Losing Side

?

Have you ever carved your name in a tree? 

I have, and I have been praying for it ever since.

But while my prayers may stay, I don't want to leave it scarred.

*****

Tanaka

That kunoichi cosplayer bounced out the second I started absorbing my creations. That was a smart choice, and the only reason she'd survive this battle.

In movies, people usually say a weird spell, or they have a speech as they power up, but I'm not that kind of boring villain. Instead, I decided to speed up the process, teleporting myself around, making sure that I gathered all of the semono remains.

Mizaru, Kikazaru, Iwazaru, and the weird-sounding Sezaru. I felt them all converging, choosing me as their master.

This reminded me of a day long ago, when I had just been created. That day, I saw a butterfly hatch out of a cocoon. It was a miracle of nature how it was pumping its own wings, readying them to take it flying, and it kept me captivated for a whole day.

However, it never got to fly, for at one point I caught it in my palm, curious what it was, and when I opened my palm again, there was not much left of it.

But I digress. What I wanted to talk about was its hatching. I felt as if I was about to become a butterfly myself. I was no longer one of the curses. I was the curse. I was the one to rule the rules. I was a god.

It is only fitting for the one who stands against a god to be a god himself, and to prove that I was now complete, my first choice was to make every tower in Japan explode. With me here, we didn't need them anymore.

All I had to do was look at the nearest tower, and the sphere of energy it held blasted towards the sky. Oddly enough, I saw Chigira teleport there just a second before. She was probably amazed by my power.

I raised my hand, and the other towers followed suit. I then pointed towards Chigira, and the energy shooting towards the sky started raining down on her.

Still, she dodged every strike, and that annoyed me, but I was confident I could stop her. All I had to do was look at her and lock her in place. 

Now steady, she was taken away by a ray of curse so dense, it became pure energy.

How much that must have hurt, I couldn't fathom. I felt a bit bad for her, but after I remembered that I was also made of the same curse, I regained my smile. What she was feeling now, I had been feeling all of my life.

When it was over, I saw her stand in the air bruised, with a cocoon made of wood below her.

My heart stopped as I remembered about a certain assassin who would always find a way to intervene.

"No. That alone, I won't allow."

I wouldn't allow him to hatch from that cocoon. He wasn't the butterfly of this story. I was. I was the one who would grow. I was Tanaka.

NO! I would not allow myself to go by a name given by that man! I was somebody else. I was a god. I was...

"Tyrant..." I whispered.

"Haha... That's right. I'm Tyrant now! With all of this power, why shouldn't I be him? Why shouldn't I be more than him? He must have split the four of us, his four sons, so that we may never grow to dethrone him. That must be it!"

But now I was the one to hold the curses. I was the one to take them one step beyond. I was deserving of that title, so I decided to take that name for myself.

"From now on, you may call me Tyrant! I want to hear you say it once before I take care of you two!"

But instead of bowing her head to me and giving me that assassin on a platter, Chigira looked at me with sad eyes.

Those eyes, they held nostalgia and something more. Something I couldn't accept.

"Pity?"

She looked at me with pity, so I threw her onto the ground. I did the same with the cocoon, but it refused to break. I kept throwing them around, but she never once changed her patronizing expression.

Never had I seen that woman look sad. Never had I seen her let herself get thrown around. She refused to defend herself, yet put all of her power into keeping that cocoon safe.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why why why why why why?"

It made no sense.

"Why won't you let him die?!"

With one foot in the grave, Chigira once again got up.

"What's wrong with you, woman?!"

I couldn't hold it in any longer. I felt like pain wasn't enough, so I had to use words.

Yet, when I tried to add something more, no words came out. Her frozen gaze tied my tongue with a tight knot.

"You're just like him. You're just a smaller Tyrant..." she said. Then, with no explanation and no clear reasoning, she sat on her knees and started praying.

*****

"And when he feels ready for it, may he find a girl for him. One as kind as a flower."

If there really is a god enshrined here, may They hear those prayers.

*****

Shino

Would the sky have darkened, what happened before my eyes would have painted the perfect picture of what I thought the apocalypse should look like.

From every tower across the horizon, beams of a dark purple shot up. I could see them stretch beyond the atmosphere, bend, and unite right above us.

Before the first attack hit us, I felt something surrounding me. I had no time to say anything, for before I could open my mouth, I was completely sealed in a wooden seed.

"You'll sprout when this is all over, okay?" I heard a voice in my head. She sounded calm, but a slight tremor gave away a hint of unrest.

I looked outside the seed through her eyes. The semonos were all gone by now, and so was Operator. Thankfully, she managed to get away, but with how the world around us looked, I couldn't guarantee anywhere in Japan was safe anymore.

With no time to catch my breath, I felt the inner walls of the seed closing down on me, forming a mold that perfectly fit my body. Then, everything around me started shaking.

Pulling on Mizaru again, I regained my connection to the outside, but what I saw made my hands tremble within the small confinement.

I saw Chigira being thrown around effortlessly. The same went for me, but unlike her, I wasn't taking damage.

"Chigira! Try this!" I shouted, trying to pass onto her the ability to shoot sound. Just like Tanaka before, she formed a gun with her fingers, mastering the sound bullet instantly—a sound bullet that did nothing.

"I've heard that," Tanaka said and stretched his hand the way the bullet was coming from. I could hear the sound fade for a moment, only to transform into a loud boom.

"Come on... how is that even fair?" I mumbled, listening as the sound was propagating itself within his closed fist. It became tens—no, hundreds—of times stronger in a matter of seconds.

With slow, calm movements, that monster opened his palm and blew gently. I was still connected to Chigira when it happened, and I heard everything.

Unimaginable pain—pain that made me want to rip my ears off—overwhelmed us. That attack should have been enough to wipe us off the face of the Earth, yet that monster didn't go through with it. Instead, he stretched out the waves, making sure to hurt us both.

Still, when it was finally over, he looked disgusted at his palms.

"Why?" he mumbled, closing his fists.

"Why am I holding back?"

Exhausted, Chigira fell to the ground. Or so should have happened, but Tanaka caught her mid-air with only his gaze and started smashing her into buildings.

"I have all of this power... I should be able to do it in an instant. So why!?"

When he was done with her, he started talking to himself like a crazed maniac, calling himself by two different names. 

It was then that countless thoughts overwhelmed me.

The operator was right.

What am I doing here?

Those are gods I'm up against.

Who am I to take on gods?

Who ever thought I could pull this off?

We never stood a chance.

All of my power comes from him.

I am nothing next to them.

I'm just a kid playing with a toy gun next to the Yakuza.

I can't do this. We have to get away.

That's right...

"Chigira!" 

I shouted the name of that girl—the girl I swore to protect but was failing to do so.

"Let's get away! Forget about all this! Let's go somewhere and hide! He's too much for us!"

I shouted those words and many more to the girl, yet after I was done begging her to run with me, all she did was smile. It was a soft, warm smile—one that instantly got engraved into my heart.

Still, there was no place for a smile there, nor was there a place for the words she spoke next.

"You're just like him. You're just a smaller Tyrant..." she said to Tanaka, then she sat on her knees.

She put her palms together in what looked like a prayer, but I knew what she was really doing. She was using her magic.

"There's no need for that! Let's get away!" I shouted from inside my cocoon, but to no avail. My shouts were drowned out by the elements rushing in.

Fire, water, wind, and everything this world had to offer came together, forming a large ball of light—a ball that kept growing until it swallowed everything around. The last thing I saw was her smile—that smile she wouldn't let go of.