Chapter 27: Nazo Final: Breaking the Chaos

Nazo begins his battle against the teenage Overlord and his titanic dragon companion by swinging his arms out beside his body and charging them with Nega Hyper-go-on energy. He slams both encompassed spheres together in front of his body and launches them at the head of the dragon in the form of a gruesome purple meteor. Takashi grabs the meteor with his right claw and clamps down on it to crush it, giving his partner plenty of time to charge forward and draw his katana and slash diagonally at the power-mad hedgehog.

Nazo takes one tendril and wraps itself around the boy's right arm before the blade touched his skin, and with the arm halted in mid-air the teenage Overlord watches as the hedgehog takes his right set of tendrils and prepares to create drills from the maws. Riku improvises a weapon by wrapping hard light around his left arm in the form of a sharp blade and swinging it outward before the tip of the tendrils pierced his body. The limbs were only gone for a few seconds but that gave Riku enough time to fly back.

The teenage Overlord then sheathed his katana and dispelled the improvised blade before crossing his arms in front of his chest and creating a gigantic two-layered shield of light around his body. While Nazo regenerated his tendrils a pulsating dark red-purple glow catches his attention, causing him to look up just in time for Takashi to unleash a gargantuan spread of burning flames upon the hedgehog. The flames cover around Riku's shield to make sure that it covers a large enough area.

But Nazo flies right through the flames undeterred much to the black dragon's surprise and throws a punch right against the bottom of his jaw, slamming it shut and pushing his head back through the air out of recoil. The teenage Overlord then shatters right out of the barrier and goes straight towards Nazo, where after getting behind him and glaring at him somewhat madly for striking a deadly blow against his partner he draws out his katana and stabs it right through the hedgehog's chest.

The tip of the blade pierces right through the pupil of the Dark Gaia eye attached directly to his chest, temporarily paralyzing Nazo in place as Takashi weakly recovers from the blow to his jaw and lowers his head to glare down on the hedgehog's body. With his eyes glowing pitch black, the black dragon focuses on Nazo's head and sends out two thin eye beams of pure darkness that meet at a singular point and pierce through his head.

Riku follows up on this by dragging his blade until he goes right through the top of Nazo's head, bring with him the dripping bits of flesh from the eye that is swung right off as Riku simultaneously glides a couple feet back and watches as Nazo's split halves float eerily in place for a few seconds before multiple flesh-like strands reach out and connect both halves together, pulling them back together in a matter of seconds while healing up the burn hole in the center of his skull.

Takashi comments in his head as this is happening "Is there anything that can permanently damage him?!" His panicked tone is beaten out by Riku saying calmly in return "I'm hoping we can overload his regeneration through continuous damage…After all, we have to weaken him enough to seal him away."

Once Nazo had fully regenerated, he cracks a bright and eerie smile as he slowly turns himself around to face the teenage Overlord. Takashi states as this event occurred "If Sodenko was more cooperative, we would probably be able to accomplish that as the Lord of Chaos."

The black dragon takes out his triangular sword and raises it above his head like a guillotine, distorting the area around it with dark-purple darkness that could cut through even the dimension space itself. He swings the blade down, but Nazo ignores it's presence and charges forward at Riku while the blade passes down behind him and opens up a large diamond-shaped dark-blue rift.

The teenage Overlord tries to fold his arms to summon another two-layered shield but Nazo leads with his tendrils and grabs onto the boy's wrists to stop his defensive maneuver. Riku is then punched straight in the center of his armor by a Nega Hyper-go-on empowered blow from Nazo, which launches a shockwave through the black metal plating and causes it to erupt straight out of his back while dealing a little damage to his heart. But just that little damage is enough to paralyze Riku in place for a few seconds and allow Nazo to follow-up with more attacks.

Nazo slams one of the tendrils' maws against the boy's forehead and charges up a laser ready to finish him with cranial disintegration, the ecstasy radiating from his smile leading him to relish in the moment long enough for Takashi to sheathe his blade and use his right claw to backhand Nazo away from his partner. The tendril pulls away from the forehead and take away a bit of skin in the process. Nazo recovers from the backhand only for the black dragon to appear right in front of him and slam his right claw down upon him.

Takashi growls and gathers darkness immediately into the palm, launching Nazo down towards the water with a spiral beam. Nazo swings his hands out to part the beam while simultaneously releasing a burst of energy to keep himself levitating above the water's surface. But before he could even react to the dragon's attack he is slammed right against the ocean's surface by a gigantic fist of black darkness.

Floating high in the sky while his body was positioned horizontally, the black dragon bared his fangs and threw his fists at the air, punching it as hard as physically possible to impact Nazo's body with more fist-shaped projections of darkness, keeping the hedgehog pinned against the water's surface with each blow and creating large circular waves with each blow.

