A/N: Welcome to my new project called 'Ruler and King's Journey in Tengu City'. The protagonist for this fic will be Add (Diabolic Esper) and Ain (Apostasia) since both of them are actually related to space-time and Henir, the god of darkness. Just for fun, I don't know if this should be my main project. But I did this because there is a plot bunny in my head that won't go away so I needed to release it right now.

And a note for Elsword fans and LN readers. I used Add (past-self) from the LN that used to be a Time Tracer.

Proofread by Thatguywhowrote

-II—II-

After the final battle against the spiritual demon Amethyst, Ain and El's gang finally defeated the disembodied demon for good. But unknown to them, Ain's curse was already spreading too much to the point that most of his skin was already covered by the sickly black green that came from Henir's power.

Before Ain fully materialized in this World called Elrios, Ain's sole existence was to become a goddess' emissary and carry out his duty to restore El's shard to its glory like 500 years ago. But before this mission, Ain was actually already damaged from a certain incident that made El's shard explode and the pieces scattered throughout the world of Elrios.

Ain was too close to the explosion that he was knocked out and off to another plane of reality, and this wasn't just any normal dimension. It was Henir's space-time that was located outside of anything, the ultimate void that was never connected to any realm.

It was impossible to enter this realm without a strict procedure and no mortal has ever hoped to reach this reality without an insider's help. But Ain somehow entered due to the explosion and was now lost inside Henir's space-time.

Unknown to him, he had been corrupted by Henir's Chaos power that will forever change his destiny. He aimlessly wandered while his existence slowly faded due to the damage. But the Goddess Ishmael, her creator, helped him by getting him out and giving him a power to sustain himself. She also gave him a new mission, and that is to retrieve all the El shards that had scattered throughout the world, to restore it again to its former glory.

So Ain embarked on his mission and met El's gang in the process...

But it won't be for long.

Slowly but surely, Henir's Chaos power inside him slowly ate at him, his personality had been change drastically from calm and collected into a fearful, furious and more violent one than before. This was due to Henir's power reacting to the darkness and rapidly increased the rate of corruption, even consuming his left eye.

His left eye's sclera became black while the pupil became light blue, and some kind of spiritual entity appeared behind him that resembled the eye called Seed of Chaos. In order to hide it from El's search party, Ain concealed his eye with a bandage while he had no other choice but to let the Seed of Chaos be known. Of course El's search party asked what the creepy looking eye that float around him was, but Ain only said that it was his special ability as a priest.

Their journey went on until they reached Feita, it had been three years since they began. Ain couldn't take it anymore; the darkness in Feita was so thick because of all the Demons there. Henir's Chaos power began reacting violently and the Seed of Chaos began to grow. He sought the goddess' guide and wanted to visit the chapel and since El's gang also aimed to go there, he decided to join them.

After they fell the demon Amethyst, Ain approached the altar in front of him, his face showing no emotions whatsoever. As Elsword saw Ain's behavior becoming weirder and weirder these past three years, he decided to talk to him about his condition.

"Ain, Are you okay? You look kinda pale. Maybe you need rest?" The red-haired boy said and the others also looked at him with a worried expression. Ain just stared at them stoically and ignored their words as he approached the altar.

After that, he tried to communicate with his sole Creator, the Goddess Ishmael. However, there was no response.

"Did the Goddess Ishmael forsake me? In the end, am I merely your tool to fulfill what you desire? This mission is the only purpose of my existence... But if the Goddess has forsaken me, then even if I complete this mission or not, in the end I will vanish... As such, this mission is meaningless." He murmured to the altar before turning towards El's gang.

"Ain, are you okay?" Asked the red-headed knight once more.

"Ain, you look... hopeless. Is something the matter?" Inquired Ms. Wizard.

"Maybe we should rest. Right, guys?" Suggested the kind-hearted elf.

Everyone nodded in agreement, seeing the seemingly pitiful state of Ain. But he ignored all their concern and removed his hooded shirt to reveal his corrupted body, much to the shock of his audience. Elsword and the others knew Ain had weird skin color, but to think it extended to almost his entire body...

Ain now only wore his black shirt and jet black long pants, and the Seed of Chaos began multiplying and surrounding Ain's body. And then, a dark blue cape and floating mantle with the Seed of Chaos in it materialized. Elsword and the others looked confused on what he was about to do.

