12 – Just World Phenomenon
"A defenseless cry in the night
The weak scurrying in fright
If only a hero would rise to save…
The world! The weak! The innocent!
But look, look there, in the sky~!
It looks like a god, but I wonder—why?
Why does he look so handsome—
Why does he fight so righteously—
Why does he see all evil—
Who is this brave, eternal justice that we love?"
Yomotsu Hirasaka was singing to himself, his head bobbing back and forth to the imaginary beat he was imagining. He sat under a spotlight, on his throne, which was simply his old wooden chair that he had dragged with him into godhood. In one hand he held a scepter with a large eyeball at the top.
After he was crowned victorious, Murumuru had suggested that he abandon his old spandex costume and assume a king's robe—but Yomotsu would have no such thing! However, he did agree to make a few slight modifications to his mask, upon Murumuru's insistence. They were simply too stellar to do without, also. The black costume had turned to gold, and the transformation belt and gloves had a rainbow palette set that actually was in constant motion. Even as he sat at the chair, relatively motionless, the gloves and belt continued to change colors, like hyperactive and flashy, multi-layered mood rings. The same coloration was true of the design on his eye mask. A final and important change was that the pupil on the mask was swapped out by a simple black outline of a three-pointed crown.
It was in this righteous getup that Yomotsu oversaw the world and kept the word "justice" ubiquitous on the lips of the world. "What do you think, Murumuru…" Yomotsu looked over, from his seat. "Aren't we cool?"
Murumuru had managed to convince Yomotsu to change his appearance, partly for her own sake. She could not take herself seriously serving someone that looked that weird. Despite how little his new look improved her opinion of him, she had agreed to change her own look if Yomotsu did—and so now Murumuru was wearing the garb of a go go girl from the age of Aquarius. She was forced to put her hair into a beehive and wore white gloves and tall white boots. Her dress was a light blue with psychedelic eye designs swirling all around.
"Yeah…" Murumuru muttered, poking at her hair. "We're definitely something else…"
Yomotsu looked off into the distance and thought aloud, "The truly righteous always win, and so it was fated that I would be victorious over evil. 1st and 2nd did not heed my warning and were destroyed with 6th, and from that point on, I consistently began to gain the upper hand. The other Diary owners were so corrupt! An internal war between the police department and the mayor eliminated 4th and 11th prematurely, giving 10th an opening to attack the orphanage that housed 7th and 8th. All I had to do was remain quiet, and justice would silently rise to strike at the final moment!"
He sighed. 9th had been put in a situation in which she could not escape. 10th's dogs ripped her apart. That was one of the most disappointing events in the survival game, but Yomotsu knew she had not yet given up her evil and still posed a threat if she won. That was the best way to generalize it. After all, fate had worked in such a way that the best had truly won—and that he could think on these memories from the throne was proof enough of that.
"You talk about your victory a lot," Murumuru whined. She started pulling on her gloves and, feeling bored, began to wander off, into the darkness that swallowed everything far away from the spotlight above Yomotsu's head.
Suddenly, the new god rose, and both of their bodies flashed. They were teleported, in an instant, to another area of the Cathedral of Causality. All around them was a different sort of darkness, wherein little white lights dotted the wide abyss. They stood on the top of a large podium that descended downward into the unknown. A complicated system of computers circled around them, with screens and buttons of various colors flashing against the dull grey systems. These computers stored massive quantities of information on the new and prior world and could carry out complex tasks.
Yomotsu had a habit of calling this entire structure the Command Center, even after Murumuru kept reminding him that it is called the Cathedral of Causality. The rooms of the structure, whatever it was to be called, were isolated and could be accessed only by teleportation. The room they were in now was where most of their observations of the world below too place.
The Viewing Globe, which resembled a crystal ball, sat on one side of the room, and by looking into it, they could view scenes from various points in the world. On the other side of the room, there was a large plasma tube with a voice recorder suspended in it. By approaching it, they could hear Yomotsu ringing in a new prophecy of justice. He was his own secretary and manager, so to speak. Murumuru felt totally useless; his Diary allowed him to remind himself constantly of what needed to be done. Even when the voice recorder told him to do silly and unimportant things, it was not as though Murumuru really could stop him, anyway. One time, he had been told by his Diary that one of the cities was getting really dirty, and he reacted by devoting his energy into creating a vast army of waste collectors that stormed the streets.
The god in golden spandex waved his scepter in the air, and the area started to lighten up. The faster the eye at the top swirled around, the brighter the atmosphere became, until the area was illuminated and in the distance, white walls could be seen. They were suspended in the very middle of a great expanse. Yomotsu touched the Viewing Globe with a gloved hand, and images projected themselves in various scales along the distant walls. Audio from each scene was also coming from concealed speakers, but instead of overloading Yomotsu, he was able to decipher the sounds perfectly.
