END OF THE FUTURE ARC PART THREE

In the suffocating, blood-red haze of the Demon Realm—where the scorched earth split into jagged, glowing fissures and the eternal crimson skies churned like a sea of fire—Shu regarded the six towering Demon Lords with a lazy, half-lidded smirk. A faint spark of excitement glinted deep in his eyes, but it was smothered beneath layers of casual indifference, as if this entire deadly gathering was nothing more than an amusing interruption to his day.

“This is quite an over-the-top welcome,” he drawled, voice low and languid.

He counted them off slowly, deliberately, like a man with endless time. “One… two… three… six. Six out of seven, huh. This is gonna be a doozy.”

Hannah’s sharp voice cut through the thick, sulfur-choked wind like a blade. “Don’t get cocky, kid. Full power from the get-go—it’s six on two. We don’t have the leisure of holding anything back.”

Shu’s smirk stretched wider, still utterly relaxed. “Oh, you worry too much. Our souls are already condemned by the contract anyway. The concept of death no longer applies to us.”

With effortless, almost bored grace, he stretched out his left hand. An eerie dark aura coiled lazily around his fingers, twisting and writhing before solidifying with a low, ominous thrum into the black katana of the Wolf King—ancient steel that greedily drank the crimson light, its edge whispering silent promises of carnage.

The Demon Lords’ immortal gazes locked onto the weapon. Shock flashed across their flawless, terrible faces, quickly morphing into sharp, predatory curiosity that made the air itself feel heavier.

One stepped forward through the haze—a breathtaking, deadly beauty with curling ram horns, storm-grey skin, and massive bat-like wings folded like a living shroud around a body sculpted to lethal perfection.

“I’m Bayonetta,” she purred, her voice playful yet laced with razor-edged intrigue, “the second strongest Demon Lord after His Highness Lucius. I’m curious—how did a mortal like you, who dwells in the human world, get your hands on the Wolf King’s sword?”

Her fingers traced her lips thoughtfully, teasingly. “That sword was lost the moment the Wolf King’s soul was captured after being slain by a band of berserker-possessed warriors from a village he reigned over in the human realm. The fact you have it can only mean… you’ve made a contract with the berserkers, haven’t you?”

Shu answered with a slight, lazy smirk. “Didn’t take long for you to guess that. Then again, I guess I made it too obvious.”

He stepped closer, confidence radiating like slow-burning heat. “Now that you know I’m essentially a ticking time bomb—what do you plan to do now?”

Bayonetta’s smile turned razor-sharp, eyes gleaming with wicked delight. “The answer is simple, really…”

Her yellow, reptilian-slitted eyes bled to searing crimson, pupils inverting into upside-down Vs. A torrent of red aura erupted around her like a volcanic explosion, whipping the haze into frenzied spirals. “If you can’t beat it… become it.”

The aura collapsed in a thunderous implosion.

Shu’s lazy mask shattered—his breath catching in raw, genuine shock and awe as the haze cleared.

“That was… unexpected.”

Standing before him was a perfect, flawless copy of himself—every detail identical, from stature to hair colour to the exact folds of his clothes. The only betrayal was those bright red eyes burning with the upside-down V pupils.

Hannah, sensing the catastrophic shift in the air, unleashed a guttural roar and hurled herself at the other five Demon Lords. “Shu! Try and end the fight as soon as possible!”

Bayonetta—now wearing Shu’s face and voice—unsheathed her identical Wolf King katana with a wicked, mirrored grin. “Khali has a point. Just to at least make the fight entertaining, I’ll tell you how my kantar technique works.”

She leveled the blade with deliberate menace. “When these eyes of mine are activated, I can choose to become a one-to-one copy of anyone I look at—or just copy their fighting abilities and kantar techniques. My eyes store the form and abilities of anyone I’ve copied during my entire lifetime, and I can use their abilities at will.”

She struck without warning.

A colossal arc of raw kantar tore through the air like a screaming comet. Shu bisected it with lazy, almost bored precision—the halves exploding harmlessly against the crimson sky.

Then, with a predatory grin, she stabbed her katana into empty air.

Space itself ripped open with a sickening tear.

Shu’s eyes widened a fraction too late—the blade erupted from a rift behind him and plunged straight through his back, piercing his heart with merciless accuracy.

A terrifying spray of blood burst from his mouth. He stared down in disbelief at his own smirking face twisting the blade deeper, grinding steel against bone.

*These guys are something else…* The thought burned through the agony. *Hard to believe they share the same rank with Dracula when the power gap is this obscene.*

Pain roared through every nerve, but beneath it, the lazy veil began to tear—excitement surging like wildfire in his veins. *I don’t know why… maybe it’s the berserker spirit in me… but for some reason, I feel excited. The chance to go all out—it’s exhilarating.*

With a guttural snarl born of rising thrill, he coated his katana in kantar and swung backward with every ounce of strength he could summon. Steel shattered against steel—Bayonetta’s copy blade broke in half with a ringing crack that echoed across the wasteland.

