The Revival; The Ending

He saw a building that had a poster with the name ‘Amane Industries’ on it. 

This is it, the devils who call themselves Amane, this is where they live. 

When he goes through that door, there is no going back. He collected every wit and energy he had left and went in through the glass door.

There, in front of him, was a massive labyrinth of metal walls a mere foot apart from each other with live wires poking out at particular places. As he tried to navigate his way with caution, a thought suddenly came into his head. It was nice to meet you, Karma. He remembered the crimson rose she gave him and pulled it out from his pocket. Amazingly, it was not withered or broken from all the fights Karma had to go through. He stared into the red swirls and started having visions of the past, in visible hallucinations this time. It was a ghost of Karma going in a  particular direction confidently. Karma followed him without doubt.

As he continued, the passage seems to get… more familiar to Karma by the second. He kept having glimpses of every time he had killed Rena. He kept moving forward, moving every stride with more weight than the last.

Finally, he had entered a hallway that is flashing in the end as if he was in front of heaven's gates. But he knew that it was going to be otherwise.

Filled with determination, with a jolt of adrenaline he entered the light and spawned into a chamber blazing with heat. In the middle of the chamber lied two enormous machines which were shooting violent and powerful energy beams at each other. The walls of the chamber was covered in a special white sheet, which explains the flashing light from the hallway. When he looks above the epicenter of where the beams meet, he saw him.

‘You! You are her father, aren’t you? Or should I say the devil who started this whole misery for her?’, shouted Karma with all the anger he had.

‘Please, you can call me Mr. Amane. I’m assuming you're talking about my daughter? Well, just know this. It was a mistake. She wasn’t supposed to go through this.’

‘SHUT UP!’, Karma jumped higher than what his body was capable of and grabbed Mr. Amane from the high platform and punched him, catapulting him into the walls.

‘You didn’t care at all! You knew from the beginning that she was going through hell, but what did you do? NOTHING!’

‘Please son. You have to know that I did this for a reason. I wanted to save her myself,’ the man got up with shivering might.

‘Oh, shut up you geezer. All you did was create this machine that can creates a portal to the multiverse and one of them is this very one, this very unending universe that she kept suffering in. And anyway, you were the one trying to get in my head and ordering me to kill her.’

‘No son, I didn’t create this machine and I wasn’t the one who hypnotized you to kill her. I would never hire someone to kill my only daughter. Him did.’, Mr. Amane hinted behind Karma.

But it was too late when he looked behind. A wrist emerged from behind Karma's right field of view which grabbed his shoulder unnoticed and threw him into a serrated wall, which left him bleeding with bruises in most of his vital limbs.

‘What now?’, Karma was tired of having to face more trouble.

‘You are so much weaker than you look Karma. I believe Mr. Amane had you distracted there. My name is him. And yes, I created this machine you see before you,’ him plasters an evil grin on his face.

Karma could not make out who this person was, as the mask him was wearing is nothing he had ever seen before.

‘Yeah? And what made you create this thing?’

‘How about we not discuss this? I hate to talk during a fight.’

Him thrusted at Karma headfirst with a hidden skullbreaker, aiming for the chest, rendering Karma unable to move as the sound of ribs breaking echoed the chamber. Him was too fast. Karma, with all his strength, punched him but it was easily blocked and was countered with an arm-breaking jab. Karma was now collapsed, surrounded by blood and wounds that he just cannot overcome.

‘Forget it, Karma. You can’t defeat me with a body like that now. You were never destined to be Rena’s savior. She will never have a savior! A person like you should not even be with a human! Do you know? You should have known that before Hinami started to like you.’

Karma opened his eyes, ‘What? How do you know about her? She never came out here.’

Him started to chuckle, ‘Wow, you seem surprised. It may be better for the both of us if we stop this conversation, right now.’

Karma started to think, about his friends. How could this guy know about her? He tried to remain confident and knew that if something bad were to happen now, it will be his friends that will be in danger next. A rush of energy and power surged through Karma seemingly out of nowhere and got him up.

‘Oh? You approach me? You can still stand up. How humbling.’

‘You got something wrong about me. I am Rena’s savior and I will bring an end to this once and for all.’

