Kenji shook off the lingering shock coursing through his nerves. This was no time to be spiraling, no time to be worrying about why Ophis, the Ouroboros Dragon and the literal Infinite Dragon God, had decided to appear in his living room like a personal waiting lounge.
He should just calm down and not freak out.
...
.....
'Okay, I'm definitely freaking out, he admitted to himself, his heart still hammering against his ribs.
'She didn't even trigger the wards. There was no change even in the air. She wanst theere and then She just… was.' It was a terrifying reminder that, despite his meteoric rise in power, he was still playing a game where the board could be flipped by beings he didn't fully understand.
He took a deep, controlled breath, then He exhaled slowly, watching the mist of his breath in the cold air. 'Focus, Kenji. Focus.'
Lucky, he knew the mechanics of the System well enough by now. Whenever he traveled between worlds for Quests, time in his home dimension effectively entered a state of stasis. Time stopped, so whatever Ophis wanted, or whatever plans she had for his soul, wouldn't progress until he set foot back in his own hallway. For now, Ana and the kids were safe, suspended in time.....with a freaking dragon god.
He felt himself start to worry again before stopping. The time stops. Yes, think of the time stop.
He centered himself and finally turned to look at the three individuals standing in the damp forest with him.
The first was a small child. At a glance, he looked no more than eight or nine years old, but Kenji knew better. Physically, he was twelve anyway, he was pale, chalk-white skin that looked like polished porcelain, short silver hair, and eyes that were a striking mix of red and purple. This was Vandalieu, the Death Mage. He stood with an eerie, motionless calm that would have unnerved most people, radiating a faint, cloying scent of old earth, stagnant mana, and something fundamentally wrong with the cycle of life.
Next to him was a lanky teenager with spiky black hair that caught the light in shades of deep maroon and crimson. This was Sora. The boy was currently a physical manifestation of a panic attack, crouched low on the forest floor, arms wrapped tightly around his legs as if trying to hold himself together. His scarlet eyes were unfocused, darting around, and he was muttering frantically. He looked utterly drained, his spirit clearly reeling from the forced separation from his sister, Shiro. To Sora, being alone wasn't just scary, it was a debuff that rendered his very existence incomplete. As he used to say, Sora and Shiro were one. Together, they were blank.
And then, there was the third. A young woman stood with her feet planted firmly in the soft loam, her back straight and alert. Vibrant scarlet hair flowed down her back like a river of blood, contrasting with the functional, polished shine of her silver armor. Her brown eyes were sharp and observant, scanning the treeline with a professional intensity that Kenji immediately respected since technically she was the most experienced here. Erza Scarlet. She was already assessing the terrain, her magic power simmering just beneath the surface, ready to re-equip at a moment's notice.
As Kenji studied them, he realized they were all doing the same. After a long, heavy silence, Kenji decided to be the one to bridge the gap.
"It's nice to finally meet you all in person," he said, his voice projecting a calm he didn't entirely feel. He offered a small, reassuring smile. "I know you've probably already pieced it together from the chat, but I'll introduce myself properly. I'm Kenji Takahashi."
Vandalieu stepped forward first. His face remained still, a mask of absolute blankness, his voice flat and devoid of any inflection, sounding more like a recording than a person. "I am Vandalieu. It is a pleasure to meet you," he said, offering a polite bow. Despite the lack of emotion, Kenji knew the boy was sincere in his greetings. Vandalieu was looking at Kenji as he seemed to be assessing him.
"I am Erza Scarlet," Erza followed, inclining her head. "I have looked forward to meeting the man who provided us with so much… insight. Your 'series' has changed my world, Kenji. I hope we can work together here as well."
Their collective gaze shifted to the last member. Sora remained in his ball, his breathing ragged. Kenji knew the boy's background. Sora didn't come from a world of blood and iron, or rather, the current world of theirs isn't.
In Disboard, violence was literally forbidden by the Ten Covenants. Sora was a genius of the mind, a master of games and social engineering, but a physical battlefield was not for someone like him.
Kenji knelt down beside him, keeping his movements slow and non-threatening. "Sora… hey. Look at me. Take a breath."
The boy flinched at the touch but slowly looked up, his eyes wide as he tried to focus on him.
"We'll make this fast," Kenji told him, his voice dropping into a firm, serious register that brooked no argument. "We're going to finish this mission and get you back home to Shiro before she even realizes you're gone. But if we want to succeed quickly, if we want to avoid unnecessary risks… We'll need that brain of yours. You're the smartest person I know, Sora. Don't let the scenery get to you. This is just another game, just with higher-res graphics and a slightly more punishing 'Game Over' screen."
Sora took a shaky breath, then another. The mention of his sister seemed to act like a shot of adrenaline. He wiped his face with his sleeve and pushed himself up, trembling slightly but standing. "I-it's nice to meet you all," he whispered, a weak, flickering ghost of his usual arrogant smirk appearing for a split second. "I'm Sora. I'm the 'Human' representative of my world. Let's just… let's just win this game so I can go back to my room. I haven't saved my progress in the real world yet," he said, laughing weakly at the end.
With the introductions out of the way, they checked the System window that was pulsing in their shared vision like a neon warning sign.
[Main Mission: Destination: Earth – TVGH19475 (DC)] A Shard of Chaos has fallen into this universe and into the hands of *********. Find them before they learn to use its power—or are consumed by *********.