"...it's been nice knowing you, Elsword. Don't worry, you will never remember me ever again. I finally embrace the power of Chaos and have gained enlightenment. This world is nothing but a mere progress towards the end of creation. Soon, this world will be nothing... Devoid of life. This is the truth Chaos told me." Ain spoke, his face robbed of any emotions.

Elsword and his friends couldn't understand what he was saying, but when Ain summoned a long black scythe from thin air, everyone armed themselves.

"We're still friends with Ain! Even if his attitude has turned a bit violent, he is still our comrade!" Elsword shouted at his peers, but even his instinct gave him a bad feeling about this and hoped he was wrong. Unfortunately, reality told him different.

"...I have no qualms with all of you. In the end, this world will become devoid of life. I won't interfere with your inevitable destruction in the future. As such, I will leave El's search party and find the path I wish to take after abandoning Goddess' mission. I shall leave from here on." After Ain said all that, he slashed the air with his scythe and ripped a dimensional portal with a shape that resembled the Seed of Chaos.

"Wait Ain! Where are you going? This is all a lie, right?! Don't go!" Elsword shouted and dashed to him but only to be attacked by some dark substance that appeared beside Ain, trying to shoot him down. The projectiles were from distorted reality and corrupted its surrounding with the power of Henir, exploding upon impact (1).

Elsword managed to block in time, but the explosion blew him away.

"Guh!"

"Elsword" Aisha said, rushing to him.

"Elsword, are you okay? Y-you!" Chung said while aiming the Destroyer at Ain.

Everyone besides Eve and Aisha pointed their weapons at the fallen angel, but Ain only shrugged it off and entered the portal before closing behind him.

After Ain left, the search party talked amongst themselves.

"I knew there was something off. His mana was distorted so much, it was like he was being tainted by something." Said Aisha, tending to Elsword's wound with first aid.

He wasn't heavily injured since Ain only sent a few of those projectiles to stop him. But Aisha just wanted to be sure. Eve ordered Oberon to carry him.

"We finally know there's something wrong about him. The next time we see him, he is now our potential enemy" Raven said calmly.

"That's quite likely, I already observed him and so far he has the tendency to fear everything and attack anything he deems to be a threat, even if it's his comrades." Eve said straightforwardly.

"-guh!...A-Ain won't do such thing! Ain already helped us in overcoming many obstacles. He can't betray us..." Elsword muttered his childish wish.

"It's okay Elsword, we need to go back first. We must report to Lento and the others. We will find... who again?" Rena asked, suddenly growing confused.

Everyone soon began to forget what they were talking about but Elsword retorted.

"What!? How can all of you forget, we are talking about Ain here!" Elsword shouted. Everyone can't seem to remember who this Ain fellow was, he was about to speak again when something felt gradually disappearing. Who again? Who was this person he wanted to talk about? Elsword felt like he was forgetting something important.

And thus, All of El's search party members forgot about Ain's existence completely, Ain has embarked onto another universe entirely where he wouldn't find any counterparts of the gang.

-II—II-

Ishmael, the goddess that was responsible for giving El's Shard to the material world, has been the overseer of what Ain was currently doing. She had tried her best to contact him, to give advice but none went through. It was like there was a barrier that blocked her transmission. She didn't have enough power to fully materialize because she still had to recover some energy after becoming El's lady years ago.

Ishmael could only hope that Ain will still believe in her until she can recover her power and cure Ain from Henir's Outer Void influence on him. Henir's space-time was created from darkness, different from Lady Eliana who created the material world with light. And Ain, being the angel of light, was poisoned by Henir's atmosphere to the point it infected him with the Seed of Chaos.

His faith was tested, and he used that corrupted power to help their group in achieving their mission, but not for long. Due to the extensive use of his corrupted powers, Ain's faith grew thin and was completely gone after just three years, beginning to accept the Seed of Chaos' influence. He started to cause destruction in another plane of reality and called himself the "Ruler of Abyss". He declared himself as a fallen angel that announced death to all dimensions no matter where he was.

