Steven's Fight
A/N: I got this idea after seeing Fragments. I had also just finished writing my soul reapers captain portfolio for my soul reaper AU. So, let's see how Steven can last against one of my OCs. If you're a fan of Bleach, the anime not the Clorox, and also death battle then you're in the right place. But don't worry, no one is going to die. Maybe… a few trees. And thousands of wildlife, but there's always more, right?
I just had to get out of there. I just had to run. "I bow to your strength. My Diamond." 'My Diamond'. Those words keep repeating in my head. I am a Diamond. I'm a shatterer. And I had to get out of there. Out of the bathroom, out of the house, out of Beach City! In fact, I'm not even in Beach City anymore, after hours and hours of running, I don't even know where I am anymore! I wound up at the base of a hill in the middle of the forest.
"Where the heck am I?" I said out loud for myself. Looking back I saw nothing but muggy forest and morning mist. The sun hasn't even come up yet.
"Uuugh," I put my face in my hands and backed up until I hit a tree. Sliding down the trunk, I started to cry.
"I'm sorry!" I repeated it to myself, over and over again. I don't know how long I was there for, long enough for my throat to become raw, my tears to leave crusty streaks on my face. My chest hurts, but it's been hurting ever since I… yeah.
It was about now, several hours after I sat down, that I noticed another presence with me. Looking up, I'm surprised to see someone leaning against a tree opposite me. He was eating a piece of fruit. Like, a mango or something.
Smacking his lips, and sucking the juices, he said, "Are you alright kid? You've been here for a while. I got tired of just watching you, so I got some food. Want one?" He crouched down, there was a pile of assorted fruits and berries next to his feet. He tossed me an apple.
Catching it in surprise, I felt a bit hot in the face. "You've just been sitting there and watched me cry all this time!?"
The man, or more accurately, teen, he was about my age, shrugged. "Do you see anything else to do around here?" He asked rhetorically, gesturing to the miles and miles of forest around us.
Rubbing my eyes, I get a good look at him. He's about my height, maybe a year or two older or younger than me, a few shades darker than me in skin tone, black hair that's curly like mine, brown eyes and some stubble on his chin. He is wearing a black uniform looking outfit, kind of a military style get up, and a white over coat. He also had a sword strapped to his hip.
"Who… who are you?" I asked, a little weary of his weapon.
"Oh, sorry. I'm Michael. And sorry for just standing here being a creep. But you looked like you needed a minute. Or several. Are you ok?"
"I'm… I'm fine," I didn't want to get involved with this guy. Something about him just feels… off.
"Forgive me for overstepping my bounds," he got up from his leaning position and started walking towards me. I tensed up. "But you don't even seem remotely ok. No one just runs this deep into the forest to cry and say that they're fine." He stopped in front of me and looked me in the eye, his eyes conveying sadness and empathy. "What happened?"
I didn't answer him for a moment. I really really need to talk to someone, to unload my problems. I get a flashback. My vision is pink, I'm sending a wall of spikes with all the force I can at Jasper. I can still hear the crack over the sound of her form poofing.
I blinked, a cold sweat runs down my back. "No!" I stepped around him in haist. "No," I say again after a breath. "Everything is fine. Thank you for worrying about me, but I honestly just want to be alone right now. Thank you for the apple," I start to walk away, and absentmindedly took a bite of the fruit he gave me.
The other boy sighed, "Accidentally killing someone doesn't make anything right, Steven."
My eyes widened, I dropped the apple, started to choke on the bite I had in my mouth. He patted me on the back and I jumped away, spitting out the piece I had in my throat.
"What did you say!?" I summoned my shield. "How did you know my name? How did you know about my fight!?"
He looked at me with those sad sad eyes, as if he knew that this would happen.
"I know because I was spectating the whole thing. You wouldn't have noticed me, but I was around."
"How… how could you know about that? We were even further in the woods than we are now."
"You think you could smash trees, break mountains and fly like a pink comet and no one would notice? Well, I noticed. And I'm sorry about your friend."
"You don't know anything about it!"
"I know what it's like to fall someone you care about by your own sword. How it feels to have nowhere to go. How it feels that your whole universe is falling down around you, Steven."
This guy knows way too much about meb and I've never seen him before in my life!
