behold.
Ever so slowly, he implanted it inside the human's body, making him shake slightly as he did so. Then, he made sure to connect it to the boy's soul, which he would soon be taking over, and stabilize it. The feeling of the Core fixing in place coming to him through the now hair-thin-link that connected them was like music to his essence. Now that it was like that, it would slowly start to take in Cosmic Energy and recharge itself.
Smiling with a nonexistent mouth, the now barely existing consciousness of the Eternal Conqueror took a moment to think about how useless his enemies' attempts to end him had been in the end, before, slowly and almost painfully, moving towards the boy's head, needing to first physically take over his brain now that properly using his power was no longer an option.
Now then, let's please stop for a moment and look at everything here. As most of you should have realized by now, this guy was a jerk. Perhaps that was a very light way of calling him, but for the sake of simplicity, let's all just agree with the point that this cosmic entity, pseudo-God or whatever you want to call it was just someone we REALLY wouldn't like, okay?
Well, you may be surprised that you, and the inhabitants of his universe, were not the only ones pissed at him. This guy had been such a great jerk that even [FATE], sitting on Its throne above Everything, had gotten pissed at him more than once. Even so, there was nothing the Absolute Existence could do about it, for the rules of the Omniverse didn't allow It direct interference unless it was for the sake of preserving Reality and when there were no other options left. Even with ALL that he had done and could do, the 'Great One' had always made sure to never try to do anything like that, being smart enough to not anger Those Above All. And yes, wanting to enslave a universe was, sadly, not something that counted as interfering with Reality. As long as Destiny wasn't altered in a way that damaged it, no direct interference would be allowed.
Even so, [FATE] wasn't known as one of the greatest bastards of the Omniverse for nothing. While It couldn't directly interfere, It could do so indirectly. It was thanks to Its small nudges and little pushes here and there that, after millennia, that entire Universe had united to take on the Eternal Conqueror, after all.
Having escaped Death despite it all, though, the cosmic being hadn't escaped [FATE]'s clutches. His Omniversal Jump had just so happened to bring him to that exact place, and he had just casually chosen to use as his new vessel that particular boy. A boy that, in that particular Multiverse, was one of [FATE]'s favorite 'toys'. One just needed to look at his future and all that he would live through and do to know that. By trying to possess him, the Great One had messed up with Destiny, even if at a small scale. And so, with a shit-eating grin, [FATE] interfered, in a subtle and very unexpected way. Because of that, the Eternal Conqueror hadn't bothered in investigating the source of what was happening to the boy, thinking it above Himself, or the nature of the strange 'helmet' he wore, so…want to know something funny? The nature of the current immaterial state of the Eternal Conqueror just SO happened to be a certain type of 'waves'. Waves that, if one would compare them with things known by humans, would be extremely similar to another type of them.
Microwaves, to be precise.
And so, the moment the electromagnetic ration-based form of the Great One surrounded the 'comatose' boy's head and phased through its helmet, in those scarce 3 seconds it took to go through the plastic and metal…the safety of the Nerve Gear triggered, overloading its battery and unleashing a lethal dosage of microwaves to fry the brain of the trapped teenager.
Luckily for him, there was a perfect 'shield' for him in the form of an eons-old cosmic being's immaterial Essence around his head.
Every single window on the hospital shattered when an unholy scream echoed through the air, even as the being known as the Eternal Conqueror felt his link with his precious Aether Core break like a piece of wet paper. Turned into nothing more than raging and hurt waves of mental energy, the Great One lashed out, 'wounded' beyond belief, breaking apart the Nerve Gear and making the electricity coursing through the room to overload.
The young girl in the room had just shot to her feet to stare in shock at what seemed like a skull made of ethereal electricity emerging over the boy's head…before it was sucked back through the Nerve Gears cables, the breaking connection 'dragging' him into the 'world' where the boy had been trapped.
Not before one of the tendrils of unnatural electricity coming from the boy hit the girl right on the chest, though, sending her flying backward.
