The person I am

“Stop joking!” Amaru protested against the weird woman, this time using blue strings against her, but again the Void Bubbles were summoned in perfect places.

“I’m not joking. I’m the Poet, I create the Original Poems. Pretty cool, right? Also, I tried to create a word for what you call the Void Stanza. The all and nothing, I called it ‘Omnihil’, but I guess the ‘Omnihil Stanza’ was less catchy than ‘Void Stanza.’”

Omnihil Stanza… So that was the name of my power.

“If you really are The Poet, how are you alive? Do you also have an immortality Stanza?” Kurohana Hiyoku asked.

“Nothing like that. I did die a long time ago, and reason I’m here might be some kind of signature, but I’m not sure.”

She had a sweet laugh after that.

“You’re not sure? You are The Poet! You understand enough of the world to create the Original Poems. Don’t you know everything?” Reikokuna Takai asked.

“My dear, this world is so vast, no one can know everything. I just saw something other didn’t, the same way you all understand things I was incapable of. That is the beauty of this world. So many interpretations…”

“That still doesn’t explain how you are here.” Helia Vivarium still had problems with immortal people.

“I guess I’m like poetry. I’m here because my poems survived this long. I observed the world through them, and I decided to make a small appearance for you all.”

She is like poetry…

“With you here, we’ll win easily!”

Rita was so happy that we had The Poet to help us win the fight.

“Oh no, my dear. I’m not here to fight. I can’t even do that. I’m just here to say that I have seen a lot in my life and beyond. A lot of monsters like Amaru, but there were always people ready to do what was right. I’m right, Heroes?”

Multicolored dark fumes came from Amaru.

“Enough of that! Did you forget what we were doing? I was going to kill you all. Do you think I have problems hurting children. Poet or not Poet, I will win!”

The Poet looked at us, with a maternal smile on her face.

“He cannot win, even with all these artificial powers… do you know why each of the nine is called ‘Stanza’, right? A poem is made from multiple Stanzas, so you can only make a true poem with the help. Now go get him.”

She disappeared in cosmic dust and Amaru attacked us. Even though we were sad that The Poet left, we were already prepared to fight even before she appeared, and we did just that.

Thanks to the speed enhancement from Nikolay Pompovisky we all dodged the fumes, and with the empathic threads, we knew who needed help with what. Rita Fiori and Helia Vivarium went up to the Turquoise Demon. Since they were the physical weakest of us, they used the Demon to dodge Amaru’s attacks.

Our enemy tried to absorb our allied Demon, but the saplings jumped in the way, sacrificing themselves to protect the others.

And he also had a hard time aiming against Nikolay Pompovisky and the others while he was being targeted by Kurohana Hiyoku, Agnes Stein and Reikokuna Takai. In perfect synchrony they helped each other to dodge his lethal attacks and with cuts from both the ninja and the swordsman, one of the man’s arms and one of his legs were cut off.

Blue strings connected the separate parts and started healing him again.

“It’s pointless! You know you can’t win!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Agnes Stein.

I went with her and used my Void Bubbles to destroy the translucent sphere that was encasing the Original Poem of Lightning. Agnes Stein took it and immediately the Yellow Demon disappeared from the city.

“I was right! Everyone, take the Poems and his powers will be gone!”

Angry, Amaru pointed both hands at Agnes Stein, and she would have been hit by the Undying Flames if Kurohana Hiyoku didn’t use a metal rope to pull her out of the way.

The other Elemental Demons started to act. The Red one shot multiple fireballs at Nikolay Pompovisky’s group. The Blue one transformed their body into liquid and came to us, but with my Void Bubbles I destroyed it quickly.

“You are so annoying! Like little flies around me!”

The other Demons were approaching through land, with the Cyan one leading the way. However, it also disappeared once Reikokuna Takai and I together destroy the sphere and got the Original Poem of Ice.

Amaru fell to the ground, without being able to fly anymore.

He resummoned the Blue Demon and fused himself with all the others. The body was five times each of them, with green, blue, orange, purple, and red colors. Amaru’s body was on the head of the Demon.

“This is true power!”

Without wasting a second, Nikolay Pompovisky flew to the ground and grabbed me. We flew up to the head of the beast. We had to dodge fireballs, purple mists and flying rocks, but it was easy. The ones that would have hit us were consumed by my signature.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Rita Fiori.

“We are saving the world, so stop being so afraid,” answered Helia Vivarium.

The three of us jumped in the direction of the human body of Amaru. I used my powers on two other spheres, and my friends grabbed the Original Poem of Nature and Water.

We stayed above the enemy demon as them were reduced, now only having red, orange and purple in it. The Turquoise Demon came to the rescue, but this time, no one could stop Amaru’s Void Bubbles from working, and Nikolay Pompovisky entered free fall once the Demon was gone.

“Please, please, just stop and let me kill you!” Amaru was completely unhinged.

“We are all going to fall,” I warned my sisters and used the Void Bubbles under me, consuming his three fused Demons and the four of us joined Nikolay in the fall.

Luckily, we had allies, and Kurohana Hiyoku expanded four metal ropes that saved all of us, while Amaru fell directly to the ground.

“It is almost over,” as said as I approached that man.

Four more arms of stone formed on my body. With my normal hands, I opened the sphere and with the other I grabbed the Original Poem of Earth.

I got up and destroyed the spheres around the final two Poems orbiting the man, but no one took them before Amaru started to crawl his way out.

“Wait, wait, wait! C’mon Nina, I took good care of you! You are my daughter! I’m only alive thanks to these Stanzas, if you took them from me, I would die! Is that what you want? To kill your daddy?”

He pleaded on the ground. It was pitiful, but I didn’t feel anything for that man.

“You already killed my daddy… But no, I don’t want to kill you.”

“Yes! Yes, Nina! Now listen, there is so much I can teach you. Let’s go away from this city. Start again, from zero? What do you think?”

“No, Amaru. We will never again be together. I finally discovered who I am. I’m poetry, I’m change and I’m contradiction. All of these are part of me and there is no more concrete answer than that.”

“Okay, okay, okay. That’s fair. But you know what? I still want to see you die!”

With his two burned hands he shot the Undying Flames at me and at that moment, I was sure I would die. However, the attack never reached me because it disappeared into the air.

“I told you, I’m the only one who can defeat Nina.”

Kurohana Hiyoku was by Amaru’s side, having taken the Original Poem of Alchemy, but she was not the only one.

“This world will be over before I let someone hurt a daughter of mine.”

Even with all her bruises, Ember Lascander had taken the Original Poem of Fire and the only Stanza left with Amaru was the gray Void in his chest.

For one final second, we exchanged looks. His eyes lost all life, and he fell to the ground. My final task was to take the Original Poem of Omnihil from his chest.

Despite all the destruction, the city was saved and my family was alright.