"Who… who are you?"
He held out his hand, "My name is Michael. I'm an observer, but I made an exception to actually do something for once."
"Oh yeah? And what is that?" I crouched down and got in a ready stance.
"Mmm. Dunno yet. Haven't decided."
"What?" I was so surprised my shield disappeared. Quickly regaining my composure, I summoned another one. "Why don't I believe you?"
He actually chuckled. "Ok, you got me. I was actually hoping for a fight."
He moved his head to the side to dodge my shield. It got impaled in the tree I was previously crying at.
"I wasn't talking about right now. Woah!" He held up his arms and caught a pink hexagon I threw at him. Sliding back into the tree, it cracked and he kept going. He dug in his heels and punched the shape to shards. "Ok, I guess I can bend the rules a little more," He held up his arms in a fighting stance.
Summoning another shield, I had to keep myself from turning pink. "What are you?"
"I told you my name is Michael!" He dashed forward, faster than a normal human and punched at me. I put up my shield to catch the punch, and the force of it pushed me back. Digging in my heels I stopped, but he bared at me, and grabbed my shield with his hands, pushing it down.
"I know, I said what are you!"
He kicked me in my shield in an uppercut sending me into the air. Righting myself in the air, I backflipped onto the ground in a crouch.
Drawing his sword, he said, "And I told you. My name is Michael. But as for the rest, well, my job title is soul reaper captain. You're looking at the Head Captain of the Soul Society."
"Never heard of it," I crouched down, shield of my right arm with my fists up.
"You wouldn't," he crouched down too, holding his sword, which is a single straight edged katana, pointing towards me, parallel with his face. "I'm not exactly from around here, and my job has just been to observe. But you seemed like you needed a bit of help."
"So you want to attack me!?"
"Technically you attacked me. I just wanted a fight because I was bored."
I didn't bother to say anything. I just dashed forward and started to swing at him. He was immediately on the defencive, blocking the edge of my shield with the flat part of his sword, catching my left fist with either his elbow or his forearm. He doesn't appear to be wearing any armor, but it was like punching a mountain.
"I'm sorry for what happened before, Steven," he kneed me in the side and I took a step back. He did too and held his sword with two hands in front of him. "I'm not trying for a fight to the death, but you seem like you have some stuff going on, so, hit me with everything you got, and I will do the same."
He dashed at me, going on the offensive. He slashed at my stomach in a horizontal line, but managed to deflect it with my shield, jabbed at my face, but I ducked. It went like this, back and forth until I backflipped away from him and threw another hexagon the size of my body at him. He jumped up… And stayed up.
"How are you doing that!?" He wasn't flying. He was standing as if he was standing on solid ground 20 feet up in the middle of the sky.
"I'm a soul reaper, Steven. I can do things you haven't even thought to dream of." He pitched forward and was standing upside down. Then he fell. I held up my shield to block the strike he swung at me, and my knees buckled, as well as the ground around me. I was standing in a crater. "I'm not like the gems you fought before, Steven. I don't break." He jumped off my shield and landed at the lip of the crater. "I'm nothing like you've ever seen before."
"I'm pretty sure I can show you a thing or two," I growled out standing up. The crater I'm in is about 3 feet deep, the edges at a sharp incline.
"Maybe," Michael said. "But not this." He held up his sword straight up towards the sky. The blue sky was suddenly grey with storm clouds, thunder crackling overhead. He then dropped his sword. "Now fall from the heaven's and strike my enemies. Come to me Gungnir!" The butt of the sword stuck to the ground, it stayed as it balanced, then it began to change. Dirt swirled around it as the sword was being disintegrated from bottom to top, remaking itself as it grew taller and taller until it was over 7 feet tall. When it was done the sword was no longer a sword, but instead a spear. A spear made out of blue metal, the pole etched in a strange hieroglyph-like language, all the way until the shaft meets the spear, made out of the same blue metal, etched with the face of a wolf on the flat end of the blade.
"This is my zanpaktou. My weapon which can kill things you won't believe."
I was seeing pink. I blinked and it was gone.
"You might want to stop holding back. Your pink powers keep seeping out."
"What do you know!" I yelled out. A shockwave exploded from me. He staggered, but quickly took his spear and hopped backward. I jumped out of the crater and stood where he was standing a second before. He took the spear in both hands, flipped it around his body a few times and leveled it at me.