This was unforgiveable, she couldn't forgive herself for becoming incompetent and couldn't show her face to Lady Elia now. Ishmael couldn't handle Ain alone, she was still recovering her energy so she couldn't interfere with another reality outside of her reach. But there was one entity capable of helping, it was none other than the masked administrator of Time and Space, Glave.

Ishmael, having no choice decided to enter the realm of void to meet him and ask for his assistance.

-II—II-

Glave, being the only one managing the time and space in this void always amused himself by interacting with El's gang from separate countless timelines and challenging them to enter his domain to test how strong they were. Glave was only interested in two particular persons.

First was Elsword. He had great potential that Glave himself believed he could surpass him even with his seven locks released. But in any other countless timelines, none of the Elswords had come that far. But he will surely enjoy which timelines his powers had bloomed.

The next was Add. Not the Add that he always saw with El's search party, but a certain Esper that called himself D. He had gone the same route as Glave, but the difference was Glave was stuck in this accursed void due to his curiosity with this realm and was punished by higher existences, while Add only came here to obtain the power to gain control over space-time.

He had unimaginable power, if he were able to open the Gate of Time he could reconstruct any timelines he desired and create his own reality. Glave wanted to see some more of what D was going to do, but it looked like he got stopped by his past-self before entering the gate.

His past-self decided that he would use the Gate of Time to reset reality itself. And when he used the gate, he ended up becoming the same existence as D and eventually called himself Diabolic Esper.

He even decided to throw away that power which can change the course of time of any universe just by breathing, so he tested him if he would become the same entity as D by making him visit his mother when she was still alive, who knew if he could change his mind and decide to change history?

And to his surprise, he still insisted in abandoning that power. Even Glave already said it many times, that power allowed him to change reality at his will but he still refused because of his promise with his friends.

"Did I look like him when I was human? I hardly remember my past-self." Glave mumbled to himself. But he can't accept this, maybe it was a bit selfish but maybe his power could be of some use for him. And maybe, he could be the next administrator of space-time in exchange of his place. So Glave secretly used [Seal of Time] to record his existence in Henir and he could call him if he needed him, as his doll of course.

And he fulfilled his wish to reset the universe, but at the cost of his memory and all the inhabitants of Elrios. He warned him that he would lose his power, but he said it was okay and so he no longer pried any further.

After sometime, Glave managed space-time like always. He sensed something, a disturbance had happened at the edge of the void.

"Looks like someone's coming. Interesting, it's not demons like always." Glave said, looking at the far side of his position.

A speck of light appeared before him. Glave knew this entity, the one who sent El's shard to the material world, the god of El, Ishmael.

"So? What does the esteemed Goddess want in this void?" Glave sneered with a smirk on his face, hidden by his mask.

"So you're the administrator of Henir's space-time? I need your help regarding my circumstance." The goddess said which made him tilt his head.

"Help? What is it?" Glave said, actually curious for a goddess to be asking for help from a denizen of Henir like him.

Besides, Ishmael actually hated all of Henir's creation, especially Henir's zealots that strove to destroy all creation that is not of Henir's. But this time, she needed some of their help. And Glave was the right person due to his ability to open portals to any dimension he wanted to.

"I need your help retrieve my creation. He is an angel that has fallen from his grace and has caused destruction in many dimensions. I want to stop him at all costs, and I need you to do this." Ishmael said with a god-like tone, showing an astral image about how Ain looked like.

"And what will I gain from this? Surely, there must be some benefit? Don't expect me to do charity work when you're contracting with a devil." Glave said with an amused tone.

"...I will owe you. But that's if you are successful in capturing my creation." She said to which Glave agreed. If she owed him, he could use her to escape from this accursed Time-Space and finally be freed from here. He really wanted to escape so maybe the Goddess of El could be his ticket out.

"Then, I will help you. This is gonna be interesting kukuku..." Glave now released the Seal of Time and materialized an entity he once recorded to Henir's space-time archive.

After a gesture of his hand, there stood in purple light a white-haired man with pale skin and purple eyes, wearing light looking jet black armor and six dynamos floating around him. His name was Add, and being immersed with Henir's power he also had black sclera like Ain.

"...where am I?" Add asked while looking around, though he was actually familiar with this place.

"Welcome back. You're now in Henir's time and space. I need something from you." Glave said which Add recognized him in the first spot.