The only reason he is allowed to be so aggressive against Nazo is because the very moment Riku recovers from the painful blow to his heart he swings himself to the left and aims right arm at the water to create a tall circular barrier of light that keeps the waves in to prevent damage to the continents. At the same time Riku clasps one hand against the chest plate of his armor and use his darkness to restore the cracks in them.

"Don't let up on him Takashi, I need a few more seconds to recover!" Riku mentally states. The black dragon keeps pounding at the air to keep Nazo down, but says to the boy "You need to hurry up then, I'm almost out of juice for this assault!"

Three seconds after he states this, Takashi pulls back on his left fist and shakes the remnants of dark flames away from it, looking down upon the bubbling circle in the ocean created from the multiple fists hitting it. Nazo was nowhere in sight, causing the black dragon to scowl and try to get a peg on where the hedgehog might be while straightening his body vertically in a couple of seconds.

Glancing back and forth, Takashi fails to notice as Nazo erupts from the ocean behind him completely unharmed as usual, and once he rises high enough he aims his right hand at the dragon's back. Riku notices Nazo's presence and quickly gives his ally a mental warning while his expression contorted in a panicked manner "Takashi, behind you!"

The black dragon only turns his head a bit around before Nazo fires off a large piercing beam through the chest of the beast. Takashi raises his head up and roars in pain, for even though Nazo missed his vital organs, the very act of his flesh being disintegrated into nothing left him with nothing but agony on his mind.

Riku draws out his sword and flies right at Nazo as the hedgehog prepares to callously fire another beam in hopes of ripping apart a vital organ. The teenage Overlord raises his katana and pulls his wings back, slashing right down through Nazo's body and disrupting the beam firing process. Riku wastes little time in following through with a few more slashes to cutting through the hedgehog's flesh, futility being on his mind as he knows that he can't prevent the regeneration process on his own.

But while he bought time for Takashi to recover from his chest wound he mentally connected with the white dragon Sodenko who was still chained to the pitch black realm and said in as calm of a voice as he can muster "Sodenko, do you truly feel regret for everything you've done?"

"…You actually require my help now?" The white dragon replies in a quiet and rather teasing tone.

As Riku's blade carves apart Nazo's head for the third time, he replies to her "The Lord of Chaos is the only thing powerful enough to overpower Nazo's regeneration."

"Then you need to free me, naturally." Sodenko slyly states, to which Riku replies "Only if you have regrets."

"…You two seem to be handling this on your own. I wish you the best of luck." Sodenko then forcibly cuts off the mental link between herself and Riku, causing the teenage Overlord to remark in a partially infuriated tone "Ungrateful dragon…"

Finishing his onslaught against Nazo with one final slash that leaves his body as various parts scattered around in the air, Riku sheathes his katana and says to Takashi as he realizes that having the dragon on the battlefield was a bad idea "Takashi, I need you to retreat!"

The black dragon turns towards the boy and says to him "What? You need me to fight alongside you or that monster won't have his attention diverted!"

Riku replies as strands of flesh stretch out between each individual part of Nazo's body "And risk your life? Out of the question. Nazo is too strong for you to handle, and your sister is too prideful to regret anything so summoning the Lord of Chaos is no longer an option!"

"I will not abandon you!" Takashi proclaims gruffly, to which Riku turns his head and says as Nazo started to reform completely "I know…So forgive me."

The teenage Overlord swings his left hand out and looks away from the black dragon as a rift roughly the size of Takashi's body opens up, creating a powerful vacuum that drags him back to the pitch black realm against his will. But though the black dragon tries to resist the pull to help Riku out, he gives up after a mere ten seconds and proclaims without the use of their mental link "Riku, you better stay alive!"

Takashi disappears, leaving the teenage Overlord face to face with Nazo as he nods his head and swears to himself that he'd live through this battle. When the hedgehog reformed, he smiled at the boy and said to him "If I was as weak as my past self, then there's no doubt that I'd be dead. To think that there is someone out there who could be even stronger than Shadic. Tell me, are there others like you out there in the universe?"

Riku responds to this question with utter silence as he takes his katana back out and points it at Nazo, saying in a quiet tone of voice "How about you worry about me first?"

Nazo smirks and pulls his arms closer towards his body and laughs, saying to the boy in turn "And just what is there to worry about?"

The teenage Overlord spreads his wings outward and boldly tells Nazo "So long as this katana is in my hand, you have plenty to worry about."

The power-mad hedgehog floats in the air and laughs, his tone of voice slowly quieting down to pure silence before he plans to show the boy just how wrong his claim would be. Nazo makes the first move after two more seconds as he lashes his tendrils out rapidly, but Riku flies back and holds his katana back while swinging his left hand in front of his body to summon five large spikes of light that fly forward and slightly arc to puncture themselves right into the maws of the tendrils and Nazo's forehead.