This time I let my powers flow through me, pink tinted the edges of my vision. I started to float over the ground a few feet. "Now you're getting it!" He said brightly.
"Shut up!" I yelled, shattering a few trees around us. I flew towards him, going at mach speeds as I broke the sound barrier. He jumped back, and started to deflect my strikes with the pole of his spear.
"This is more like it Steven,"he was saying, skipping backwards on the ground and still moving at hundreds of miles an hour. "Can you feel the power flowing through you, can you feel the flow of battle around you?"
"Why are you being so… So…"
"Crazy?" He supplied, and then disappeared.
"What?"
I stopped, skidding to a stop and smashing through a few dozen trees, wiping out. I stood up, my pink fizzing out. There was a whooshing sound behind me. I turned, generating a pink hexagon as I go, catching the tip of the spear, it struck a point, cracks spider webbing from the impact.
"What are you doing Steven?" He asks. "If you loose focus like that, you can actually die here." The way he's speaking is as if he's talking about the weather. How can he be so calm? He took the spear back from my shield, twirled it in his hand and shattered my shield with the butt end of his pole, knocking me back a few feet.
Somehow managing to stay on my feet, I back up. He starts to slowly walk towards me. "Come on Steven," he says, flipping his spear in his hand. The wind is starting to pick up, thunder rumbling overhead. "You have to do better than that. If you don't, you can die. I genuinely don't want that to happen, but if you don't take this seriously, I can end up killing you. Where's that fighting spirit? Where is the Steven Universe that killed Jasper?"
My vision flared pink. I started to shake. Not out of fear, but of anger. I stopped walking and so did he.
He sighed. "I guess this is it." He pointed the tip of the spear at me. Lightning flashed through the clouds and struck it. His eyes turned blue, the coat billowing around him as if caught in a draft. He turned the spear in a clockwise fassion. "Divine Rain!" Light shined from above, I looked up to see that the clouds were being lit with this brilliant blue light, and then it stopped. Suddenly it began to rain, but the water was glowing blue, countless drops of iriscident water glowing as if radioactive. I didn't think, just thrusted up my arms, they turned pink before I was covered in a crooked dome made of individual pink hexagons. No sooner than I got the barrier up, the rain hit. And exploded. Everywhere the "rain" landed it exploded with the force of granade. And thousands of droplets were falling onto me right now, so much so that my barrier started to crack. Then it was over, and it was just me in a dome surrounded by smoke.
"Good reflexes, Steven," Michael said from outside the blast radius. "Perhaps you are worth your mettle now anyway. Perhaps you can justify to me why you murdered your friend."
That's it. I'm done holding back. He dies now.
I put my hands in front of me, and made 5 hexagons stacked on top of each other. Pointed directly at Michael. Dropping the barrier, I shot them at him through the smoke. "Woah!" I heard him yell, but I gave him no time as I flew at him.
He shattered all of my hexagons with his spear, but he had no time to recover as I was on him in an instant. Throwing punch after punch after punch, I pushed him back with the force of a freight train, flying, actually flying, as I did. All he could do was block my srikes with either his spear shaft, or deflect them with his elbows, but he was on the defense nonetheless. Kicking off the ground as we flew, I threw an uppercut to his jaw, somehow getting under his guard and sent him sailing hundreds of feet into the air. Stopping on the ground for an instant, I kicked off hard enough to leave two craters where my feet were, and shot towards him like a cannonball.
Seeing something weird, his spear tip started to glow brightly. From the spear, 4 balls of light shot out in as many directions, they flashed brightly, and formed 4 different weapons. One was a broadsword with a serrated edge on one side, another was a club, a crossbow and a long mace.
"Defend me," he said. The weapons were ethereal blue, as if made out of smoke or a liquid, and were kind of see through. They started to circle around Michael in an elegant dance.
Once I reached him, I began to throw punches, but each time I tried to strike at him, the floating weapons would intercept and take the hit. Some shattered and disappeared on impact, some held and continued to circle. Each time one broke, another ball of light would shoot from the spearhead and explode into a new weapon, each one different than the last.