"A Shard of Chaos," Kenji muttered, his brow furrowing as he analyzed the redacted text. "No location, no names, just censored data and a vague threat. The System really isn't making this easy. DC.. hn."
The mission was frustratingly broad. Was the "Shard" a literal crystal? A piece of a primordial deity? A concentrated conceptual virus? Just a piece of stone or what?
Another notification pinged, and each of them found a small, compass-like orb in their inventory, a Chaos Resonator.
It didn't point toward the goal, but it pulsed with a faint, sickly violet light when the target of the quest was close.
"Better than nothing, I suppose," Kenji sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
They decided to head west, hoping to find a break in the oppressive canopy. As they walked, Kenji and Erza discussed about both their world and the changes erza had made.
Vandalieu walked a few paces ahead, his silver hair a bright spot in the gloom, his eyes fixed on the shadows with an intensity that suggested he was seeing things they couldn't with Kenji knew he could. Sora trailed behind, unusually quiet.
After an hour of trekking through the silent, eerie woods, Vandalieu suddenly stopped. He tilted his head, his ears twitching as if catching a frequency others couldn't hear.
"What is it, Van?" Kenji asked, his own gravity mana already beginning to hum, creating a faint, localized distortion in the air.
"I smell blood," the boy said, his voice as calm as if he were commenting on the color of the leaves. "Lots of it. Old and fresh. And I can sense death everywhere… It's saturating the very soil, the roots of these trees. It feels like a slaughterhouse that spans the horizon." He paused, looking genuinely confused for the first time. "But… I can't find any souls roaming. A place with this much death should be teeming with ghosts, wraiths, and vengeful spirits. Here, there is only… silence. It's as if the souls were collected as soon as they left the bodies."
Kenji stopped in his tracks. If this was DC as he suspected, then the absence of spirits was not that surprising.
"If this is the place I think it is," Kenji said slowly, his voice dropping an octave, "then that's normal. Most people here don't get the chance to linger. Someone handles the transition personally, making sure the exit is as clean as the life was messy."
Vandalieu looked back at him, his red eye pulsing. "Who handles it? A god of death?"
"Didi," Kenji replied.
"Didi?" Erza asked, her hand instinctively moving to the hilt of a sword she had summoned through her Requip magic.
"Death. Death of the Endless," Kenji explained, passing the trio who had frozen in place. "The sister of Dream and Destiny. Don't worry. She's actually very friendly, perky, even. She's probably the only friendly thing in this entire multiverse, honestly."
He said, then smiled and walked away.
"WAIT, YOU CAN'T JUST DROP THE LITERAL CONCEPT OF DEATH BEING A 'FRIENDLY' GIRL AND KEEP WALKING!" Sora shouted, his anxiety flaring into a comedic outburst as he scrambled after Kenji, his legs shaking. "That is a massive lore dump! We need context! We need a manual!"
Kenji laughed, though it was a dry, hollow sound. As they emerged from the forest, he began to explain the sheer, terrifying scale of the DC Multiverse. He told them about the Presence, the warring New Gods of New Genesis and the hell-planet Apokolips, and the Endless who governed the fundamental aspects of reality.
He described heroes who could move planets and villains who could rewrite time. By the time he finished describing how even "Gods" were just middle-management compared to the forces at play here, Erza and Sora looked physically shaken.
Only Vandalieu remained unfazed, as he just continued to stare at him. Kenji sweatdropped. If he didn't know the kid was just cursed with a flat affect from his previous lives of suffering, he'd think he was a cold-blooded villain in the making.
Their conversation died a sudden death as they cleared the final treeline.
What greeted them wasn't a sprawling, vibrant metropolis, but a gray ruin. Buildings lay in heaps of shattered concrete and twisted rebar. The streets were choked with rusted, overturned cars and the scorched remains of military checkpoints that had clearly failed.
They stepped cautiously into the city limits, their boots crunching on broken glass. Suddenly, Kenji's Danger Sense screamed at him.
SWISH.
Something moved from a second-story window, a blur of grey and black speed as it sped down with speed that far surpassed human capability. It launched itself at Kenji's back, fingers extended like hooks.
Without looking, Kenji's hand shot out like a whip, catching the attacker mid-air by the throat. He slammed the figure into a crumbling brick wall with enough force to crack the masonry, lifting it off the ground.
It was a man, or it had been once. His skin was a sickly, translucent grey, pulled tight over bone, and his eyes glowed with a feral, crimson light. Fangs elongated from his gums as he hissed, clawing uselessly at Kenji's unbreakable grip.
"A vampire," Kenji muttered, his eyes narrowing as he felt the cold pulse from the creature.
Then came the sounds. A low, rhythmic scraping of bone on stone. Hissing from the sewers below. The clicking of long nails on the pavement. From every shadowed alley, every shattered window, and every hollowed-out car, dozens, then hundreds, of red eyes began to appear.
"Oh shit," Sora whispered, backing up, his back hitting Erza's steel plate as they were slowly surrounded by the starving, undead denizens of a fallen world.
Kenji's eyes flared with a golden light, the ground beneath him beginning to crack from the sheer pressure of his mana. "Stay close."
He told seriously.
Erza's armor shimmered as she swapped to her Heaven's Wheel armor, dozens of swords manifesting in the air. Vandalieu's shadows began to writhe, and Sora hid behind him, his mind finally clicking into 'Survival Mode.'
The first wave of the undead lunged.
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