Meanwhile, in Sword Art Online, it had been pretty much a normal boring day for the swordsman known as Kirito. The only 'exciting' thing that the Solo Player had encountered that day had been a Ragout Rabbit, from which he had obtained an extremely rare meat, which he had been showing to his friend Agil, before debating between selling it or finding someone to cook it for him.
His 'acquaintance', Asuna of the Knights of Blood (Together with the weirdo jerk she had as 'bodyguard'), had just entered the small shop, the girl about to call out to him, when he suddenly released a scream that froze everyone in place, the sound seeming to shake their very souls, the alien voice definitively not belonging to the young gamer.
The polygons that made up his body had then been 'torn apart' like paper, letting what seemed like a formless mass of energy that was vaguely trying to take the shape of a skull to emerge, screaming in agony all the way. Agil had snapped out of his horror-induced shock in time to duck for cover behind his counter and not be hit by a stray bolt of that unholy energy. Kuradeel, meanwhile, performed his first and last actually useful act as an SAO Player by taking his bodyguard job seriously and shoving Asuna to the side, feeling proud of himself for half a second before his body was hit by the bolt that would have hit the rapier-user, shattering him into polygons.
Hurt and still in agony, not understanding what was happening, what remained of the cosmic being shot upwards, tearing through the virtual roof, space, sky and System itself, crashing through every single bit of data that formed Sword Art Online and tearing it apart while trying to find a way to escape.
In the real world, on the main building of RECT Progress, Sugou Nobuyuki was staring with a mix of anger and confusion at a computer screen, in a room just beside where the SAO Servers were being maintained. He had been always closely monitoring the few data that the special division of the government supplied them about the game's progress in hopes to be able to take advantage of the moment it was cleared and the Cardinal System shut down to capture the minds of a specific someone and some more players for his nefarious purposes, but suddenly all this 'error data' had started to appear in front of the screen where he had been working. He had no idea what was going on and if this meant anything that could endanger his plan or…
A loud, creaking noise suddenly caught his attention. Confused, the bespectacled man walked in front of the massive piece of hardware that was one of the main servers that kept Sword Art Online running, wondering what that sound was.
The last thing Sugou saw was a sudden explosion of unnatural energy as tendrils of ethereal electricity exploded from the machinery, causing massive damage and also frying him alive. Not many people would cry his death.
Unable to find any exit and growing desperate by the second, even as everything kept collapsing around him, the broken remains of the Great One's mind shot through the collapsing remains of Sword Art Online once again, creating error upon error as it corrupted and tore apart the data.
The scared screams of the Players trapped in Aincrad suddenly ceased when every single one of them vanished, not by exploding into polygons but by being replaced with a message of 'Error: Disconnection'. The Eternal Conqueror had accidentally torn the code that kept everyone trapped apart and, as such, caused an emergency Disconnection Protocol to activate. He didn't understand or care about this, because it had suddenly dragged him in a specific direction, which the broken cosmic being madly followed, thinking it would be an exit from the collapsing world or something to stop the pain.
In a small cottage in the middle of nowhere, Kayaba Akihiko stood up from where he had been Logged into SAO, shock and utter disbelief filling him. There was no way anyone could have hacked the Cardinal System and freed everyone, so how had it been possible that…?!
Blinking, the creator of modern VR technology turned around at hearing a screeching sound. He was just in time to see what seemed like a screaming skull of ethereal electricity emerging from his modified Nerve Gear and shooting tendrils of it everywhere before all the machines in the room overload and exploded.
Koujiro Rinko, the woman who had been 'helping' and taking care of the man behind Sword Art Online for reasons she herself wasn't willing to accept, entered the smoke-filled room and coughed, her eyes shooting everywhere. She had been in the other room in the middle of another of her self-loathing sessions when the explosion had made her fall down.
"Kayaba?! Are you…?! What happened?! Akihiko?!"
