The Endgame (Part 3)

The group ran to the Tower that appeared out of nowhere, but suddenly got ambushed by Abyss Warriors. They were on the losing end, until a giant axe cut through the Abyss Warriors, turning them all to dust. And as the smoke cleared, they saw who it was who saved them:
"P-Princess Iduna??" Chihiro exclaimed, shocked and confused.
"Yeah, I forgot to mention that my weapon of choice is an axe, hehe," the blonde Princess giggled.

*crash!!*

Iduna turned quickly. "Well, no time right now," she said. "I can hold off these Warriors, you three go make sure the village is OK, then go try to disarm the Abyss King; I'm sure he's at the top of that Tower."
The three nodded. "Got it," Makoto said. "Stay safe, Iduna!"
The Princess turned her head and smiled at Makoto. "You too," she said with a wink.

                                                                              ***

The town was fighting back against the Abyss Warriors that came in, but they were on the losing side. The three didn't know what to do, but Chihiro somehow managed to put up an Ice barrier to protect them.
"Ryu!!" Chihiro shouted. "You gotta get away from here to make sure Mother and Father are OK!!"
"No, I can't leave you two here toー" Ryu was about to say just as an Abyss Warrior charged at  him to attack him from behind.
"RYU!!" a familiar voice shouted from somewhere, and a flash seemed to block the attack.
Ryu spun around and saw it was Ryosuke! "W-wait, Father?! What are you doing out here??"
Ryosuke gave Ryu a look. "The same thing you're doing; protecting the village!!"

Ryu just stared at his father for a second before remembering what was happening.
"Ryu, Chihiro," Ryosuke shouted, "go to the Tower with the Chosen One and fight the Abyss King; I can hold off the Abyss warriors here on my own."
"Yamamoto," Shiro said, "are you sure you can handle it?"
Ryosuke nodded. "Positive."
Just as this was being said, Junko, the two brothers' mother suddenly showed up and attack some of the Abyss warriors with a wave of icicles.
"Don't worry about us," she said. "We can handle this!"
The four looked at each other and nodded. "Alright," Ryu said.

                                                                           ***

The four rushed up the Tower steps and into a room. It was dark, but they could make out a tall imposing figure. The person was wearing a mask, like the one Makoto had seen Shiro fight.
"Well, well, well," a voice that seemed to come from the figure said. "If it isn't the Chosen One and his little gang of friends. Let me guess, you're here to fight the Abyss King?"
Makoto noticed something as the person spoke. They sounded like a man aroudn Ryosuke's age, but also didn't have the same haughtiness and attitude as the other Abyss Warriors. He sounded...

Tired. Like he had been repeating the same tasks over and over for decades.

But the others didn't seem to notice. "Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. Why do you care?" Shiro retorted.
"Because it makes more work for me," the Abyss Warrior snapped back. "It makes more work for all of us, really. None of you actually want to have to fight here, right?!"
Shiro clenched his fists. "Don't pretend like you actually care, proditor!! I can see that you're lying just so you can get some sympathy and then attack when we least expect it."
The Abyss Warrior sighed, and drew his blade. "Fine," he said. "Igne ignem compesce, as they say."

The two charged at each other, blades drawn. Makoto and the brothers couldn't do anything other than watch. But Makoto noticed that the Abyss Warrior knew Astrian as well. It was strange, but what was even stranger was the fact that the two seemed to have the exact same fighting style, except the Abyss Warrior had only one sword, while Shiro had two.
'This isn't the time for thinking about these kinds of thing,' Makoto thought, 'but it's just so weird that they fight the same way!!'
Just as the fight was getting to it's turning point, the Abyss Warrior's mask fell off, revealing a middle-aged man's face. The only thing was, he  had teh same white hair and gold eyes as Shiro did, and Shiro stopped trying to attack him when the mask fell off.
"Wha- no," Shiro muttered, his eyes wide with shock. "You can't be..."
The Abyss Warrior seemed shocked as well, because he lowered his blade.
"... A-Albus?" he stammered.
"Pater ?" Shiro said with the hope of a lost child.
The two stared at each other for a few seconds, until finally realizing that...

Shiro was the Abyss Warrior's long-lost son.

