The atmosphere in the ruins of Saganbo's throne room wasn't just charged; it was saturated, a broth of dying realities and nascent oblivion. The tang of unleashed power hung thick enough to drink, mingling with the acrid scent of vaporized god-stone and the unsettlingly sweet, metallic reek of divine blood. Fractured neutron stars, weeping glowing plasma onto the shattered obsidian floor, provided a mournful, flickering light for the devastation, their cosmic death-throes a fitting chandelier for this theater of ends.
Saganbo, propped against a jagged pillar that had once framed his dais, pushed himself upright with a grunt that was less a sound of pain and more the groan of a mountain shifting. His purple-black aura, usually a perfect corona of terrifying majesty, flickered erratically at the edges of deep, weeping wounds Shinji had carved into his divine flesh. Dark blood, thick as tar and cold as the absolute void between galaxies, seeped from rents in his void-black silk, pooling around his boots like spilled midnight.
*Lost in ways I didn't anticipate.* The phrase echoed in his ancient mind. But lost entirely? That remained empirical. The Innate Self State was unprecedented in method—achieved through cessation rather than pursuit—but its ceiling was unknown. He needed data. He needed to measure its boundaries, test its endurance, observe how it responded under sustained assault.
And he needed to know if his own restraint had created a false impression of parity.
He drew back his right hand. Not with the desperate flailing of a cornered beast, but with the chilling, deliberate focus of a master artisan preparing his final, defining stroke. Cosmic energy, dense as the heart of a collapsing nebula and vibrating with a frequency of pure negation, coalesced in his palm. It wasn't merely power; it was the concept of Unmaking given form—a miniature Big Bang held captive, humming with the terrifying promise of unraveling existence itself, thread by thread. The very fabric of the pocket dimension groaned under its nascent weight, the ambient light bending and bleeding towards it, as if afraid.
Shinji stood amidst the wreckage, an island of impossible calm in the storm of residual energy. His eyes, twin pools of unsettling, serene crimson, remained closed. His breathing was a profound, rhythmic tide in stark defiance of the universe-shaking tension, a metronome of stillness that seemed to draw the chaos into itself and quiet it.
The Innate Self State wasn't a technique he activated. It was a perspective he inhabited. The chaotic maelstrom radiating from Saganbo's forming blast didn't wash over him—it simply existed in a space where his presence was also true, and the two facts did not require conflict. He wasn't resisting. He wasn't defending. He was observing the question Saganbo's attack posed: *Will you struggle?*
And the answer was neither yes nor no. It was: *The question assumes a framework I no longer occupy.*
FWOOM!
The sphere of annihilation screamed across the ruined space. It didn't just travel; it warped, leaving a wake of distorted reality, fractured light, and screaming spatial harmonics. A comet of pure oblivion, aimed unerringly at the tranquil heart of the crimson-eyed Trascender.
Shinji's right hand moved. Not with blinding speed that strained perception, but with an effortless, inevitable grace that seemed to bypass the constraints of time and intent, existing in the state of having-already-caught. It wasn't a desperate grab; it was a sovereign claiming what was offered. His crimson-limned fingers, glowing with the light of a deeply understood self, closed around the howling sphere of destruction.
The universe seemed to gasp, a silent intake of breath across a thousand realities.
Shinji felt the sphere's logic—its purpose, its trajectory, its intended conclusion. In his former state, he would have countered it with equal force, deflected it with superior technique, or endured it through regeneration. But now, holding it, he simply recognized it as unnecessary. Not weak. Not flawed. Unnecessary. The sphere spluttered, its chaotic scream choked off into a low, protesting thrum against the unyielding cage of his palm. It struggled not against strength, but against the absence of the resistance it required to function.
A child's tantrum against the turning of the Earth.
With a motion as smooth as a sigh exhaled by a mountain, he pushed it back along its trajectory.
KRA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The detonation against Saganbo's chest wasn't just loud; it was a fundamental scream of violated physics. Light ceased to be light, becoming a blinding, all-consuming negation that swallowed the throne room for a microsecond. The God of Destruction was hurled backwards not as a man, but as a purple-black comet carved by pure force. He tore a trench ten meters deep through the reinforced god-stone floor, shattering the weeping neutron star fragments embedded within, before impacting the far wall with a sound like continents being born in agony. Cracks, thick as ancient tree roots, spiderwebbed outwards across the dimensional boundary itself. Fresh wounds bloomed on his chest and arms, dark blood welling like unholy springs.
Saganbo pushed himself up on trembling arms. His expression wasn't pain. It wasn't rage. It was cold, analytical focus—the look of a scientist observing an experiment's first successful trial. *Interesting. He didn't overpower it. He made it irrelevant. The conceptual framework differs from what I Imagined.*
Shinji lowered his hand, the faint crimson nimbus around it fading like embers cooling back into the forge of his soul. He opened his eyes, those demonic red orbs fixing on Saganbo with unnerving serenity.