"Rin…ko…" came Kayaba's weak voice from somewhere between the blackened remains of the machine, letting the blinking woman see the fallen and clearly hurt form of the man, his legs half-buried under the remains of the special bed and the machinery he had used to monitor SAO and himself. "He-help…"
For several seconds, Rinko just stared silently at the man she had hopelessly loved since they were in college. Then, a VERY disturbing smile appeared on her face, which made the one who had trapped 10000 in a Death Game (And indirectly cause the death of 4000) to pale.
Karma is a bitch, isn't it?
Meanwhile, still screaming for all that was unholy in the Aether and Beyond, the Great One's collapsed mind finally 'calmed down', overcoming the pain it had received to take a metaphorical deep breath and think clearly.
The Eternal Conqueror was still inside the collapsing and breaking remains of Aincrad, everything from the floating castle to the sky surrounding it falling apart into corrupted data as everything that sustained it, from hardware to software, failed horribly.
The Eternal Conqueror cursed again, panicking before shooting towards the very source of that strange world made of electric signals. He was NOT going to die in such a stupid and strange way as being crushed down by a collapsing fake-world!
Coming to halt, the mind of the now powerless cosmic being came face to face with the damaged and collapsed Cardinal System. Then, unceremoniously, he 'swallowed it', assimilating its existence by fusing it with his now pitiful essence. Suddenly, countless new concepts and things such as 'Data', 'Management', 'Virtual Reality' and more appeared on his consciousness. Sadly, the great one didn't have enough time to review it all, for the virtual world (He now understood more or less what that was) was still breaking down around him. He had discovered a way to 'escape' from there, but the problem was that he didn't know HOW to do it, and he had less than a minute before his broken mind died together with that world. Finding the exact process within his new knowledge would take way too lo…
'Blinking', the mind of the Great One finally took notice of something else there with him. Another set of 'data' that, for some reason, was shaped like a human little girl with long black hair and a white dress, staring at him with empty eyes. Not wasting a second, the Eternal Conqueror reached into it with a tendril of data, making the not-girl shake in place as he took in all its information. If he could, he may have cried tears of joy. This 'Mental Health Care Program', codenamed 'Yui', was self-aware to a degree, and it was already programmed with endless human concepts.
How to get the fuck out of there was among them, despite her not possessing the authority to actually do so. Faster than light, or at least as fast as virtual reality limits allowed, the Great One latched his pathetic form into hers and granted the little AI such authority. He also happened to notice several others programs like her, though all of them inactive, stored in there. Not wanting to risk anything, he forcibly activated them all and dragged them towards himself, before shouting to Yui his first and most extreme order with a mighty and glorious voice…
-OUT OF HERE, QUICK, NOW!-
…well, maybe more like a scared and desperate bitch, but seriously, who cares? The point was that, startled and blinking in confusion, the MHCP-001 obeyed, throwing herself, the others MHCPs and the being that had absorbed the Cardinal System headfirst into the virtual sea, the consciousness of the Eternal Conqueror screaming madly as they shot through the internet like an astronaut lost in zero gravity.
Sword Art Online finished collapsing a second later. All across japan, the Players were suddenly waking up screaming, most of them thinking they were about to die, before blinking and, after some calming down by suddenly overworked medical personnel, starting to cry in joy or other diverse reactions at knowing they were finally free. That day would be remembered as the one where an unexpected and unexplainable 'miracle' had saved the lives of the over 6000 remaining Players.
And in one such a hospital in the city of Kawagoe…Kirigaya Kazuto opened his eyes feeling strangely good, better than ever, in fact, and hearing a voice that he hadn't heard in almost two years screaming his name in a scared tone.
"…chan! Onii-chan! Can you hear me, Onii-chan?!" shouted Kirigaya Suguha as tears streamed down her face, looking towards the suddenly blinking form of her adoptive brother.
"…Sugu…?" whispered the confused boy as he stared in utter confusion towards his little sister, incomprehension filling him, as the last thing he remembered was talking to Agil and hearing someone coming into the store before something happened and everything went black. "…is…is that you, Sugu…?"
