The moment Pyrrha said his surname instead of his given name, the other three members of Team TNPR instantly realized that something was seriously wrong.
To anyone else, it would have sounded like a completely insignificant detail. Tsutsumi normally introduced himself by his surname anyway, so hearing someone call him that wouldn't have seemed unusual. In fact, most people at Beacon probably wouldn't even notice the difference.
But his teammates knew better.
There was a very specific reason Tsutsumi had allowed them to call him by his given name.
Tsutsumi had explained to them that, in his culture, allowing someone to use your given name was more than simply being friendly. It meant that you trusted that person enough to let them address you in a more personal way. It was something reserved for people you considered close, and because of that, being given permission to use someone's given name was something that carried actual meaning.
It was personal to him.
That was why Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha had been genuinely happy when Tsutsumi eventually gave them permission to call him Ryoko rather than Tsutsumi. It wasn't something they had simply decided for themselves. He had personally allowed them to do it.
Nora had actually wanted to tell Team RWBY about it when they were still close.
She had thought it would be a nice little thing to share with their friends, especially since the two teams had spent so much time together during their first year at Beacon. However, Tsutsumi had stopped her before she could say anything.
He explained that it wasn't something she could simply announce to other people.
Using his given name without his permission would be disrespectful, especially when the person wasn't close enough to him for him to offer that privilege himself.
Nora might not have always been the sharpest person in the room, but she understood when someone was setting a boundary. Once Tsutsumi explained why it mattered to him, she immediately backed off and never brought it up again.
Over time, the four of them developed their own little habit because of it.
When they were alone together, Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha called him Ryoko, just as he had allowed them to. Whenever they were around other people, however, they went back to calling him Tsutsumi. It was simple enough that none of them really thought about it anymore. It had become a normal part of their friendship, something so small that they could easily forget why it had started in the first place.
Which was exactly why Pyrrha using his surname now was enough to make all three of them realize that something was terribly wrong.
She had never called him that when they were alone. Not once. Not after Tsutsumi had given her permission.
Tsutsumi's expression hardened immediately.
He didn't ask what was wrong. He didn't hesitate. His hand pulled out a card before he slid it directly into his Decadriver.
Attack Ride: Benevolent Shrine!
The world around them suddenly changed.
A brilliant light erupted from Tsutsumi's position and spread outward in every direction, rapidly swallowing the area surrounding the four members of Team TNPR. The ruined battlefield outside Beacon disappeared beneath the expanding light as the space around them was forcibly separated from the rest of the world.
The screams of civilians, the gunfire, the explosions. And even the distant cries of Grimm were suddenly gone.
For the first time since the attack began, there was complete silence.
"Pyrrha" looked around in confusion.
The destroyed grounds of Beacon were gone.
Instead, she found herself standing inside an empty train station with a distinctly modern appearance. The clean platforms, strange signs, polished floors, and unfamiliar train sitting nearby looked completely different from anything she had ever seen on Remnant.
"What is this place?"
She looked around nervously before turning back toward the other three members of Team TNPR.
"Guys, we-"
Nora suddenly charged forward.
There was no hesitation in her movements. There was none of her usual excitement, no grin on her face, and no playful comment about how she was going to hit something really hard.
Instead, her expression was filled with anger. She pulled her fist back and drove it directly into "Pyrrha's" face. The punch connected with enough force to send her flying backward.
Her body crashed into the side of the nearby train, and her face struck one of the windows hard enough to send cracks spreading across the glass.
"Pyrrha" slowly lifted her head. Her eyes caught her own reflection in the fractured window. For a moment, she simply stared. The face staring back at her wasn't Pyrrha Nikos. It was her own face.
Amber's eyes widened.
She reached up and touched her face, almost as though she expected the reflection to change if she touched it, but it didn't.
The same familiar face stared back at her.
"What...?"
Amber slowly turned around.
Nora was already walking toward her.
