"Angy?" I whispered, my voice completely cracking.
Domino slowly nodded. "You have sacrificed everything for your family, John. But more importantly, you tipped the scales of the multiverse. You stepped in and helped Peter Parker change his fate. You saved a Spider-Totem from his mandated tragedy and the Web of Life and Destiny is eternally grateful to you."
Domino reached into her leather jacket.
"Neither me nor Jay could let you walk away from this table empty-handed," Domino said.
She pulled her hand out and opened her palm.
Resting in the centre of her pale hand was a perfectly round marble. It looked like a tiny galaxy with swirling nebulas of deep blue and silver drifted inside the orb, glowing with a soft light.
My Divinity Necromancy instantly identified it.
It wasn't a spell or an item. It was a untouched and perfectly preserved soul, resting peacefully, waiting to be released back into the cycle of reincarnation.
It was her.
It was Angela Fake.
My knees actually gave out. I again hit the floor hard, staring at the starry marble in Lady Death's hand.
Seven years.
Seven years of repressed grief, seven years of fighting, bleeding, and clawing my way through nightmares just to survive, all came rushing to the surface. I had made my peace with her death. I had accepted that she was gone, choosing to fight for Nakime, Satoru, Sebas and my found family instead.
But seeing her soul right in front of me... it shattered like a failed dam.
The memories I had buried deep in my psyche violently clawed their way out.
I saw the steep wooden stairs of my childhood mansion, heard the sickening thud of her body hitting the floorboards and again saw the expanding pool of blood.
I heard my father's cold voice as he ripped the phone cord out of the wall.
"If she lives, she's crippled and we lose everything. But if she dies... her grandfather's trust fund defaults to us, not to mention her life insurance."
He let her bleed to death on a dirty floor for a pay check. And I…I stood there. I had stood there, a pathetic, terrified coward, too weak to stop him, too weak to save the only person who had ever looked at me with love.
That guilt was the poison that had rotted my first life. It was the reason I had thrown myself into gambling and reason I had died alone in Viktor's warehouse playing Russian Roulette.
"Take her, John," Domino said softly, kneeling down on the casino floor and gently placing the starry marble into my trembling hands. "Bring her home."
I cradled the orb against my chest, tears slowly spilling down my cheeks. It felt warm, like standing in the sun after a lifetime in the freezing dark.
I looked back at the system prompt hovering in the air.
[To revive a target, you have to make appropriate sacrifices like money, valuables or artefacts. The stronger the target the more sacrifices need to be made.]
Angy was a normal human. She wasn't a cosmic entity or a Viltrumite, heck she wasn't even a super. But bringing a soul back from the true cycle of reincarnation from a different multiverse, required a massive toll.
I needed to sacrifice something that held true and equivalent weight. Something that deeply and genuinely mattered to me. And I knew Gold and cash wouldn't cut it.
Domino placed a pale hand on my shoulder.
"You want to pull a soul out of the true cycle, John?" Domino asked, her voice carrying the heavy weight of Death itself. "You know the fundamental law, even the ROBs must follow? To obtain something, something of equal value must be lost. That is the law of Equivalent Exchange. What are you willing to give up?"
I wiped my eyes, diving deep into item space.
I didn't even hesitate and bypassed all the rolls I'd pulled during my career as a Transmigrator and reached deep and pulled out a simple, unassuming short sword with a chain link attached to the hilt.
[Incursio]
|Epic Item|
Akame Ga Kill - In its dormant state the Incursio resembles a short sword that can be activated into a white armor that completely covers the user and grants them enhanced physical stats as well as the ability to turn invisible for a duration. But the true strength of the Incursio lies in its ability to adapt and become stronger, so the longer you use it the stronger it will become and acquire new forms.
I held the short sword in my right hand and Angy's soul in my left.
I looked down at the blade.
Incursio.
It was an infinitely evolving artifact. It was truly priceless.
And it meant absolutely fucking nothing to me compared to the starry marble in my left hand. Ultimate protection meant zero if it meant I would never see her again.
"RNGesus," I rasped, my voice thick with tears. "To use [Resurrection] I offer the infinitely evolving artifact, [Incursio], as the sacrifice."
RNGesus chimed in.
"I know it'll be meaningless to ask but are you sure you want to proceed, kid?"
"Yes," I answered instantly.
The short sword in my right hand began to vibrate violently as the metal cracked. Blinding white light bled from the fractures as the ancient, adaptive Danger Beast soul trapped within the blade roared in sudden submission.
The sword dissolved into a swirling vortex of dense white energy showing the sacrifice was accepted.
I gently placed the starry marble onto the pristine floor of the casino.
The white energy of the sacrificed armor surged forward, wrapping around the soul like a cocoon. The moment the energy made contact, the marble flared in a brilliant, sky-blue light. It began to float on its own, slipping out of the energy and hovering in the air.
I held my breath, terrified to even blink.
A brilliant, ethereal blue light erupted as specks of energy floated off the core like stardust.
In the pin-drop silence of the Great Cosmic Casino, a sound echoed.
Thump-thump.
It was a heartbeat. Strong, steady, and alive.
Through my fingers, I watched the miracle of true, equivalent exchange.
The energy began to weave as it spun into a skeletal structure, forming bones of pristine white. Then came the nervous system, flashing like lightning, followed by Muscle fiber knitted itself together, layering perfectly over the bone. And finally, skin materialized, flushing with the immediate, rushing warmth of pumping blood.
The blinding light snapped out of existence.
Gravity reasserted itself, and the small body began to fall.
[Image Here]
With even the ROBs watching in awestruck silence, I was the only one to move. I dove forward, hitting the floor hard, skidding across the neon-lit tiles on my knees, and caught her small body securely in my arms.
Lying in my grip was a little girl.
She was wearing a simple pair of oversized blue pajamas, covered in yellow stars. The exact same pajamas she had been wearing the night she died.
I couldn't speak. My throat was locked tight as the phantom weight of her blood on my hands was finally washed away.
The girl's eyelashes fluttered.
Slowly, Angy opened her eyes.
The dead, hollow eyes from my nightmares were gone. Instead, her pupils had taken the shape of brilliant, glowing stars, radiating with pure life and wonder.
She blinked against the ambient neon light of the casino, her gaze drifting lazily before finally locking onto my face. She looked at my scarred jawline, my tired eyes, and the heavy tears streaming down my cheeks.
"Your... face..." she muttered. Her voice was small, and so incredibly familiar that it shattered my heart into a thousand pieces. "John… is that you, Johnny?"
Recognition finally flooded her face.
She threw her small arms up, wrapping them desperately around my neck and burying her face into my shoulder.
"Angy… my little Angy," I wailed.
I didn't care that people were watching. I didn't care about looking cool or acting like a hardened survivor in front of the gods of the Omniverse.
I buried my face into her blonde hair and completely broke down. I sobbed with the same agony of a little boy who had just gotten his sister back. I vented years of repressed trauma, pouring it all out onto the floor of RNGesus's parlour.
[Image Here]
I just held onto her like she'd disappear if I let go, heavy tears streaming down my cheeks, finally finding the peace I thought I'd lost forever.
In the background, under the flashing neon lights, the First Gambler, the concept of Death, and the entity of Life quietly watched. And for the first time in an eternity, the Casino of Gods was respectfully silent.
[A/N]:
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