Most Wanted Nero

Before Amber could cast her pursuit magic, the horizon violently fractured. A colossal, jagged rift materialized in the sky directly ahead, tearing the very fabric of reality apart. 

The spatial crack was monstrous. 

So immense that thousands of dark entities could pour through the breach simultaneously. It hummed with an ominous, low vibration, growing wider by the second.

"Goddess Freya?!" Amber gasped, her face draining of all colour. 

"I thought the ancient calculations gave us days! It was Nero... he triggered it early! We should never have trusted that demon! I will blast him out of the sky!"

She raised her staff, channeling a high-tier destruction spell aimed directly at Nero, who was flying rapidly toward the expanding rift.

"You will do no such thing!" Goddess Seya commanded, her eyes flashing with authority as she grabbed Amber's arm.

Turning toward Toshio, she reached into her spatial inventory. "Here... I saved this relic for the day I would eventually return to the heavens, but you need it more than me."

With a swift incantation, Seya attached a small wing artifact to the back of Toshio’s suit.

Instantly, the relic erupted into a pair of majestic, pure white angel wings made of solid divine light.

"Wait, what-?!" Toshio managed to blurt out.

Before he could even process the thought, the wings caught the air currents.

*FWOOSH*

Toshio Tanaka was launched into the sky, chasing after Nero at a reality-breaking speed.

The divine wings were incredibly fast, far faster than any levitation magic. The extreme wind pressure slammed into Toshio's face, making his lips and jaw wobble violently as the high-altitude air forced its way into his lungs.

Within a matter of seconds, Toshio closed the distance, pulling parallel to Nero.

"Cool ride, bro," Nero shouted over the roaring gale, flashing a small grin as he tried to outrun Toshio.

"What are you doing?!" Toshio yelled back, angling his glowing wings to maintain the exact same speed, drawing slightly closer.

"Trying to save this world," Nero yelled, his voice strained as he pushed his white-haired vessel to its absolute physical limits. 

"And doing it with the least amount of deaths!"

He cast a glance at the titanic rift ahead, but no matter how much dark mana he channeled, he simply could not compete with the angel wings.

"By sacrificing yourself?!" Toshio demanded. "We can still find another way to seal the boundary!"

"We can't," Nero said firmly, his black eyes fixing on the path ahead. 

"You still don't remember, do you? The High King was nothing more than a puppet manipulated by the Shadow entity. The world beyond that crack is a nightmare. A single monster from that realm can slaughter thousands of innocent people."

"So? You intend to fight them alone? That is your plan?!" Toshio yelled, expanding his white wings slightly above Nero to break the wind resistance. 

"You know we can fly into this together, right?!"

"Of course not..." Nero countered, shaking his head. "But think about it logically. If the key to a locked room gets thrown inside the locked room from the outside... it makes it impossible for anyone on this side to ever unlock it again."

Toshio’s mind hit a wall. He couldn't argue with that logic.

"Don't worry," Nero added, his tone softening as they neared the edge of the void. 

"I am not an actual human being. I am just a fragment of your own reality, a sentient phantom created by your soul to protect your childhood self."

They were getting dangerously close to the swirling dark energy of the crack. Panic flared in Toshio's chest.

"Wait! Hey, just wait!" Toshio pleaded, his voice breaking as he flapped his wings hard to hover in place. 

"Okay, you can go... but just wait a second, please? Please!"

Nero slowed his momentum, coming to a halt and hovering in the thin air right beside him. 

"What? Are you still blaming yourself for hurting your brother?" Nero asked, his eyes looking at Toshio with comforting kindness.

Toshio felt a sudden, suffocating lump in his throat. The repressed memories of his mind were fully open now.

"Hurt...?" Toshio whispered, his voice trembling violently.

"I killed him. I remember everything. I killed my brother... and then I ran away from the truth. I created a fake story in my mind to survive the guilt. I created you. You are suffering out here in this world because of me!"

"...I should be the one to go into the crack, Nero! Not you!"

Toshio begged, his voice cracking completely as he struggled to stay afloat amidst the turbulent mana currents.

"I may not be your actual brother," Nero said softly, watching the older man. "But I am everything you remember him as, right?"

Toshio couldn't speak. He simply nodded, hot tears spilling from behind his spectacles and running down his cheeks.

"Then ask yourself," Nero continued, a gentle smile gracing his pale features. 

"Would your Nero ever want you to feel bad about it? Would your Nero think you did it willingly? Would he?"

Toshio remained completely silent, the raw grief choking his throat.

No... he thought, his heart shattering. That is the most painful part. My brother would never blame me, even after all of that... 

"...He should have been the one here in this fantasy world. Not me. He is the true hero. I am just a useless side character... no, not even that."

"Shut up!" Nero interrupted sharply, cutting right through Toshio's spiral of self-loathing.

"Stop it. It's okay. It's completely okay, Toshio Tanaka."

Toshio couldn't control his tears.

Nero turned his face away, facing the dark vortex one last time. He looked back over his shoulder, his smile bright and untroubled.

"Cheer up, little Toshi," Nero said lovingly.

*BOOM*

With a sudden burst of dark mana, Nero zoomed away toward the crack at maximum acceleration. 

The sudden shockwave created such a violent winds that Toshio completely lost his balance, spinning through the air for a few moments.

By the time Toshio regained control and opened his eyes, the small white dot that was Nero had already vanished into the absolute darkness of the rift.

A deafening, resonant bang echoed across the sky.

The titanic crack immediately stopped growing. Slowly, the dark edges began to pull together, knitting the sky back into a seamless blue expanse as if the terrifying anomaly had never existed.

Toshio couldn't move. He hung suspended in the empty air, his shoulders shaking violently as he sobbed into the silence, watching the gateway close completely. 

Nero had sacrificed his existence for a world that would never even know his name, a realm that would never give him credit for its survival.

Toshio kept hovering there, completely alone in the sky. 

In the backdrop, the massive form of the Sky Princess slowly drifted toward his position, its copper plating catching the first light of the morning. 

The dawn sun was already rising at that great height, its brilliant rays hitting Toshio’s face, making his falling tears sparkle like gemstones in the wind.

"Thank you..." Toshio spoke softly, his voice a broken whisper against the breeze. "Thank you, brother... Thank you, big brother."