The cheerful girl who normally treated fights like an opportunity to have fun was nowhere to be seen. Her hands were clenched tightly at her sides, her shoulders tense, and her eyes were locked directly onto Amber.
Behind her stood Tsutsumi. His face was partially hidden beneath the shadow falling across it, making his expression difficult to read, but Amber could still see his eyes.
There was no confusion in them, only cold certainty.
Amber took a cautious step backward.
"Wait, I can explain-"
She tried to stand properly, but before she could regain her balance, something struck the back of her leg.
Ren had somehow moved behind her without making a sound. His boot struck directly against her calf, forcing her leg out from underneath her and sending her crashing down onto her knees.
Before Amber could turn around, Ren grabbed the back of her head. He forced her downward. Her face struck the floor, leaving her stunned for several seconds as the sudden impact scrambled her thoughts.
Ren held on to her hair and pulled her head back up, forcing her to look directly at him.
His expression was colder than anyone had ever seen from him.
"What happened to Pyrrha, our friend?"
Amber stared at him, still trying to catch her breath.
...
Inside another part of the domain, the three members of Team TNPR walked together toward a cliffside overlooking a massive sunset, the sky stretching endlessly across the horizon as the last rays of sunlight reflected across the clouds and painted everything around them in warm shades of orange and red.
Unlike the battlefield outside, there was no sound of gunfire, explosions, Grimm, or people screaming for help, leaving the three of them to walk in silence until they finally reached the edge of the cliff, where a scarlet-haired girl was already sitting alone and quietly watching the sun.
The three of them approached her without saying anything, each one eventually taking a seat beside her, with Nora sitting beside Pyrrha while Ren sat on her other side of Nora and Tsutsumi remained beside her, his hand moved to place on top of her own hand.
For several seconds, none of them said anything. There wasn't really anything they could say.
Nora eventually broke the silence.
"Pyrrha..." she asked quietly, her voice already trembling as she looked toward her teammate. "Is it really true... that your soul is fading?"
Pyrrha remained silent for a few seconds before lowering her head and looking down at her hand.
Her fingers were transparent. The sunset could be seen through them.
She slowly moved them in front of her face, watching as the fading light passed through her palm as though her body was gradually becoming nothing more than an illusion.
"I'm sorry..."
It was the only answer she could give.
Nora's eyes immediately filled with tears.
"You don't have to apologize for that," Ren said quietly, although there was a noticeable strain in his voice as he looked at Pyrrha's fading hand. "None of this was your fault."
Pyrrha gave him a weak smile, but she didn't look convinced.
"I know... but that doesn't change what's happening."
She lowered her hand again and stared toward the horizon.
The machine and Wiseman's magic had forced Amber's Aura into Pyrrha's body, but Aura wasn't something separate from its owner. It was connected directly to the soul, meaning that forcing Amber's Aura into another person's body had effectively forced another soul into Pyrrha as well.
Two souls within one body.
And that wasn't something completely unheard of in Remnant.
There were old fairy tales that spoke of people sharing a single body with another soul, although most people treated those stories as nothing more than fiction. Like many of the fairy tales that had been passed down through generations, there was usually a small piece of truth hidden somewhere inside them.
This story of two souls was based on one of Ozpin's previous lives.
Ozpin had lived for longer than almost anyone could comprehend, and his immortality came with a particularly cruel condition. Whenever his current body died, his soul would eventually find another suitable host and continue living through them.
It was not a peaceful reincarnation. His soul would enter another person's body, gradually suppressing the original soul until he eventually took complete control of the body and inherited its identity.
Over countless lifetimes, Ozpin had continued this cycle, surviving through one body after another while the souls that originally belonged to those bodies were eventually pushed aside.
It was almost like a parasite that refused to die.
However, Pyrrha's situation was different.
She wasn't simply sharing her body with another soul.
Amber's damaged soul had been placed inside her through a process that had never been designed to allow the two of them to properly coexist, and the magic Wiseman used had only made the situation worse.
