After Nezu's death, Junsei withdrew deeper into the forest.
He stopped seeing people entirely. No more visits, no more conversations, no more exchanges beneath the trees. The world beyond continued to move, rebuild, and change, but the forest remained untouched. And within it, hidden from all, the White Demon remained. Even without appearing, his presence lingered in human memory. A warning. A boundary that no one dared to cross.
Junsei lived in isolation for decades.
He did not interact with humans, but he watched. Through Life itself, he observed their actions, their growth, their mistakes. Whenever they came close to overstepping, to reaching too far into lands that were no longer theirs, he intervened silently. Boundaries were upheld. Nature remained untouched.
Time passed.
And with it, people he knew began to disappear.
Junsei felt it when Mr. Yaoyorozu died. A quiet absence, one among many. From time to time, he would look into Momo's life without her ever knowing. He watched her grow older. Watched her live. Watched her change. The same for others he had once known.
One by one, they all aged.
One by one, they all died.
Four decades after Nezu's death, something else came.
A plague.
It spread across the world with terrifying speed, cutting through humanity without mercy. Within a single year, billions died. Entire nations collapsed. Civilization itself fractured as nearly ninety-five percent of humanity was wiped out. Almost every single human possessing a quirk succumbed to the plague.
Some remembered Junsei. Some believed this was his doing.
In truth, the plague was another Life evolution to end human quirks once and for all. Junsei simply approved of it, while humanity had failed to stop it.
However, Junsei intervened once for Momo.
Just as he had told her long ago, sickness would not harm her. The plague never touched her or her immediate family. He ensured that much.
And he did the same for Shinso, who was still alive.
Two years after the plague ended, Momo died of old age.
Five years later, Shinso followed.
And with his death, the last human Junsei had ever known personally was gone.
There was no one left.
There was nothing stopping him anymore. He could have ended humanity then.
But he did not.
Junsei looked at the album Nezu had left him. The photos. The fragments of memory. The lives that had once intersected with his own.
And he chose something illogical. He allowed humanity to continue in its current state. He wanted to honor the wishes of those who died, he allowed humanity a chance to die out naturally.
He would not interfere unless they threatened Life again. He would watch. Only watch.
Junsei became a silent observer.
Time moved forward.
Centuries passed.
As expected, humanity never recovered fully. Their numbers dwindled slowly, steadily. Infighting for dwindling resources only weakened them further. Climate shifts reshaped their world. New diseases emerged. Animals evolved further, gaining all kind of quirks and reclaiming dominance over lands once controlled by humans.
Piece by piece, humanity faded.
Junsei understood perfectly what was going on.
For most of their existence, humans had relied on him. On Life. On the essence they had unknowingly stolen and consumed to evolve, to adapt and survive. Now, with Junsei preventing that, their evolution slowed.
They were no longer keeping up.
They were falling behind.
And with him protecting Life, there was nothing they could do to change their fate.
Only a few centuries after Nezu's death, the last human died.
Humanity ended right there.
Junsei succeeded, he pushed humanity to a slow end, and only Life remained.
But he never forgot Nezu's words. Never forgot the conversations. Nezu had called him pitiful. Said he would be lonely.
At the time, Junsei had denied it.
Now, he understood.
The album remained with him, preserved against time itself through Eri's power. Every image remained as clear as the moment it was taken.
He kept it like a treasure.
Because it was the only thing that still connected him to something that no longer existed.
Junsei realized Nezu had been right all along.
It was painful to remember.
To remember his own lives and pain. To remember faces and voices that no longer existed. Moments that could never return. Guilt lingered. Loss and pain remained fresh, untouched by time.
And worse than all of it, loneliness.
Once, Junsei had felt complete. Connected to Life in its entirety. That connection still existed. He could feel everything. Every living thing. Every change. Every cycle.
But it was not the same.
He wished, sometimes, to talk to them again.
Nezu.
Momo.
The others.
But that was not possible.
Time did not stop.
Thousands of years passed.
Then millions.
Life continued to evolve, endlessly adapting, growing, changing in ways even Junsei could not fully predict. New species rose. Others vanished. The world reshaped itself over and over again.