Freed, Shu ripped the broken fragment from his chest in a spray of blood. His kantar surged like a black tide, sealing flesh and bone in mere nanoseconds.

A wide, visible grin split his face—the laziness burning away into open, hungry thrill. “I’m not gonna deny it—your abilities are impressive. And I’m curious… just how many abilities have you copied?”

In a sudden flash of speed, he appeared at her side—his sword piercing clean through her torso. “Keep this fight thrilling for me, would ya?”

Bayonetta’s copied lips curved into a smile before she dissipated into dark smoke.

“As expected—that was a clone,” Shu muttered, smirk sharpening with growing excitement.

The broken blade half exploded into countless razor shards that streaked toward him like a storm of death. He calmly superheated his kantar until the blade glowed white-hot, deflecting every fragment with masterful, exhilarated precision—each shard turning to glittering dust on contact.

Bayonetta materialized from nowhere behind him, remnant blade raised for a killing blow. Shu sensed it—blocked with his scabbard, countered with a lightning thrust. She leaped back at the last possible instant.

Unwilling to let her escape, Shu hurled his katana through the air. With perfect timing, he teleported to its location as it passed beside her—and slashed at a critical point on the airborne copy.

Suddenly, gravity itself rebelled. An invisible repulsive force blasted him sideways with brutal violence, sending him skidding across jagged rock.

He landed in a crouch, eyes now blazing openly. “What the hell was that?”

As if reading his mind, Bayonetta—still wearing his form—smirked down at him. “You can’t stop me. Over my lifetime, I’ve copied over a thousand powerful kantar techniques.” She paused, glancing appreciatively at her stolen body. “Although you do have a very good selection, if I do say so myself. Consider it an honour—I, Bayonetta of one of the top demon families, find your abilities worthy of using.”

Shu’s grin turned feral with excitement. “Sorry for being rude, Your Highness.” He bowed theatrically, mockery dripping. “Most gracious Bayonetta—may I kick your ass?”

The insult ignited her fury. Gravity crushed down around him—sixty times Earth’s normal pull, enough to pulverize mountains.

Yet Shu remained standing, unmoved, the thrill in his eyes burning brighter than ever.

Her shock was palpable—and delicious.

“It’s clear you underestimate me,” he said, voice low and electric with anticipation. “You think increasing the gravity around me would do anything? I almost feel offended.”

He dashed forward, kantar blazing along his blade.

Bayonetta restored her broken blade with a surge of kantar and met him head-on.

Their clash became a storm of light and shadow—two blurs zipping through the air and across the scorched earth at speeds that rendered them invisible, the ground shattering beneath their footsteps, shockwaves ripping through the haze.

Shu spotted a perfect opening and swung for her blind spot.

His blade halted centimetres from her skin—stopped dead by an invisible repulsive force.

The split-second stall was all she needed. Her counter-slash carved a deep, burning gash across his chest, forcing him to leap back.

Triumph blazed in her copied eyes. “I’m kinda digging your body. You’re fast and eagle-eyed—helps a lot in combat. And your fighting style is a mix of polar opposites: cold, tight calculation and wild instinct. I’m still surprised how that’s even possible.”

Shu rose, the wound already fully healed, steam rising from his skin. His voice thrummed with pure exhilaration. “I’m honoured getting compliments from the opponent—but I wonder… you managed to copy all my basic techniques. How would you fare if I kicked it up a notch?”

He placed his katana back in its scabbard with deliberate calm.

A red aura detonated around him like a supernova. Steam erupted from his body in violent hisses; crimson lightning cracked and danced across his frame. His skin took on a scarlet hue, eyes glowing with infernal light.

Red gauntlets materialized over his arms—roaring lion heads forged from raw kantar, mouths open in eternal snarls, framing his fingers. Matching knee-high boots formed, shaped like a lion’s powerful paws, completely encasing his feet.

“Fist of the Great Lion—Completed Form.”

The name echoed like thunder.

Shu vanished.

His gauntleted fist slammed into Bayonetta’s gut with apocalyptic force. She doubled over, coughing thick black blood, staggering as the thought exploded in her mind:

*This is impossible, how… I couldn’t even see his movement. His speed and strength increases exponentially.*

Before she could recover, a lion-booted kick crashed into the side of her neck. She was launched like a cannonball, smashing through a towering rock formation in a cloud of dust and debris.

*He’s something else… Even while using my eyes to see him activate the technique and despite having his body and all his moveset under my thumb, I can’t seem to copy this technique.*

Shu appeared above the rubble in an instant, eyes blazing with unrestrained, electric excitement.

Bayonetta reverted to her true form, wings tattered and dripping shadow, and smiled up at the bleeding red skies. “You’re right… I underestimated you. I never thought you’d have such a complex technique in your arsenal.”

She rose slowly, a fiendish grin splitting her face. “You win that round—but are you ready for round two?”