"The Innate Self State," Shinji stated, his voice resonating with a calm deeper than the interstellar void, carrying effortlessly through the settling dust and fading energies. "You named it in recognition. Now I inhabit it fully."
Saganbo wiped a thick rivulet of blood from his split lip. A flicker of something resembling respect—not admiration, but acknowledgment—passed through his violet eyes. He spat a globule of dark fluid onto the cracked floor where it sizzled and vanished into non-existence. "Yeah," he rasped, the word rough but carrying strange weight. "Took the words right outta my cosmic mouth, kid. And you wear it... differently than I anticipated."
A genuine smile touched Shinji's lips, profoundly incongruous against the backdrop of devastation and the chilling crimson of his gaze. It wasn't cruel, nor triumphant; it was the radiant smile of profound, universe-altering discovery.
"I don't feel liberated, Saganbo," he said, and the correction was gentle, like a teacher guiding a student toward clarity. "Liberation implies I was bound. I was never bound. I simply didn't recognize that the chains were conceptual—ideas I'd agreed to wear." He paused, the crimson eyes reflecting the flickering light of dying stars. "This isn't power amplified. It's perspective corrected. The weight of your pressure, the certainty of your attacks, the inevitability you project—these aren't forces acting upon me. They're invitations to participate in a framework I've declined."
He breathed deeply, chest expanding. "It feels... appropriate. Like a lock recognizing its key."
Saganbo's analytical expression hardened into something predatory. The shift was instant—laziness evaporated, replaced by focused intensity. His aura ignited anew, casting jagged, hungry purple-black shadows across the ruins. *Enough observation. Time to test endurance.*
He blurred, crossing the devastated expanse not in a microsecond, but in a negation of intervening space. His fist, wreathed in crackling negation energy capable of sundering star-systems, aimed like a meteor forged in the heart of a supernova directly at Shinji's impassive, crimson-eyed face.
THUD.
The impact resonated through the chamber like the toll of a cosmic bell signaling the end of an age.
Shinji didn't flinch. Didn't sway. The subtle crimson light flared momentarily around the point of impact, not deflecting, but absorbing, dissolving the universe-shattering force into the boundless calm of his being like a stone absorbs a raindrop. He felt Saganbo's intent behind the blow—the question implicit in the attack: Can you be moved?
His answer was already forming before Saganbo's synapses could register impact.
Shinji's own fist, wreathed in serene, deadly crimson energy, pistoned forward. It wasn't a wild swing; it was a perfectly calibrated expression of transcendental will, a statement written in force.
CRUNCH!
The sound was sickeningly, fundamentally wrong—the sound of inviolable divinity meeting an immovable, self-aware force. It struck Saganbo square in the solar plexus. The God's eyes widened—not with pain, but with the realization that the blow had connected with a precision he hadn't accounted for. A spray of dark, viscous blood, thick as molten obsidian, erupted from his mouth, hanging momentarily in the air like a grotesque constellation. He doubled over, only for Shinji's follow-up kick—a crimson arc of pure kinetic certainty—to catch him cleanly under the chin.
KRAK!
Saganbo rocketed upwards like a discarded puppet, limbs flailing. He tore through the chamber's already fractured ceiling, sending new cascades of god-stone debris raining down, and vanished into the star-strewn void above.
Shinji didn't leap. He simply stepped upwards, a streak of crimson light piercing the debris cloud. Movement in the Innate Self State wasn't about propulsion—it was about choosing where to be next and allowing reality to accommodate.
They met in the infinite, silent vacuum. Saganbo, tumbling, disoriented, managed to twist and unleash a desperate, searing blast of pure destructive energy—a beam capable of boiling oceans on a thousand worlds.
Shinji observed the beam's trajectory, its intent, its certainty. In his previous state, he would have dodged. Now, he simply recognized that the space the beam occupied and the space he occupied did not require intersection. He flowed, his body shifting with effortless calming grace, and the blast harmlessly dissipated into the infinite dark light-years away, leaving only a faint afterimage of its own irrelevance.
As Saganbo struggled to regain equilibrium, Shinji seized his ankle mid-recovery. With unhurried ease, he spun—not through muscle, but through manipulation of spatial inertia—and hurled the God of Destruction back toward the ruined sanctum.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The impact pulverized the last remnants of Saganbo's throne into subatomic dust. The shockwave radiated outwards, visibly warping the pocket dimension's boundaries. Shinji descended slowly, landing amidst the debris like a crimson deity alighting on a conquered world.
He walked toward the crater, each step echoing with finality.