'If only you can see yourself talk now, I'd like to see you try, tin man.'

Karma continued, ‘But you were right on one thing. I can’t defeat you with this body. That’s why that rock above you is gonna do the job for me.’

Him startled, ‘Huh?’

The speed of the enormous boulder hurdling towards him was too great to be dodged. He was crushed and the mask he wore came off as he face-planted to the ground with the boulder above him.

‘Thanks, Mr. Amane.’

‘Please son, I hope you could forgive me from the bottom of your heart. I knew you were gonna come. I was forced to distract you by him.’

‘Yeah, I forgive you Mr. Amane. I know that what you did was necessary. But I have to see who this guy is. I have to know who put Rena in this trouble in the first place.’ There was another question that Karma wanted answered. How did he know about Hinami?

Karma hopped to him on the only leg that can still hold his body weight. There was something oddly familiar with this person. He had very distinguishable green hair and a unique haircut that only one person would have. Karma grabbed his hair and pulled it to reveal his face. The face he saw was, sadly, what he was thinking…

‘Sen? You’re him?’

Sen coughing blood, ‘Yeah, I knew you would eventually find out, but I never expected it to hurt this much.’

Karma backed off. The rollercoaster of emotions rushing his mind was too much for him to bear. Sen, my one best friend. My comrade. A murder...

‘Why? Why would you do something like this?’, asked Karma with a ghostly look on his face.

‘You know Karma, you were always too perfect. So perfect that even Hinami had feelings for you since the beginning.’

‘But she was your crush…’

‘Exactly!’, interrupted Sen, ‘she was supposed to be with me but chose you instead. She knew you were in love with Rena but that didn’t stop her from loving you too. I… was envious of you and wished I could take it all back. I came to the human cities so that no one would find me, built this machine from our technology so that I can go to another universe, a universe where Hinami would belong to me.’

‘But why is Rena caught up in this?’

Sen hesitated with guilt, ‘It was a mistake. She was not supposed to fall into the void. She tried to stop me… I was so close to reaching perfection and someone was trying to stop my last leap and so I… accidentally pushed her into it.'

Karma stared into nothing with a blank expression.

Sen grabbed Karma's leg, 'I jumped in to save her, but it was too late before I could reach her… She broke the space-time continuum and was stuck in a looping madness’

Karma's breathing now higher than ever and nothing but anger and revenge burning inside him.

‘But WHY? Why would you have me kill her?’

Sen looked down at the floor, ‘I was still envious of you. I tried to break the cycle by killing her so that you would lose your love and Hinami would come to me then.'

Is this what he thought of me this whole time? All this suffering when he could have just told me?

'But something was preventing me from even touching her. So, I had you do it instead.'

...

'I went through all previous universes and every one of them ended up with her dying by not ending the loop.’

'I've heard enough,' he grabbed Sen by his collar, pulled him from the boulder and held him out from the platform. Directly below was the void, the dark emptiness of space-time itself.

‘I went through it as well! You are such a pathetic brat you know? All you had to do was tell me. But now things are complicated. I can’t let you live anymore.’

Sen held his hand, ‘Do it. I now realize that I was wrong this whole time. This will be the consequence of my actions. You can let go.’

Sen dropped his hand, only his lifeless, regretful body now being held from being dropped.

It was hard for Karma to take it. The person who was with him throughout his life, his best friend. As tears slowly start dripping down, the collar hand slipped. He plunged into the darkness of the void that he created. Maker meets machine.

‘I’ll never forget you, Karma, as a friend,’ Those were the last words Karma heard from his best friend.

...

‘Wait, where’s Rena?’, Karma asked Mr. Amane if he had to know.

‘She told me that when you were done to tell you that she will be waiting by the tree.’

The tree. Karma knew exactly where he had to go. He hopped down from the platform and hurried on outside.

‘Wait, Karma.’

He looked back at Mr. Amane

‘I hope we meet in the next world as well, son.’

Karma smiled, ‘Yeah, I hope we will.’

He hurried off out of the building and made a break for the lake. He didn’t care about all the wounds and dived straight into the lake. The wounds stung him so viciously that he started to lose momentum in his swimming. But he kept going without stopping to the shore and ran into the forest.

He was filled with determination.