Red Zone, Manhattan
A man in a hooded gray jacket slumped on his knees, defeated in a lengthy fight against his own creation. His arms were forcibly torn off from the rest of his body, with strange crimson tendrils barely keeping the stumps of his arms from bleeding heavily. Exhausted, he looks back at the one who was blessed by the goddess of victory: an African-American with a body built for a soldier, wearing a darker leather jacket of his own.
"Welcome to the top of the food chain"
Those were the last words ever uttered by 'Alex Mercer', or whatever he was known as. His aggressor grabs him by the collar off his jacket, raising his right hand as he wills it to transform into a sharp, metallic claw, and proceeds to slash him with it repeatedly out of rage. He then felt a feeling that's nothing new to him, as he had seen his fallen enemies expressing the same feeling in their final moments
So this is the same feeling that Cross felt...
…the same feeling that Greene felt...
…the same feeling that everyone I have consumed...
…felt...
As he is slowly consumed towards the monstrous black ooze from his creation, he had contemplated everything he did: He had struggled to find who he really is ever since he had awakened from a morgue. He had killed, consumed, assumed identities so many times to get to the answers he needed, only to find out he was nothing more than a virus taking the form into the man he is now. He had saved a populace from imminent doom, trying to live like a human, only to fail and ultimately lose faith in humanity over time upon learning that they will always bear evil intentions over time. He had come to formulate a plan to have humanity evolve by releasing the same thing he was trying to stop a year ago, only to fail once more.
Yet, despite his failure and his impending doom, he never felt any regrets. Perhaps, deep in his mind, several questions linger him even in his final moments
How did it come to this...? Where did I go wrong...? What happens now...?
That question ultimately culminated in a single, dying wish
I HOPE THINGS WOULD BE DIFFERENT IN ANOTHER LIFE
Then there was nothingness...
The last trace of him has now been consumed by the one who ended his life...
…and his plans of dooming humanity into a monstrous new age
…Or so it seems
In a distant place
The ground has been shattered
The ominous grey sky has darkened
Yet, the rain has slowly begun to subside.
Against the grim backdrop, two men were clashing with their own swords; an orange-haired teenager, sporting a bloodied and tattered black garb, was fighting for his own life against his opponent; a tall, long-haired, middle-aged man with a thick mustache, wearing an opposite white uniform and a tattered brown cloak. The two in black and white were like the opposing forces of yin and yang.
At the climax of the battle, the old man dashed towards his opponent with killing intent, swinging the sword upwards with only his right arm. The young man tried to parry the incoming attack, however it was too strong for him to handle. In an instant, the old man grabbed his opponent's hair and pointed his sword at him.
"This time, I'll stab you. Don't think you can dodge it with blut vene." The old man declared with a smile on his face
"I'll release my power-"
Before he could push the sword right towards the young man's heart, he stopped. Then, another voice called out.
"It's time, Your Majesty"
It was another younger man with slightly longer, golden blonde hair, perhaps not even younger than the boy in the black garb, wearing the same uniform and a white cape.
"You cannot stay outside of schatten bereich anymore. Please return to wandenreich" the blonde man advised
"No way. There should still be-"
Before he could continue any further, he remembered someone else he had met prior. Then he was hit with a realization.
"I see. Sosuke Aizen. It must be some trick of his. He managed to slightly confuse my perception in the short time we met"
He then turned around to the blonde man and asked him
"Haschwalth. Why didn't you tell me if you realized?"
"I knew that… trying to tell you would be useless" Haschwalth justified himself
With nothing else to retort and his outcome partially achieved, the old man sighs in resignation
"Oh well… let's go"
As he turned his back, the young man, heavily breathing from a one-sided fight, yelled out to them
"WAIT"
He stopped and looked at his battered state
"Do you think I'll let you go?"
Knowing the boy has no more strength to stop him, not even the strength to move, he continued his steps
"There's no way I'll allow you to escape after what you did to Soul Society!"
The two continued to tread on, not paying any mind to a defeated one's empty threats as a huge shadow appeared in front of them.
"I SAID STOP"
Wasting no time, the young man, with his sheer will left, dashed towards them with sword in hand, preparing to strike. Haschwalth took notice and parried the attack with his sword. To the young man's surprise, the parry broke the sword into two pieces. The larger blade flung in the air as it broke off from the hilt, which was all that's left of the sword he's holding
"Farewell, Ichigo Kurosaki-"
Before he could continue with his parting words, he and Haschwalth noticed something out of the ordinary, something they have never taken account for since they have planned on it. The broken blade suddenly imploded itself in mid-air, turning itself into a black ooze. Haschwalth was able to envision himself what was about to happen; him being impaled by a giant claw. Undeterred, he readies his sword, shield and activates his blut vene, preparing himself for the impending attack.
In an unknown dimension
The whole world was cracking from within; skyscrapers begin cracking one after the other, the sky distorts itself into a bright light, the ground crumbles itself into bits and pieces. Another man, bearing a similar appearance to the old man from earlier, except he was much younger, solemnly looked on as the destruction unfolds. A large, black ooze dropped itself on the crumbling ground, just from behind the old man. He took notice of the bubbling ooze and immediately realized its sentience.
"You must have been hungry after a long leap through time and space. Perhaps I'll offer myself for you if that will satisfy your hunger. There's no point for me to stay in this doomed world of mine, so please hurry before it will erase your existence" he solemnly said to the black ooze
Without hesitation, he reaches his hand out for the ooze as it latches into him. It then pierces into the arms of the old man. Slowly, the ooze grew larger and larger, gradually enveloping his helpless victim, who could do nothing but accept his fate as he closed his eyes. The ooze, having consumed the old man, transformed itself into another man, dressed in light-blue jeans and wearing a jet-black hooded jacket to cover his facial features. It was no other than Mercer, the one who had been devoured before, now finding itself into an unknown territory. Mercer knelt himself into the ground as he held his head like he was suffering from migraine, still having to comprehend the memories of the old man he had consumed.
Where am I?
He noticed something about this place: the crumbling skylines were nearly similar to Manhattan, except it was horizontally laid, the sky was crimson rather than the natural blue. Moreover, everything in the place surprisingly contained life similar to a human, even inanimate objects. Still not satisfied with his hunger and with too much information to process, Mercer crouched and yelled in agony. All of a sudden, hundreds of tendril-like figures spread throughout his entire body and started to grab everything they could hold onto. Then, the tendrils pulled everything, from small rocks and glasses to large debris, into Mercer's body like a black hole until there was nothing left of him or this world.