Instead of allowing Amber and Pyrrha to naturally adjust to one another, the magic suppressed Pyrrha's soul and prevented her from properly resisting.
That was never supposed to happen. At least, not intentionally. Wiseman hadn't specifically ordered Amber's soul to devour Pyrrha's.
The problem was that Amber's soul was damaged, and once it had been forced into Pyrrha's body, it instinctively began drawing on the Aura surrounding it in order to sustain itself. Because Pyrrha's soul had been suppressed by the magic, she couldn't properly defend herself against it.
She could only watch, feeling pieces of herself slowly being consumed while her own body continued moving around her.
The person controlling her body looked like Pyrrha.
She sounded like Pyrrha.
But she wasn't truly Pyrrha.
Amber hadn't had enough time to actually know her new host.
She didn't know the small habits that Pyrrha had developed after spending months with Team TNPR. She didn't know the little ways she spoke to Nora or Ren, the small expressions she made around Tsutsumi, or the countless insignificant details that only someone who had actually spent time with her would notice.
Amber only had access to the surface-level information that Wiseman knew about team TNPR, along with whatever muscle memory her new body had managed.
That was enough to imitate her. But it wasn't enough to become her. And that was exactly why Amber had slipped up so quickly.
...
Back in the other part of the domain, Amber finally realized that there was no point in pretending anymore, as her identity had already been exposed and the three members of Team TNPR were standing directly in front of her with no intention of letting her walk away.
With her disguise completely useless now, Amber decided to rely on whatever remained of the Fall Maiden's power and fight her way out, raising her hands as flames gathered around her body before forming into several rough, half-finished spears of fire that she immediately launched toward the three of them.
The spears tore through the air, but Nora didn't even bother moving out of the way. She stepped forward and raised the massive stone axe blade in her hands.
Nine-Lives, the weapon had once belonged to Heracles, the greatest hero of Greek mythology, and despite its enormous size, Nora swung it with enough strength to make the weapon look almost weightless in her hands.
She brought the blade across her body with a powerful sweep, smashing through the incoming fire spears and tearing them apart through sheer physical force before the flames could reach her.
Amber's eyes widened as she quickly stepped backward, realizing that the attacks she had thrown out were nowhere near enough to stop them.
She barely had time to react before Ren suddenly appeared behind her.
The young man held a strange golden dagger in his hand, its surface glowing faintly as he moved it into position. Erosion: Penetrating Blade of Gold.
Unlike an ordinary weapon, the blade wasn't designed simply to cut through flesh or physical matter. Its effect allowed it to cut through the spaces separating the body, mind, and soul.
Amber immediately spun around, but Ren was already moving. He swung the blade toward her, forcing Amber to twist her body aside as the golden edge passed dangerously close to her neck.
Amber quickly created another wall of flame between herself and Ren.
At the same time, Tsutsumi remained farther back, watching the battle while holding two ordinary-looking pieces of paper between his fingers.
The paper suddenly began to glow. The two pieces twisted and transformed in his hands, their shapes changing until they became two Rider Cards.
...
Pyrrha looked down at her transparent hand again, watching as the faint outline of her fingers seemed to become even less defined than before.
She slowly curled them into a fist, but there was hardly any strength left in them, and the sight alone was enough to make the reality of her situation sink in even deeper.
"I'm sorry... for not being clearer with you guys since this happened..."
Her voice was quiet, and there was a faint tremble in it as she tried to keep herself composed.
Nora's eyes began to water again, and this time she couldn't hold the tears back.
"Ryoko..." she whispered, her voice cracking as she looked toward him. "D-do you have any way to help her? You can turn back time, right?"
She wiped at her eyes, but more tears immediately replaced the ones she had brushed away.
"You've done all those crazy things before, so... there has to be something you can do, right?"
Tsutsumi remained silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on Pyrrha's fading form before he finally lowered his gaze.