Saganbo groaned, pushing himself onto his elbows. His form was a ruin. More blood flowed freely, staining the tattered remnants of his void-black silk. He looked around at the devastation—his sanctum reduced to cosmic slag. But his expression wasn't rage. It was observation. Clinical. Detached.
*Consistent application of superior force. No hesitation. No wasted movement. Spiritual output steady. He isn't tiring. The state appears self-sustaining. How convenient*
"Oh, damn it all to the entropic void," he muttered, the words calculated to sound petulant. "Do you have any idea how many subjective millennia it took to get that throne just right? The ergonomics alone..."
Shinji stopped at the crater's jagged edge, looking down. The crimson eyes held no pity, no gloating—only detached, analytical calm. "Why hold back?" he asked, cutting through the complaint like a scalpel. "You bleed. You break. Yet you strike without conviction. You are the God of Destruction. Even now, your essence should resonate with enough destructive potential to scar reality itself. Are you conceding? Or merely... observing?"
Saganbo looked up, meeting Shinji's gaze. The irritation vanished, replaced by that cold, analytical focus. "Observing," he admitted, and the honesty was startling. "Measuring. Quantifying what cessation-based transcendence looks like under sustained assault." He pushed himself upright, blood streaming. "You wanted to know why I still fight after admitting a form of defeat? Because intellectual defeat and experiential defeat are different metrics, Trascender. I need to see where you break. If you break."
Shinji's crimson gaze hardened, a fraction of glacial ice forming in the boundless sea. "Then observe no more." He dropped into the crater, movements liquid and inevitable, devoid of aggression yet radiating absolute purpose. Crimson energy flared around his clenched fists. "Let me provide conclusive data."
The methodical dismantling began.
It wasn't berserker rage; it was devastatingly precise application of transcendental force. Each punch landed with focused impact—CRUNCH! THUD! WHAM!—driving Saganbo deeper into the superheated crater floor with seismic force. Blood splattered the glowing ruins. Saganbo offered little resistance, his body buckling, cracking, yielding.
But his eyes never stopped tracking. Never stopped measuring. Each blow catalogued. Each wound assessed. *Heart rate: nonexistent fluctuation. Breathing: unchanged. Spiritual output: stable. Conclusion: sustainable indefinitely under current parameters.*
Shinji paused, standing over the pulverized form. "Why?" he demanded, the first hint of cold curiosity entering his voice. "You bleed. Your form fractures. Yet you measure rather than defend. What data justifies this degradation?"
Saganbo's expression was unreadable through the blood and swelling. "Who knows, Trascender? Maybe I needed to confirm you weren't bluffing. Maybe I needed to see if cessation-transcendence has limits conventional transcendence doesn't." He coughed, dark fluid bubbling. "Or maybe... I just needed you confident."
Before Shinji could parse the statement, he reached down and hauled Saganbo upright by his ruined collar. The fabric sizzled where crimson energy met divine silk. "Then witness the conclusion of your experiment."
With a surge of concentrated crimson power, he kicked upwards.
WHOOSH!
They exploded through the shattered roof, accelerating through void. Stars blurred. Galaxies smeared. Nebulae whirled past like discarded paint. Shinji angled his trajectory, building momentum that warped space-time, the crimson energy around his right foot intensifying to a blinding supernova.
KRA-KOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The kick connected not just with Saganbo's spine, but with his spatial coordinates. He became a dark projectile hurtling across the cosmic map, crossing dimensional boundaries through brutal displacement, leaving contrails of fractured reality.
Universe 3581 - The Glass Fields
Saganbo tumbled to a halt amidst crystalline structures reflecting impossible rainbows. He hung in low gravity, gasping, his form a tapestry of wounds. Dark blood streamed from dozens of rivulets, forming slowly expanding constellations. His breathing was shallow, labored.
Shinji appeared beside him without transition. Space yielded. "You bleed essence across the multiverse," Shinji observed, surveying the Glass Fields. "Yet my Danger Sense remains... quiet. You contain the shockwaves, the spatial ruptures, the pressure... limiting devastation to the infinitesimal volume we occupy." Something resembling cold respect touched his tone. "For one who embodies destruction... you possess unexpected restraint."
Saganbo coughed, spraying dark mist. He pushed himself into semblance of upright drift, every movement agony. "Restraint?" He spat blood that crystallized on impact, shattering to dark dust. "What a quaint interpretation."
Shinji blurred forward. His fist, wreathed in crimson, aimed at Saganbo's fractured jaw.
This time, Saganbo moved.
Not sluggishly. With sudden, shocking economy—reserves tapped, precision activated. He twisted, the blow grazing his temple and tearing away flesh. Simultaneously, he lashed out with a kick imbued with concentrated negation, aimed at Shinji's ribs.