"You... How? Did I reset reality including me?" He said, looking at his hand which was attached with jet black gloves the same as his arch enemy D, his future-self.

"Don't worry, reality is not affected and you are still alive there. But you have become a different existence than Add in the reset reality. You're Add that is still the King of Time!" Glave explained, smiling underneath his eerie looking mask.

"...You! Even when I already did so much to restore the universe from its broken state, I can't even rest!? I'm sick of this shit! Kuaaaaa!" Add got angry and released psionic energy so thick that it engulfed where Glave and Ishmael stood in an entire blue field (2). This psionic energy was capable of affecting the mind of entities to become fragile the moment they enter it. But Glave, knowing what this psionic energy capable of, countered it by creating his own psionic energy field to protect himself and Ishmael from Add's.

"Relax, kid. I am only asking for a small favor. With your power, you can easily travel between universes easily and control space-time like I do. The difference is, I can't get out of here while you can. So I need your cooperation." Add's furious eyes still glared at him as he spoke.

"Shut up! I don't care about your meaningless business! You will die!" His Dynamos reacted to his anger and created a purple barrier around him which shook Henir's space-time. Glave was actually quite surprised, his power was more than he had imagined.

"... Then shall we make a deal? If you retrieve this boy, I will reward you with something good. I can replace Add from reset reality with your previous memory still intact. How about that?" Glave said, trying to tempt the devil.

"You mean I can remember about my past-self?" That actually made Add ponder. He could remember all of his previous memories. The moment where Eun, Eve, all those memories when his friends helped him from previous timelines. Add actually wanted to cherish those and never forget their deeds in helping him defeat D. It was true that most of his previous memories weren't good ones, but he still regarded them as precious.

If he had a choice, he wanted to keep his memories. But Glave once said that he couldn't remember a thing, he decided it should be okay since his purpose was to fix the broken world by resetting the universe.

"..." Add only stood in silence as his psionic energy began to wane before vanishing.

"Looks like you're interested. Don't worry, I can do it. Why I never told you this before was because it was impossible to do it while you're still alive. But now, you are more akin to a ghost, pretty much like D, no?" Add's eye twitched at his statement. Did he become the same existence as D? Was his fate really to turn into his future-self? No, he would never become him. He will never, until the end of time, betray his friends' expectations.

"Fine! You better keep your word, you masked freak or I will be sure to mangle your body." Add threatened venomously, ready to tear Glave to pieces. But he only smirked and proceeded to introducing him to Ishmael, and then began the explanation about his target.

Meanwhile...

-II—II-

In Tengu city, Itsuka Shido has confronted a girl in a purple dress with a big, white broad sword pointed at him. Shido was still confused at who this girl was that was able to create massive shockwaves and destroy buildings beside him, and could even stand at the center of space quakes. Who was this girl?

"You... Do you want to kill me?" The girl asked while Shido was just baffled. Those eyes... Despite being hostile, she had such sad eyes.

And then, before the girl or Shido could say anything else, a blue light flashed at the center of a crack from the space quakes before. There stood another entity.

The girl and Shido turned around to look at him. He had extremely pale skin, mechanical wings, a jagged floating halo above his head and somehow, his body always glowed and floated. He looked like a tainted angel, or should they say...

A fallen angel.

"...this world. It looks like I managed to come in another plane of existence. But what is all this mess?" Ain said with his echoing voice while his eyes scanned the area.

The girl became wary of him and pointed his sword towards him. Ain, seeing that gesture, prepared his own weapon. A scythe appeared on his hands out of thin air and was ready for attack.

But the unexpected came. Floating people came from above and started shooting at them. The girl repelled the bullets with her barrier generated by her astral dress while Ain created a light blue barrier with his left hand (3).

Shido was still confused at what was happening here, and he hoped his mind was still intact after seeing all this randomness.

END

A/N: How is it? I'm not expecting many reviews since this is just a side project. But if you like it, leave a review okay? Then maybe, I will continue this. My other story such as Caster of Death will be put on hold since I'm extremely lazy right now. Until then, farewell.

1: Apostasia's skill called "Abgrund"

2: Diabolic Esper skill called "Moonlight Rhapsody"

3: Ain skill called "Aucluss"