Digital Devil Saga: In Heaven as it is in Hell
One tribe among them will ascend to Nirvana. That tribe will win that right through strength. That is the law, and they obey it. After the Awakening, it is not so much the law as an oftentimes unspoken hope that Nirvana must, somehow, be better than what they know—something worth all the lives that have been irretrievably lost for this one goal.
When the white light fades, Serph opens his eyes and finds himself in Nirvana.
He walks alone down the center of a street, and the sick yellow light draws his shadow forward, the only moving thing in a world of lifeless, frozen statues framed by broken buildings tilted like tombstones. The sun is a black, unforgiving eye looking down at him from the heavens—glaring, judging. Serph feels, suddenly, small, in this vast, echoing silence.
This was what they had fought for, died for. Serph feels bitterness welling at the back of his throat and swallows it, ducking his head down to avoid the glare of the poisoned sun. The Junkyard was dark and gray and wet, different; but then hell took many forms.
Before him there kneels another stone-person, directly in the middle of the road. He stops to look at it, one sufferer out of a dozen dozen, because its crumbling hands clutch a gun shoved into its mouth and the rusty metal catches the sunlight briefly. Its cracked stony face is a blurred mask of pleading and pain, too much for any sane man to shape. It is trapped and Serph can sympathize. It was supposed to be over. All of it. Struggling, fighting, sadness. Nirvana. What a joke.
The dust rises and falls, and through it are shadows, moving closer. The sunlight picks out glints from their white armor and weapons. Serph grabs the gun, shattering the statue for good. They don't stand a chance. Serph has spent his entire conscious lifetime embroiled in battle. Survival comes easily to him.
Afterwards, Serph looks at the blood stark against the faded landscape and leaves, shoulders huddled against the wind. All he knows is war, pity that it is. But he feels a hope that Sera's presence in his life has taught him. Somewhere out there in this ruinous world is Sera and his friends and he will do whatever it takes to find them. Then they would come to form the true paradise together.
~end.