"I lost that power some time ago..." he admitted bitterly.
The words were difficult for him to say because he knew exactly what Nora was asking. He had powers that could accomplish things most people would consider impossible, and normally, if something went wrong, he could simply find another way around it.
But this was different.
Pyrrha's situation was something he never expected to happen.
Somewhere along the way, he had forgotten about Wiseman's existence in this world, and that mistake had given the magician enough freedom to move without anyone noticing him.
He had manipulated Pyrrha into believing that what she was doing was for the greater good of Remnant, and by the time Tsutsumi realized what was happening, the damage had already been done.
The moment those words left his mouth, the small amount of hope in Nora's eyes faded. Ren didn't say anything either. He simply lowered his gaze, his hands tightening slightly as he listened.
"Even if we separate your soul from hers..." Tsutsumi continued, his voice becoming quieter as he looked back toward Pyrrha. "At most, you wouldn't be able to live for very long."
Pyrrha looked at him silently.
"With what little remains of your soul, you wouldn't have enough strength to sustain yourself for long. Your body might still be here, but..." He paused, unable to finish the sentence immediately. "You wouldn't have much time."
Their fingers intertwined, his hand carefully closing around hers. Her hand was already becoming transparent enough that he could see the scenery through it.
"I don't want to see you die..." Tsutsumi admitted.
His voice had lost the confidence it normally carried, and there was no attempt to hide the sadness in it anymore.
"I don't want you to leave me."
Nora lowered her head, quietly wiping away her tears while Ren remained beside her, his expression unusually solemn.
Pyrrha looked at Tsutsumi for a long moment before giving him a small smile.
"Ryo... you've done enough."
There was sadness in her voice, but somehow, she still managed to sound warm.
"When I first came to Beacon, I just wanted to escape from being the genius champion everyone expected me to be. I thought that if I came here, I could finally live like a normal girl instead of constantly worrying about what everyone else expected from me."
She let out a quiet laugh, though there wasn't much happiness behind it.
"I suppose I didn't really manage to escape from that identity after all."
Her fingers gently squeezed his.
"But I was happy."
"When I got to know you, and when I became friends with Ren and Nora, I finally understood what it was like to actually be part of a team. To have people who would stand beside me when things became difficult, people who would trust me, and people who would let me trust them in return."
"I never really had that before."
Pyrrha's smile became a little warmer.
"I... am really grateful for all the time we spent together. I just wish we had more time."
Her voice trembled.
"I wanted the time we had to last a little longer... as long as it possibly could while I was still alive."
A tear finally slipped down her cheek.
"I wanted to keep eating the food we made together, even when Nora inevitably made something completely ridiculous. I wanted to keep talking about strategies with everyone, even when our plans somehow became more complicated than they needed to be."
Nora gave a weak laugh through her tears.
"I wanted to keep playing games with you guys and going out together whenever we had free time. I wanted to keep walking beside you in the afternoon, talking about whatever happened during the day..."
Her voice slowly broke as more tears gathered in her eyes.
"Those are such simple things, aren't they?"
Tsutsumi shook his head slightly.
"They're not simple."
Pyrrha looked at him.
"They're the things that matter."
That only made her cry harder.
Pyrrha leaned closer to him, resting herself against his side as though she wanted to memorize the feeling of being beside him.
"I'm sorry..." she whispered. "I'm sorry that I can't stay with you like I promised."
Her fingers tightened around his.
"I... truly am sorry. If there's any way it could happen, I hope that whatever remains of me can still stay by your side."
Tsutsumi bit his lip and took a slow breath, trying to calm himself.
That feeling in his chest was painfully familiar.
He had felt it before.
That helpless feeling of watching something important slip away right in front of him, knowing that no matter how much power he possessed, there were still things he couldn't simply force back into existence.
He could reset this world if he truly wanted to. He could erase everything that had happened and return the world to a point before any of this began.