He did a backflip in the air, and disappeared with another whoosh. He reappeared 20 feet in front of me, skidding in mid air the same as if he were to on land. I slowed as he came to a complete stop, the ethereal weapons floating around him.
"What the heck even are you?" I growled, floating in mid air as he just stands, the ethereal weapons dissolving in the air around him.
"I told you," he replies. "My name is Michael. I'm a soul reaper. And it appears as if you're starting to take this seriously."
"What do you want!?" I'm seriously getting tired of his games.
"I want a good fight. I've been so bored lately just watching, not being able to do anything. And to be honest, it might help you work out some stuff as well."
"Uuugh," I was getting more and more frustrated the more I talked to this person. And at this point I was beyond angry. "Just leave me alone!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that at this point Steven," he readied his spear. "And at this point, you won't walk away yourself either, will you?" He was right. I won't at this point. I wanted to kill him. And I will kill him!
I felt my body swell, muscles growing in my skin, my hair growing, my butt getting firm and defined as I grow, my pupils dilating as adrenaline and other hormones course through my veins giving me an insane head rush as the battle high begins to take me.
"You're not going to leave here," I say as I smile.
"Probably not, he agrees brightly. "But the same can be said for you as well." We both dashed at each other at the same time. He actually dashed forward on whatever invisible platform he was standing on, while I just willed myself forward and flew through the air like a rocket.
This time, we were both on the offensive. I punched and kicked while he jabbed and stabbed, thrusting his spear at me, barely missing me as I dodged the tip of his blade within a quarter of an inch, him doing the same when I shot a punch at him.
He started getting fancy by sometimes reversing his spear, maneuvering the tip over his head as he moved the butt of the shaft at me, trying for a faint, I had to get out of the way to just barely dodge the edge of the blade as the sharp end of the spear came at my face from a downward angle.
I dropped out of the air and fell a few feet before refocusing my flight. I stopped in mid air, my back directly facing the ground, as I thrusted out my arms directly to my sides. I conjured four hexagons, two at my hands, and on in front and behind me, and shot them out in the directions they were facing. One hit Michael head on, as I hoped he would, he blocked it with the shaft of his spear.
I had to smile. Mentally maneuvering one of the hexagons, it came around him and hit him, sandwhiching Michael between the two. I twitched a finger, both of the hexagons that had him pinned took him to the ground. I sidestepped out of the way in mid air, allowing them both to crash. Bringing my arms together I made a crushing motion with my hand and the final two hexagons pinned him at his sides. He was pinned from all angles and half buried in the dirt.
"Nnnagh!" I shout, creating the same barrier wall that I used to defeat Jasper.
"You said you wanted a fight Michael," I said with maniacal glee. "But this isn't a fight." I did a pushing motion with my hands, spikes formed out of the front of my wall. "This is a slaughter," I finished and pushed my wall towards him.
Even with my battle rush going to my head, I could still see and feel dread when I noticed that as he was looking up at me,with his head turned up, he wasn't looming in fear, he was looking kind of bored. And also sad. Then his eyes narrowed and my smile dropped off my face.
"Lightning strike at me!" At once several bolts of lightning fell from the clouds overhead, and attracted at the literal lightning rod that the spear was, stuck at him, and the ground around him exploded. As well as the trap I had him in. Something like a bullet shot out of the debris cloud on the ground, and hit my wall, cracking it where it struck. It was Michael's spear. Then he was there, somehow moving faster than I can see, he jumped from the ground and grabbed his spear shaft in an instant, then he took it out, did a backflip off of it, and slashed my wall with his weapon.
My wall was cut in half, and it split off in two different directions, falling to the earth and breaking into pieces.
Before I could react, it looked as if he kicked off of invisible ground in mid air again, a whooshing sound from directly behind me, then I was kicked from a roundhouse and sent sailing back towards the ground. I hit, hard, bouncing off the hard earth over and over again, while still moving forward. He appeared again, following at high speeds and then slamming me down with the shaft of his spear. I bounced up and down a few times before falling flat on my back. Everything hurt.
"Ugh," I groaned out.
"You were right about one thing Steven," Michael said. He thrusted the point of the spear into the ground right next to my head. I squeaked out an unmanly sound of surprise before scrambling up and backing away. Somehow I was still pink and buff. "This is a slaughter."