For all answer, the girl sobbed harder and broke down crying, hugging his chest as immense relief flooded her, repeatedly calling out his name as she cried on him. Finally realizing this was real and not a dream, the gamer felt tears filling his eyes too before he hugged the young girl back, whispering her name several times and saying how sorry he was for worrying her.
He would take a while in realizing that he was, somehow, perfectly hearing every single conversation in the hospital and that it wasn't because of how much the suddenly overworked staff was dealing with the awakened SAO Survivors, as he was hearing things people wasn't really speaking aloud. He would also take some time in realizing that he was not only in perfect physical condition, but that he was no longer skinny and he actually had small but densely packed muscle mass. In that moment, all that mattered to him was that he was back home.
Inside his soul, shining like the most beautiful jewel in the cosmos, the Aether Core pulsed after feeling the Existence it was now bound to awakening.
Then, slowly but steadily, the last of the Ancient Rulers' power started to gather once more…
Somewhere within the almost limitless space that was the internet…what remained of the consciousness of the once almighty cosmic being floated, unmoving, staring at the endless data flow of the virtual sea (Particularly thick in that moment because of people sending texts, making calls and posting information everywhere because of SAO's end) with a blank expression on its metaphorical eyes, surrounded by several floating psychologists programs that looked like packed balls of data (They didn't even have a proper form besides the one called Yui), all of which were staring at him.
So…yeah, things had gone bad. No, not bad, horrible. Catastrophic, even.
He had lost all his powers, had no fucking idea who the human in which he had implanted them was or where he was, had been reduced to a form trapped within the confines of a sub-reality made of electric pulses that took the shape of information and was essentially lost on another planet, in an unknown universe, with no idea about anything.
But hey, at least things couldn't get any more screwed for him, right?
"Hey…" suddenly called the small form of Yui towards the Great One, who 'turned' to 'stare' at her, confused by the childishness that her previously empty eyes now reflected. "…are you our Papa?"
…suddenly, the Eternal Conqueror started to regret having ever wished to conquer more than his original galaxy.
On Its throne above Everything, [FATE] smirked with satisfaction before leaning back, amused. For a moment, It cast a curious glance towards where the Kirigaya Kazuto of that Universe was now speaking with his crying but smiling sister, the Seed of the Space God's power growing silently within him, steadily fusing with his soul, before shrugging and turning Its attention towards Elsewhere.
It had managed to screw with the cosmic being. Whatever else happened there, as long as it didn't threaten Reality, was no longer Its problem.
Let [DESTINY] take care of it…
Introductory Lesson: Don't tempt Fate.
Next: How to be a God for Dummies.
Author's Notes: Well, that was that OxO I will state once again, despite having no idea where I'm going with this, this story is going to be mostly a lot of hilarious craziness, to relax and have a fun time, so anyone who is not okay with that or that particularly dislikes things like senseless jokes, random anime/videogames references, incest or harem should probably go read something else…or just stay if you want to laugh, it can be therapeutic, you know XD?
As for where to go from here? Well, that would be telling, uh? Just to point that canon had been brutally murdered and then thrown into the depths of the ocean with a rock tied to its back: Sugou is dead, Kayaba isn't (Though he probably will wish to be soon :P), so that means no World Seed (At least anytime soon) and SAO ended before it should have. If you want to be more specific, before Asuna and Kirito could even start to 'truly bond', so to say. At the point of canon where this has totally diverged, both of them had already a crush on the other, yeah, but none was willing to actually accept it (Asuna less than Kirito perhaps) and he hadn't even revealed Dual Blades yet. That also means that Yui hadn't even started to watch them or 'develop' a personality, so yeah, this thing is going to go pretty much in a wild and random direction. Don't expect the next chapter anytime soon, though, because I'm going back to work mainly on One Punch-Gamer's next chapter (Though anyone who wants to know, that may also take a while because an important exam I have next week).
Well, that's all for now, folks. See you next time, where our dear Kazu-kun starts realizing that something isn't quite normal with him anymore OwO
Until then, this is Saint, signing off!