But the Pyrrha who had fallen in love with him, who had become friends with Nora and Ren, who had spent all this time living her own life and making her own memories with them, would disappear along with it.
A replacement wouldn't be her.
Tsutsumi didn't want another version of someone he cared about.
He wanted them. The one who he had truly bonded with.
"It's fine, Pyrrha," Tsutsumi finally said, forcing a small, bitter smile onto his face. "This isn't your fault."
Pyrrha looked at him.
"You only did what you believed was right. You were trying to protect people, and you were tricked into thinking this was the way to do it. I can't blame you for that."
His hand tightened, but he couldn't feel her hand anymore.
"So don't blame yourself either."
Pyrrha's eyes trembled as she listened.
"We'll always be together, even..." Tsutsumi paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Even death won't do us apart."
A faint glow of cursed energy began to spread from his hand and slowly covered Pyrrha's fading body.
He wasn't trying to heal her. He already knew he couldn't. Reverse Cursed Energy healed the damaged body, not the soul. He currently has no soul manipulation power.
So, he carefully wrapped his cursed energy around what remained of her soul.
Tsutsumi gave her another small smile.
"So you don't have to worry. We'll all meet again someday."
His voice became quieter as he looked toward the distant horizon. Before slowly shifted back toward her, giving her a small, warm smile.
"It'll just be pretty lonely without you... Pyrrha."
...
Outside the barrier, Wiseman appeared almost immediately after noticing the massive black sphere that had suddenly condensed in front of Beacon, having been busy defending the city from the Grimm invasion until the moment he recognized the shape of the barrier and realized that it had been created by Wizard.
Which was enough to make his entire focus shift toward it because the timing was far too suspicious to ignore; the barrier had appeared only moments after Amber had been transported there, and for someone who understood exactly what Amber's situation meant, that was more than enough to tell him that something had gone terribly wrong.
He abandoned the battlefield without another word and rushed toward Beacon as quickly as he could, moving through the chaos while Grimm continued pouring through the streets and Atlesian Knights fired upon anything that moved, with Huntsmen and Huntresses desperately trying to keep both sides from overwhelming the civilians attempting to escape the city.
Explosions shook the ground every few seconds, gunfire echoed between the buildings, and the distant roar of the Wyvern continued to make the entire battlefield feel as though it were on the verge of collapsing, but none of that mattered to Wiseman anymore because his attention was completely fixed on the enormous black sphere standing in front of Beacon, and the longer he looked at it, the more uneasy he became.
Then, without warning, cracks began spreading across the surface of the barrier.
Wiseman stopped in his tracks, his eyes immediately locking onto the cracking sphere beneath his mask as more fractures spread across its surface, crawling from one side to the other until the entire black barrier seemed ready to collapse.
Then it shattered.
The massive black sphere broke apart in an instant, countless pieces of dark energy scattering outward before disappearing into the air and revealing the ruined battlefield that had been hidden behind it, with the three members of Team TNPR standing together in the middle and something lying motionless on the ground directly in front of them.
For a brief moment, nobody moved.
The surrounding Grimm, Atlesian Knights, soldiers, Huntsmen, and Huntresses almost seemed insignificant compared to what had just been revealed, and Wiseman's eyes widened beneath his mask as the same realization slowly reached everyone else who had been close enough to see what had happened.
Standing in the middle of the ruined battlefield were Tsutsumi, Nora, and Ren. And lying on the ground in front of them was Pyrrha Nikos.
Her body had been cut cleanly in half and lay completely motionless against the ruined ground, the sight so sudden and horrifying that it took several seconds for everyone to properly process what they were looking at. Only moments ago, Pyrrha had arrived to fight alongside her teammates, and now her lifeless body was lying in the middle of the battlefield as though she had never even been given the chance to fight.
"Pyrrha..."
Ruby's voice came out barely above a whisper as she stared at the body, her eyes widening in disbelief.