Her kantar spiked catastrophically. Veins bulged across her body as it strained at its limits. “Fist of the Great Lion—power increase: fifty-fold!”

“It may not be the completed form, but even in this state it’s still very useful. This technique doesn’t just increase raw strength and speed, does it? It also increases the damage output of your kantar-based attacks. That’s all I need.”

Her eyes blazed brighter than the crimson sky itself.

The entire battlefield began to disassemble—massive chunks of earth tearing free, unleashing primal chaos: spears of ice, geysers of lava, raging firestorms, crushing tidal waves of raw kantar—all spiraling in madness.

Bayonetta stood at the centre, laughing maniacally as the world itself became her weapon.

“The whole world is my playground!”

Shu gritted his teeth, thrill surging through every fibre of his being like lightning. “It’s time to end this.”

He charged at top speed—punch flying straight for her face.

It stopped dead mid-air, inches from impact.

“Again?” he snarled.

Bayonetta’s manic grin widened. In a single heartbeat she unleashed a barrage of deep, lethal slashes across his body—each precise enough to kill any ordinary being a dozen times over. Then, with a surge of amplified gravity, she hurled him backward at full force.

He crashed through multiple rock formations, body torn with deep cuts and shattered bones.

Yet in seconds the wounds sealed. He rose, kantar reserves still burning strong, excitement only sharper, fiercer.

*What the hell is that—just before contact, I get blocked by some invisible force…*

Bayonetta charged again.

*She’s got the Fist of the Great Lion under her belt too—unmastered, and fifty-fold seems her limit.*

She coated her arm in a strange, ominous purple aura and rushed him.

Shu’s original plan had been to block and probe her defense—but the moment he saw that aura, instinct screamed danger. He dodged completely, firing a volley of red iron kantar-construct rods.

The rods bounced harmlessly centimetres from her body.

Her purple-coated arm grazed the ground where he’d stood—and reality itself vanished. No explosion, no debris—just absolute nothingness.

Shu’s eyes widened in raw shock. “What the hell—where did she see such a powerful technique to copy?”

The aura felt achingly familiar. He whipped his head toward the distant clash where Hannah fought the other Demon Lords, then back to Bayonetta’s fully awakened eyes.

A quiet sigh escaped inwardly. *Of course it’s familiar… that’s your mum’s ability.*

Excitement undimmed—now edged with deadly seriousness—Shu split his kantar reserves, creating fifteen durable clones in a rapid fractal cascade, each halving the power of the last until the fifteenth.

All fifteen charged as one.

Bayonetta crushed them back with a pulse of gravity, then blurred forward at the speed of light—arms coated in purple kantar. She touched five clones.

They ceased to exist—erased into nothingness, taking chunks of Shu’s kantar with them.

The remaining ten seized the opening, hammering her with devastating lion-enhanced strikes. Nine blows halted against her invisible repulsive field—but the tenth shattered through, dealing massive, bone-crushing damage.

The original Shu flashed in behind the chaos, sword coated in blazing kantar, and unleashed a storm of consecutive, critical slashes across her body.

He sheathed the katana with a sharp click.

Wounds erupted across Bayonetta—rivers of thick black blood gushing forth in torrents.

Yet she healed almost instantly, grin widening into something truly demonic.

“You’re strong, I’ll give you that. Took just ten of your attacks to break the repulsing gravitational field I put on myself—to repel attacks or at least slow strong ones to a complete zero.”

Shu’s grin matched hers, voice crackling with electric thrill. “The numbers are against your favour—ten of me and just one of you. The stunt you used to take out the first five won’t work again. So I’m curious… what’s your plan?”

Bayonetta’s grin stretched impossibly wider. “It’s quite simple, actually—just level the playing field.”

Her shadow exploded outward across the ruined battlefield like living ink.

From it rose twenty undead warriors—humanoid but decayed, grey flesh peeling, eyes pure blinding white, blue veins pulsing beneath translucent skin. They wore black gi and bone-white masks that concealed their faces entirely.

She laughed—a chilling, victorious sound that echoed through the chaos.

“What you gonna do now, Shu? The numbers are unfair—it’s twenty against eleven now, courtesy of Dracula.”

Shu stared, the very last trace of laziness obliterated, replaced by pure, unrestrained excitement laced with the sharp edge of awe.

*Wait a minute… don’t tell me she copied the abilities of other Demon Lords too. If that’s the case—without even counting everything else she’s stolen—I’m fighting a threat that could defeat most of the celestials’ fighting forces single-handedly.*

He looked at the undead army arrayed before him and his remaining clones—and his grin became something fierce, radiant, unstoppable.

“Looks like it’s time to bring in the big guns.”

He nodded once to his clones.

They understood perfectly.

All eleven voices—original and copies—rose together in a thunderous, earth-shaking roar as they charged the shadow horde:

“KANTAR MANIFESTATION: AWAKENING OF THE CHOSEN ONE.”