"Pater, I-I thought you were dead, how― how did you― what are you doing here of all places??" Shiro asked, extremely confused.
"I had no choice," Shiro's father admitted. "I was given an impossible decision, and the other choice would've been letting the Abyss King use you instead of me! I couldn't justー!"
The explanation was cut short by the one the group had assumed to be the Abyss King bursting into the room, sword drawn.
"You think you can just betray the King like that?!" he screamed at Shiro's father. "And here I thought you had been hypnotized, just like the rest of them!!"
"Hypnotized?!?!" Chihiro shouted. "Just what are you doing in hereー!!"
He was cut off by the Fake King's sudden attack which he blocked with an Ice shield. "That's none of your business, Puppet!!" he barked at Chihiro.
"HEY, LEAVE MY BROTHER ALONE!!!!" Ryu screamed, but was kicked backwards by the Fake King.
"You stay out of this as well!!!" the Fake King screamed, his voice somehow becoming warped the louder he shouted.

"LEX!!" Shiro's father shouted. "This is between you and me, so leave those kids out of this!!"
With a sudden snap of his fingers, the Fake King, Lex, made Shiro's father disappear from the room.
"FATHER!!!" Shiro screamed.
"That'll shut him up," Lex muttered under his breath. "Now, it's time for you to see the true Abyss King."
The man walked into the bit of light in the room, but that was when Makoto noticed something very very odd: he saw strings of magic around Lex's whole body. It looked like he was being puppeteered by someone.
"That''s right," Lex seemed to say, except his voice was somehow mixing with Naraku's. "This puppet of mine isn't the Abyss King. You were all such fools to believe that silly lie."
Then, Lex disappeared the same way that Shiro's father disappeared, and in his place...

... was none other than Naraku.

                                                                           ***

"That's right, Makoto," Naraku said, holding his hands up as if to show the truth as something physical. "You guessed correctly that time that I asked you who you thought the Abyss King was: it was me all along!"
"And Shiro," Naraku said, turning to the older Paladin, "youー oh wait, I should call you by your real name, shouldn't I, Albus Aurelius?"
"Wait, what?!?!" Ryu shouted, shocked and confused.
Shiro sighed. "He... he's right. I-I was lying about who I was this whole time. I'm really, truly sorry..."
Ryu clenched his fists. "You... YOU TRAITOR!!!!" he screamed. "You killed Shinsuke, LIED TO US ALL, and now you expect us to FORGIVE YOU?!?!"
Shiro ー or, more correctly said, Albus ー just stayed quiet. "I'll take whatever punishment is given to me," he said.
Ryu and Chihiro, shocked and angry, dragged the Paladin back down the Tower steps.

"You... why did you do this?" Makoto managed to say.
Naraku crossed his arms. "You really wanna know? Because I was like you once, Makoto. I was human, on Earth. I was in high school and had no friends, so what other than pretending to have powers could I really have done?"
Makoto's eye's widened. "You pretended to... have powers?" he asked, confused.
Naraku nodded. "Yep. I was Akiyama Yuu back then, but I dropped that name for the cooler and more powerful name Asahina Naraku, the Prince of Darkness.
"But that just made my situation worse. Instead of noticing me in a positive way, those kids only made more fun of me. They called me a cringe weeb, a nerd, the usual stuff. But that all ended when I found this," Naraku continued, taking off the earring Makoto had seen him wearing since they had first met.

"You see," he said, "your pendant and my earring aren't that different; I was going to be the hero of this story, but everywhere I went, nothing up more jocks followed me, except they where called Paladins of the Apex," Naraku muttered, putting the earring back on.
"So, I dropped being the hero and went with being the villain, so I could finally be noticed as powerful, and so that those who made fun of me in the past would be given their just punishment!!"
Makoto stood there, speechless. The Naraku he had met at first had been like this the whole time, and he had never noticed. He never knew any of it until now.
"So that's why," Naraku said, a smile coming onto his face and stretching out his hand to Makoto, "I will ask you to join me in ruling Eldoria!! I know you where bullied too, so I'm sure that somewhere inside of you, you want to be powerful, just like I did all that time ago. So join me, and make a better Eldoria with me!! One free of those Paladins!!! One completely free of titles!!!! One where no one will ever fight anyone just because they're stronger than others!!!!!

An Eldoria with no war!!"

Makoto looked at the Abyss King, his hands shaking. 'What do I do??' he thought. 'I can't side with him, but his promises sound exactly like what I wanted back then... I wanted to be noticed and to be able to walk to school without having to worry about jocks. We...

We really are the same.'

'But...'

Makoto took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck with his hands. "Naraku?"
The Abyss King looked at him with a familiar hope in his eyes. "Yes?" he replied.
Makoto looked up at Naraku. "I...

Refuse."