Yet the three members of Team TNPR didn't react.
Nora stood silently beside Tsutsumi, her usual cheerful expression completely gone as she stared down at the corpse, while Ren remained just as quiet, his eyes lowered toward the body with a calmness that seemed almost unnatural considering what everyone else was seeing.
They already knew that this body lying before them wasn't Pyrrha.
The moment the girl had appeared inside the domain, her true identity had been exposed to the three of them, and there was no chance they could mistake her for their friend. Amber might have taken over Pyrrha's body, and she might have possessed the same face, the same voice, but that didn't make her Pyrrha.
She was only someone wearing the appearance of their friend. She wasn't the person they had fought alongside, eaten with, trained with, laughed with, trusted with their lives, and spent countless days building memories together.
Tsutsumi slowly lowered his gaze toward his palm, where a small golden-bronze ring rested against his skin.
He stared at it for several seconds, his expression becoming increasingly difficult to read as he slowly closed his fingers around it and held it tightly in his hand.
His face remained calm, but something about the atmosphere around him had changed.
"You guys leave," Tsutsumi said quietly. "We'll catch up later."
There was something in his voice that made Nora stop herself from arguing. Ren understood it as well.
Neither of them asked another question, because they both knew that Tsutsumi had already made his decision.
Azu's ClusterCells immediately began moving across their backs, the tiny metallic grasshoppers gathering together and transforming into mechanical wings that unfolded behind them.
Nora and Ren looked toward Tsutsumi one last time before the two launched themselves into the air, flying away from the battlefield and leaving their leader standing alone among the ruins.
It took everyone else another few seconds to finally snap out of their shock, the sight of Pyrrha's lifeless body leaving the entire battlefield in a strange moment of silence despite the Grimm and Atlesian forces still fighting around them, until Ruby's emotions finally overwhelmed her.
"NOOOOO!"
Her scream tore across the battlefield, loud enough to draw the attention of everyone nearby as her silver eyes suddenly erupted with an intense white light, brighter than anything they had seen from her before.
The light immediately began gathering from her eyes before surging outward toward Tsutsumi, almost as if her instincts had completely taken control of her body and she no longer cared about anything.
Tsutsumi looked toward her. His expression didn't change.
"Dismantle."
An invisible slash suddenly tore through the incoming silver light, cutting through it before it could touch Tsutsumi and causing the entire wave of energy to collapse in an instant.
"AHHHHH!"
Ruby's scream immediately followed as she stumbled backward, both hands flying toward her face while the bright silver light disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. A deep cut suddenly ran across her eyes, crimson blood beginning to run down her face as her legs gave out beneath her.
"Ruby!"
Qrow immediately rushed toward his niece and caught her before she could completely collapse, holding her upright while she struggled to remain conscious.
"Ruby! Ruby, stay with me!"
"What happened to her?!" one of the nearby Huntsmen shouted, looking between Ruby and Tsutsumi in disbelief.
"I-I can't..." Ruby could barely get the words out as she clutched her face, her breathing becoming uneven while Qrow desperately tried to keep her steady. "My eyes... they hurt..."
Qrow's expression tightened as he looked at the blood running down her face, his concern quickly turning into anger as he glanced back toward Tsutsumi.
Across the battlefield, however, Wiseman could do nothing except stare at the young man standing in front of him.
"You..."
His voice came out as little more than a whisper.
For the first time since arriving, Wiseman looked genuinely shaken.
The loss of the Fall Maiden was already a disaster that could change the balance of power across Remnant, but before he had even been able to properly understand what had happened, another disaster had occurred right in front of him.
The last pair of Silver Eyes had just been destroyed.
Everything had happened far too quickly.
He didn't even have time to react.
"You really thought you could fool me, Ozpin?"
Tsutsumi's voice was cold. The certainty behind those words made Wiseman freeze.
For a brief moment, he couldn't even respond.