More time passed, billions of years.
Life did not remain bound to a single planet. It adapted, expanded, and reached beyond the limits that once defined it. Some creatures evolved to survive in the void itself, leaving planets behind and drifting among the stars. Entire ecosystems formed in the emptiness between planets and stars, sustained by forces humanity had never thought of.
Junsei watched it all.
The sun that once lit Earth dimmed slowly, its fire fading until it collapsed into silence. The planet that had once carried forests, oceans, and memories decayed into dust, then into nothing. Stars across the universe followed, one after another, burning out, collapsing, vanishing.
And still, Life continued and Junsei remained.
Time lost meaning to him.
There were no longer days, no years, no centuries. Only existence. He watched as the last living beings flickered and died. He watched as the final stars went dark. Matter itself began to break apart, unraveling at the most fundamental level until even the structure of the universe could no longer hold.
Expansion slowed.
Then stopped.
The boundaries of existence fractured, and the energy that once filled everything drained away into nothingness.
And into that nothingness, as if a veil was put down, a creature Junsei had never seen manifested before him. A being of pure light, it had a giant ball of light consisting of billions of smaller lights. Surrounded by rotating nine rings, each had multiple eyes printed on them.
Junsei moved toward the being of pure light, its body expanding into pure blue light as its wings span in the endless void holding and covering the being entirely. Junsei didn't know how much time passed in this existence of nothingness, but he eventually devoured the golden being.
And with that being gone, the universe had truly ended. No sound, no motion, no light. Only the faint warmth of Junsei's blue light existed.
He alone existed in the infinite nothingness, the final remnant of everything that had ever existed. Within him was all of it. Every fragment of Life, every trace of energy, every memory of being.
He looked into the void as eternity stretched before him.
"Life is a cycle," he said quietly. "And this is the end of it all."
Silence answered him.
Then, after a long moment, he spoke again.
"The end is just another beginning. I am the beginning without an end"
A new understanding dawned on him. Not of what had been, but of what should come next.
"I see now what I am supposed to do."
Junsei gazed into the emptiness, his presence the only light left in existence.
"If humans appear again, they will be part of Life, as all things should be." he said.
A pause.
"No other beings will ever exist outside of Life again."
Then he let go.
All of it.
The endless power within him, the accumulated essence of everything that had ever existed, every star, every breath, all released at once.
A single point.
Then an explosion.
Light erupted into the void, violent and absolute. Energy surged outward, tearing through nothingness, creating everything. Matter formed. Time began again. Space unfolded from the burst.
A new universe was born.
Stars ignited. Galaxies spun into existence. Dust gathered, condensed, and shaped itself into planets and stars. The cycle began anew, vast and endless once more.
And within that newborn universe, a small wisp of blue light drifted quietly through space.
Searching.
Waiting.
Billions of years passed again.
On a blue planet called Earth, under a sky filled with clouds and light, a boy with white hair and one blue eye and another golden stood in a field of endless blue flowers. He looked around, confusion in his gaze, as if he had been placed there without memory or reason.
The air was still.
Then, before him, something appeared.
A faceless being.
White.
Tall.
With eight wings stretching outward, each one moving with a life of its own.
The creature stood silently for a moment before speaking.
"If humans appear again, they will be part of Life, as all things should be."
The boy stared.
And then, he opened his eyes.
Darkness. A ceiling above him. A familiar room.
He blinked, his breath slightly uneven.
"What was that dream?" he murmured. "It's strange… and too familiar. What was that thing?"
A voice came from beside him, tired and annoyed.
"Why are you speaking in the middle of the night? Go back to sleep, Junsei."
He turned slightly.
"Sorry, sis."
He lay back down as a strange thought appeared in his mind: Forgetfulness is bliss.
He didn't know why he thought of that, but the dream and the thought lingered only for a moment before fading, slipping away like something he was never meant to fully remember or understand.
But even as sleep took him again, there was warmth.
A quiet, unexplainable feeling.
And for reasons he did not understand, he felt complete.
The End