"The sweet sound of justice," he cooed, before suddenly pointing his scepter at Murumuru. "Can you hear it?"
Murumuru gave a nervous nod.
He opened his hand and dismissed the staff. It teleported away, until next time he should want it. "All around the world, my chosen heroes are chasing down evil! More and more prisons are being filled each day, in pursuit of a cleaner world! Nothing could be so beautiful as the sighs of evil ones and cheers of onlookers~!"
Murumuru crossed her arms and looked on at a scene in which a spandex-wearing hero with a blue eye mask was chasing down someone who downloaded a couple of music albums illegally the night prior. Her eyes moved to another scene, in which a hero wearing a green eye mask was fighting a giant squid monster that was threatening to destroy New York City. Elsewhere, someone wearing a pink eye mask was trying to prevent a bank robbery.
"I don't know," Murumuru responded. "This seems a little backwards, to me. You've definitely made things a lot more exciting by creating all these heroes across the world, but in order to give them something to do, you had to create more evil. The greater the heroes you produce, the greater the evil—and maybe it's not all so bad, but it's tough to say you've done anything other than put a lot of lives at risk and spread your image…"
Yomotsu looked at her and began to answer, "They are fighting in my place, as new heroes of justice, with whom I'm sharing my mighty powers and—"
"Do I misunderstand?" Murumuru interjected, before suddenly pointing his way. "Or are you fooling yourself into thinking you're doing the world a favor?"
Yomotsu waved his arms frantically in front of himself. "No, no, no!" He exclaimed, "Even if I have to create wickedness so wickedness can be destroyed, this world has more true justice than ever before! The defeat of evildoers is divine!"
Murumuru was about to retort, when a recording of Yomotsu's voice came from the plasma tube. The god instantly scurried closer to it, to hear its command:
"I will create a frightening, giant ball that will roll across the world and swallow up people, buildings, towns ,and even entire cities as it progresses. I will assemble the heroes of the world to join to fight it, and the world will know their power!"
Yomotsu sprang into action. He went to one of the computers and furiously began to type up a command. Murumuru watched from afar, until her attention was drawn to a large screen in the distance. It depicted the outside of the Cathedral of Causality, so high in the heavens, and a ball of light that was manifesting just below it. The ball began to take shape and formed into a massive, shimmering crystal ball, which threatened to blind the people below with a dazzling display.
"Wh-what is that for?" Murumuru dared to ask.
"You'll see," Yomotsu said menacingly. "This must be done."
Yomotsu pressed firmly down on the enter key, and something remarkable happened: Each of the mirrored facets of the massive crystal ball turned into an eye that could look around and even blink independently of the others. Some eyes were big as houses, and others were the size of a normal human's—but there were countless numbers of them on the ball, swallowing up its entire form. Then, in literally the blink of an eye, the ball dropped from the Cathedral of Causality and smashed into Sakurami City.
Yomotsu let out a great laugh and stretched out his hands, open and wide. "I laugh at the evil that tries to defeat my heroes!"
Murumuru, lost for words, watched as the ball began to roll of its own will across the land, obliterating anything that crossed its path. The "sweet sound of justice" now took the form of people screaming throughout this space of the Command Center. In short time, they would watch how Yomotsu's just world phenomenon would play out: the many heroes dressed in 12th's likeness would join their powers to not only stop the progression of the giant ball of eyes, but actually send it hurtling into the sky.
There was just one tiny little problem, a slight misfortune in the great scheme of things: the giant ball of eyes was sent straight in the direction of the Cathedral of Causality. Murumuru's eyes widened; from the screen, she could the little dot growing in view and emerging from the clouds. It was on fire.
"Yomotsu—do something!" The little devil shouted, flying around the column. "We're going to get hit!"
Yomotsu simply stood there and, slightly bent forward, stared at the computer in front of him. He contemplated his options, until finally, one route seemed most righteous. He leapt forward, throwing himself off the column. Murumuru rushed over and peered over the edge, watching as the golden justice ranger descended.
Surrounded by the endless white, Yomotsu summoned his scepter on the way down and gave it a spin. Under him, a shimmering silver motorcycle materialized. He carefully planned his fall so that he might land on it. He was able to get into the seat and, with a shout, fired the beast up. From the back of the motorcycle, a rainbow shot out, and he rode the motorcycle straight through to the bottom of the Cathedral of Causality, a little hole that opened up to the world below.
He could see the flaming ball of eyes advancing, but instead of turning back, Yomotsu rolled on. He shot forward, and his motorcycle cut through the skies like a knife through butter. The rainbow arced from the Cathedral of Causality towards the ultimate collision. Yomotsu charged unflinchingly toward the giant ball of eyes and held his scepter high. He swung it back and, with all the eyes on him at once, with his body just a foot from being splattered against the massive threat, struck the ball.