The name alone was enough to confuse several of the people nearby, and some immediately began looking around the battlefield as if expecting to see Headmaster Ozpin somewhere among them.
"Ozpin?"
"Where is he?"
"Where is Professor Ozpin?"
A few of the Huntsmen exchanged confused glances.
Wiseman remained silent.
Tsutsumi's eyes never left him.
There was no uncertainty in his gaze, and that was what made Wiseman realize just how serious the situation had become. Tsutsumi wasn't guessing. He wasn't throwing the name out as a possibility.
He knew.
The silence between them stretched for another few seconds, with the sounds of the battlefield continuing around them as though the two of them were standing in an entirely different world.
"Henshin."
The familiar transformation sound echoed across the battlefield, cutting through the distant gunfire, Grimm roars, and the sounds of people desperately trying to escape the chaos surrounding Beacon.
Form Ride: Decade!
Gray afterimages suddenly appeared around Tsutsumi, each one moving toward him from different directions before merging into his body one after another. His clothes shifted with them, the gray colors being replaced by the familiar magenta as the transformation settled over his body. His black horns rose from the top of his head, and the glowing yellow gem embedded on the center horn illuminated the darkness surrounding him.
Then the atmosphere changed. Cursed Energy began pouring out from his body.
It was pure negative energy, an overwhelming presence that seemed to seep into the very air around him. The temperature seemed to drop as the pressure suddenly became heavier, and everyone who felt it instinctively froze in place.
Across Vale, Grimm that had been attacking civilians suddenly stopped in the middle of their rampage. Beowolves paused with their claws raised, Creeps turned their heads, and even the larger Grimm began looking toward Beacon as if they had suddenly sensed something that only they could understand.
Their attention was being pulled toward a single point.
The Cursed Energy radiating from him was spreading throughout the city, and the farther it traveled, the more Grimm began reacting to it. Some of them abandoned their current targets completely and turned toward Beacon, drawn toward the overwhelming negativity coming from his direction.
From above, Dragreder was still fighting the massive Wyvern, the Mirror Monster having transformed into its Survive Form as it tore into the Grimm from the sky.
But even that enormous battle suddenly seemed secondary.
Tsutsumi's eyes never left Wiseman.
The Rider in white robe stood completely still, staring at the Rider standing several meters away from him. For the first time since arriving on the battlefield, there was hesitation in his posture.
"With this treasure..." Tsutsumi said coldly, his voice carrying across the battlefield.
The shadow beneath his feet began to move.
The darkness beneath his feet boiled violently as black ripples spread across the ground around him, expanding farther and farther.
"Eight-Handled Sword..."
The darkness behind him began to rise.
A massive cocoon-like structure slowly emerged from the shadow, its enormous shape towering behind Tsutsumi.
"Divergent Sila Divine General..."
The air itself seemed to grow heavier.
A series of deep, unnatural howls echoed across the battlefield as cracks slowly formed across the enormous cocoon.
The cocoon began to crack.
A long fracture appeared across its surface, followed by another and another as the entire mass began splitting apart.
The cracks spread farther across the cocoon, growing wider as pieces of the outer shell began falling away. The sound of something enormous shifting inside became louder, and with every movement, the ground beneath it trembled.
"Mahoraga."
A massive humanoid figure stepped out from the cocoon.
Its body was completely white, with a thick, heavily muscled upper body that looked almost sculpted from stone. Its right hand was bound to a massive dark blade, while its face carried a ferocious expression that made it look more like a creature born from a nightmare than something that belonged in the world of Remnant.
Its mouth was filled with jagged teeth, completely exposed without any lips covering them, while strange wing-like pieces of flesh extended from both sides of its eyes. A long appendage stretched from the back of its head, moving slightly behind it like a tail.
Above its head floated a massive golden wheel with eight handles.
...
AN: Sorry for the late update; a new job messed with my upload time, so a long chapter to make up for it. Plus, I was also lost in the moment writing this chapter.