With a combination of quick reflexes and his regeneration, Nazo clamps the tendrils' maws down upon the spikes while he pulls the last one right out of his head and crushes it with one hand. He then closes the distance between himself and the boy and uses all of his tendrils to clamp both the wrists and ankles, pulling them out as far as he can in all directions before swinging his hands out in front of his body and placing the palms together to form a sphere of energy between them.

Riku manages to escape by letting go of his katana and controlling it with his mind to slice apart the tendril holding his right hand down, making sure to perform a few swipes before returning it to his grasp and performing a swift arced slash that cuts down the other three tendrils and allows him to descend downward with his wings folded inward in order to dodge the ensuing energy blast. Once the attack was past him the teenage Overlord flew right back up and with his hands both grasped on the handle of his katana he performs an upward slash with all of his might across Nazo's body.

The hedgehog responds to this by waiting for the boy to flip away from the uppermost end of his attack and suspend his flight directly in front of him, allowing Nazo to charge forth with both fists swung out behind his body while igniting them with Nega Hyper-go-on energy. Once he was a mere foot away from the boy's body he swing both fists out, but Riku responds to this attack by swing his sword up and meet the fists head-on.

The impact of both sword and fists creates a shockwave mixture with Nega Hyper-go-on and Light energy and both fighters are pushed away from each other, with Riku going a farther distance due to facing the brunt of Nazo's power. It takes a couple seconds for Nazo to recover from the recoil of his own attack, but once he floats ominously upright he holds his right palm out and fires off a swift barrage of wisp-like purple projectiles.

Riku stands upright in the air and rapidly swings his katana around his body to deflect or cut away any projectiles that came his way, but with the storm of purple energy obscuring Nazo's body the teenage Overlord is unaware of just what the hedgehog was preparing around him at that very moment with the help of his tendrils until the wisps vanish from sight. When the teenage Overlord breaks his shield of sword slashes he finds himself surrounded by a field of pulsating cubes.

Pausing as he thinks out his next move, Riku glances left and right before he sheaths his katana and crosses his arms to create a two-layered shield of light and darkness around himself as Nazo takes his tendrils and fires four thick lasers off into the field of cubes. The cubes rapidly reflect the lasers around, but when they manage to make it to Riku's shield they bounce off back towards the cubes and repeat the pattern anew.

This lasts for eleven seconds before Nazo rushes right into the field of cubes and puts all four tendrils close together, pooling Nega Hyper-go-on into them in order to create a gigantic drill that grinds against Riku's shield with mass rotations. The darkness layer falls followed swiftly by the light one, and at that point Nazo shatters all Nega Hyper-go-on constructs and flies back as the boy appears drained from dealing with the combination of drill and lasers pounding against his shield.

Nazo snaps his fingers, and his tendrils launch out a ton of spiked balls that come down like meteors against Riku's body. The multiple foggy explosions emerging from the impact of the these balls clouds the boy's body, but Nazo feels confident in the fact that his attacks were connecting. Once he had bombarded him enough times, the hedgehog pulls his tendrils back and charges them with energy ready to fire lasers off into the purple fog, but he is suddenly bombarded from behind with multiple spiked balls that emerge from a small rift. Being hurt by his own attacks did a little more damage than one would expect, and Nazo was left paralyzed as Riku pulled through the widening rift with curved dagger in hand.

Acting like a reaper, the teenage Overlord performs one swift strike on Nazo's neck, cleaving the head from the rest of the body while his body dissolved all remain smoke from the initial bombardment of spiked balls. Riku ends up twelve feet away from Nazo's body as he seals the rift up and sheathes his dagger.

The teenage Overlord expects to have enough time to turn around before Nazo reattaches his head to his body, but the hedgehog subverts his expectations by controlling his tendrils during this regenerative process in order to finish firing the lasers off. Four beams scorch through the air, burning a hole through each of Riku's wings right as he finished turning around. The pain created from this makes the boy scowl and then grit his teeth down as he refuses to give Nazo the satisfaction of a painful cry.

But the very moment the hedgehog is put back together he flies at Riku and punches him hard against the side of his face, followed up by him grabbing onto the top of his hair with his left hand and pounding against the chest plate of his armor with his right hand, putting more strength into each blow until he's shattered a hole through the armor, at which point he performs one more punch to not only knock the wind right out of the boy's body, but force him to spit up a few drops of blood due to earlier damage to the chest.

Nazo then lets go of Riku's hair and clenches that hand into a fist to punch him straight in the face, breaking a tooth right off from the gums. A few more punches are landed across the teenage Overlord's body, breaking his left arm and eventually causing blood to drip out from the bottom of Riku's mouth when Nazo finished his assault. The boy limply hangs his head, but Nazo forcibly grabs the bottom of his chin and lifts his body up so Riku can look down at him as he grins triumphantly.