THUD!
The kick connected solidly. Shinji skidded backwards several hundred kilometers, impacting a colossal glass monolith that shattered into a billion fragments. A faint ripple of surprise crossed his serene features.
It hadn't hurt. But it had moved him. Physically displaced him with focused intensity Saganbo hadn't shown before.
*Interesting.*
Before Saganbo could capitalize, Shinji pushed off the collapsing structure. Twin palms glowed with concentrated crimson, brighter than reflected nebulae. He thrust forward—not beams, but focused lances of transcendental force.
FWOOM!
Twin spears of conceptual energy, thick as planets and blindingly incandescent, lanced across the void. They tore through crystal structures, vaporizing them, carving glowing tunnels.
Saganbo's eyes widened—calculation, perhaps alarm. He crossed his arms, bracing with every ounce of visible aura. Purple-black energy manifested as a desperate, buckling shield, pouring his remaining might into it.
KRA-SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
The collision screamed across psychic fabric. Saganbo's shield buckled, warped, shattered. The crimson lances hammered into his crossed arms, vaporizing sleeves, searing flesh. He was hurled backward, tearing through space's fabric, leaving dimensional scars.
Universe 3582 flickered past. Then 3583. Then 3585. The lances maintained their devastating barrage, unwavering extensions of Shinji's will.
Finally, in Universe 3588's relative emptiness, the energy dissipated. Saganbo hung in void—a broken effigy. His armor gone. Body ruined—deep gashes exposing structures that shouldn't be visible, weeping rivers of blood forming macabre nebulae. His breathing shallow, labored. He hovered on the razor's edge of divine oblivion.
Shinji appeared before him, unwavering crimson light stark against fading darkness. "It ends here, Saganbo," he declared, voice resonating with cosmic justice. "For my aunt and sister. For the countless souls your monarchs extinguished. For the 236 sterilized universes. For immeasurable suffering you authored. Your destruction is the only recompense."
He raised his right hand. Crimson energy coalesced into a blade of pure conceptual sharpness—designed to sever divine existence's threads. It hummed with finality, aimed at the broken God's core.
Saganbo, through cracked lips and glazing eyes, managed a final smile. Not manic. Not defiant. Knowing. Profoundly, terrifyingly knowing.
"You speak," he rasped, each word painful expulsion of fading life-force, "as if the final act concluded. As if victory is yours to claim." He chuckled, wet and gurgling. "Admirable... maintaining the Innate Self State this long. I hoped it would flicker. Grant reprieve. Damnably inconvenient... your resilience."
Shinji's crimson eyes narrowed, calm sea stirred by cold certainty. "The State is me, Saganbo. Not borrowed mantle—my fundamental nature. My skin. My breath. There is no flickering. Only your deserved end."
Saganbo's smile widened, revealing crimson-stained teeth in terrifying revelation. "Is that your perception? My limit? My 100%?" He coughed, dark mist spraying. "Tell me, Fourth Trascender... in all your newfound clarity... did I ever explicitly claim that was my full power?"
A cold sliver, alien and utterly unwelcome, pierced the boundless calm. First true chill of doubt. Microscopic crack in perfect ice. His gaze sharpened, focusing with laser intensity. "What?"
Saganbo's ruined form began to glow. Not external purple-black, but internal, terrifying luminescence emanating from bones, from divine spark's core.
"Respect," Saganbo whispered, gaining unnatural strength, echoing in reality's substrate. "I hold a kernel for you. You forced my hand. Compelled me to discard preferred... restraints."
Internal light intensified, washing over wounds like liquid radiance. Deep gashes sealed as if time reversed. Bruises vanished like shadows at dawn. Broken bones snapped back with audible cracks resonating unnaturally. Blood streams ceased, dark nebula dissipating, sucked back into his form.
Within seconds—less than cosmic heartbeat—Saganbo hung whole, unblemished, radiating not just restored power but entirely different magnitude. His aura transformed. Purple-black deeper, denser, vibrating with silent, universe-ending hum making space tremble. It radiated absolute negation—promise of universal silence. His eyes, fixed on Shinji, held no madness. Only cold, terrifying, absolute purpose.
"The Stage you witnessed," Saganbo announced, voice now resonant boom shaking 3588's distant stars, making them visibly dim, "was merely prologue. Destruction Disable. Self-imposed limitation. A child playing with matches."
He raised a hand, fingers flexing. Space screamed, reality warping, buckling, threatening to tear under sheer unmitigated pressure. Distant nebulae flinched away.
"Now, Trascender Shinji Kazuhiko... behold the Intermediate Stage."
He smiled—predator finally unsheathing true, universe-rending claws. No mirth. Only chilling certainty of absolute annihilation.
"Let me educate you on the True Essence of Destruction."