"You really did try your best to defeat me…For that, you have earned a bit of my admiration, but this is the end of your life…So relish in it for the last minute that you are alive." Nazo lets go of Riku's chin and watches as the boy suspends his flight, his vision blurred by the beating he endured as he weakly reaches for the handle of his katana.

"I-I-I can still…Hold onto my katana…We aren't…Done yet…" Riku slowly says, but Nazo merely glances at him with a surprised grin as he readies his tendrils beside him and states "Yes, my mysterious opponent…We are."

Nazo slowly charges up energy within the maw of the tendrils, making certain that there would be just enough to remove every trace of the boy from existence. Riku, defiant to the end, starts to instead reach for his dagger instead of the katana, while Takashi proclaims in his mind "Quick! You need to escape to our realm! I'll give you some of my energy so you can fight again!"

The black dragon's remark leads to Riku grinning, but for an entirely different reason than one would expect someone like him to be doing at this moment. With a thought directed towards Takashi "Don't worry about me…We've won…" He simultaneously says to Nazo "Hehe…I guess both of us underestimated just how tenacious Eggman can be…"

The boy's words make Nazo take pause for a moment, and in that time the energy glowing in his tendrils vanishes without a trace. He looks to the left as he feels something tug on his body and sees the front of the Egg Continent has opened up wide, revealing a large vacuum extension that sucks in only the Nega Hyper-go-on energy inside of Nazo's body. The hedgehog literally feels the coat of energy surrounding his body get torn away by the second, with the tendrils lashing away from his backside as he tries to force them back in front of his body to finish the boy off.

Nazo grits his teeth and struggles to then throw his hands out as Eggman taunts him over the loudspeaker on his ship "To think that the self-proclaimed ultimate life form would be robbed of his power by a simple vacuum! I guess you really weren't my time and effort after all!"

The doctor's words deeply infuriate Nazo, but the moment he was grasped by the vacuum he had already lost the battle. All of the Nega Hyper-go-on/Dark Gaia energy that he had gathered has been torn out, leaving him with his red fur and raised quills once more. His efforts to try and keep the power in his grasp tires the hedgehog out, leaving him staring wide-eyed at his hands while stuttering "I-It's all gone…Every last bit of power I had is…gone…"

It only takes a few seconds after that for Nazo to angrily clench his fists and turn his head towards the Egg Continent as Eggman puts the vacuum away for good. The hedgehog proclaims "It was a mistake to let you live doctor. Now, ALL OF YOU WILL DIE!" He holds his right hand out and charges it with negative Chaos Energy, but before he could get a chance to destroy the Egg Continent with a single attack he is pierced straight from behind by Riku's curved dagger.

Nazo flinches from the pain, something that he wished he was unable to do anymore as he glanced behind himself and sees the battered and bloody Riku look up at him with a cold glare. "It's over Nazo…" The boy quietly says as he latches the hook of the dagger to Nazo's chest and pulls his hand out through the back, creating from the handle of the dagger a long chain of pure darkness that flies up into the air as Riku lets go of it.

The teenage Overlord extends the length of the chain out as much as he would need to cover Nazo's entire body twice over, and then he proceeds to pull out his katana with his right hand while guiding the chain around Nazo's body with his left. The hedgehog glares angrily at the boy and tries to use Super Chaos Control to escape, but finds that he cannot even budge from place now that the dagger had punctured his body.

Once Super Chaos Control breaks, Riku quickly finishes wrapped the darkness chain around Nazo's body, binding his arms and legs close together inside of this cocoon and leaving only the head visible at the top. The teenage Overlord then pulls the dagger out with his mind and cuts open the air in front of him to create a rift to the pitch black realm while raising his katana high above his head, setting the blade aglow with pure light while looking calmly at Nazo.

"No! You can't seal me away again, I am Nazo, the ultimate life form! I will not be defeated by a damn human!" Nazo's frantic anger was met with only a callous couple of words from Riku. "Too bad…" He said as he swung down his katana, sending a wave of gushing light across Nazo's entrapped body, which ended up coating him in a second enclosing layer of light as he was sent hurtling into the rift that immediately shut the moment Riku was ensured that Nazo had been trapped for good.

Riku then stared solemnly at the open air as the clouds above lifted, and while sheathing his weapons he took in a few deep breaths while thinking to himself "If I could have done this before, I would have…This one was for you, Link…"

Nazo had been sealed away, and as long as Riku lived he would make sure that monster would never see freedom…But even though the battle was at an end, there was still one pressing matter that needed to be addressed before he could rest from the damage inflicted upon his body. Turning towards the gigantic Egg Continent, the teenage Overlord said "I have to make sure Eggman can never repeat this again…"

Next Time: The Egg Continent's Last Voyage