He then made circular motions with his arms, air currents following his movements.I
I got scared when Michael started to chant. "By the grace of the four winds, I call upon you, confuse my enemy and strengthen my resolve." I got up and started to back away. I wanted to fly out of here, but for some reason I couldn't. "Tear at the flesh, blow away the bones! Only by your power will the dragon atane flight!" He brought together his hands and cupped them, the open top of them pointing towards me. "Hado number 58, Tenran!" A tornado exploded from his open cupped hands, the gale hitting me head on.
I dug in my heels, summoned another hexagonal shield to block the wind but it still pushed me back. He started to chant again.
As Michael chanted blue light gathered in his still cupped hands. "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus. In the abyss of conflagration, wait at the far heavens! Hado number 73! Soren Sokatsui!" The blue light condensed into a ball and blasted towards me through the tornado still raging around me.
Reacting on pure instinct, I crouched down, angled my shield, the blast, somehow, really really luckily, got deflected on my shield. It arced overhead and crashed somewhere in the woods a mile away, exploding big enough to form a small mushroom cloud. The explosion was loud and with the blast came a shockwave that blew out my eardrums and broke the tornado that I was still in.
"What the heck is wrong with you!?" I shouted at him.
"Whatever do you mean?" He replied. "You started to take this seriously, so I started to in turn. So are we gonna finish this or what?"
I growled in frustration. Michael readied his spear. No matter how much I boost my power, how many moves I throw at him, this guy has the perfect way to counter everything I throw at him. So, instead of trying to be tricky, I'm just gonna beat the snot out of him.
"No more talking," I said and floated in the air. Pink light started to radiate off of me, and everything went into hyperfocus. The colors became sharper, the air more crisp, almost like I could taste the air. And I could truly see what Michael is. He looks human, but his skin is too smooth, his eyes too sharp. Everything about him screams that he's something more than a mear human. But that's not going to matter once I shatter his bones to powder!
I rushed at him, flying faster than sound, and he did the same to me. With jabs and slashes, we both started to deal actual damage to each other. I punched him in the face, he slashed me in my ribs, I kicked his stomach, he stabbed me in my hip. Back and forth, on and on, faster and faster with more intensity.
It started to rain, lightning flashing through the sky, hitting trees, bouncing off of Michael's spear and he redirected the strikes at me off the tip of his spear. All the while we were flying circles around the forest, the blood splattering from our wounds being washed away by the rain that was becoming stronger and stronger each minute.
Michael did a horizontal slash at me, I crossed my arms to block the strike, and my arms took the cut, blood raining down as I fell to the ground. I hit the floor after falling 200 feet, but other than winding me slightly I was no worse for wear.
Michael whoosed about 10 feet in front of me.
"You seem to be in good spirits, and wide awake considering the loss of blood from how many holes I put in you."
I looked down at myself. My shirt was cut to ribbons, barely hanging on me and resembling more of a toga than a shirt. As for my jacket, it wasn't even on me anymore. I couldn't even tell what was my blood through the pink glow, but I was covered in it, even the rain couldn't wash away the sticky feeling.
I smiled. "Shows what you know," I said, almost menacingly.
"Ok… know, what do I know? I never said-"
He stopped talking because I just healed myself. I was looking down as I did so and it looked as if my skin… rippled, like water being hit with a stone and my wounds closed up and was like they were never there.
"Ok… that was actually impressive," Michael said, his eyes wide. "Can it account for the blood loss though?"
"I don't know," I said, even though I was starting to feel a little light headed. "Care to continue this dance and find out?"
"It's not really a dance, but sure," he got his spear in a ready stance. "But first," lightning struck him, and his brown eyes flashed blue as electricity sparked all across his body. "The armor of the sky gods, Ikite iru yoroi(live armor)"
He leaned forward, and was in front of me, no whoosh, no movement. He was just there, lightning streaming from where he stood to where he is now. "Let's finish this," he said and thrusted his spear at me over and over and over again, each strike going way too fast for any eye to see. If I hadn't let my powers cut loose.
And cut loose I did. I didn't even have to move, but I willed hexagonal platforms just big enough to catch the point of his spear.
Michael stopped his attack and jumped back. "Ok, what?"
"What's the matter?" I said. "Can't handle someone being stronger than you!?"
"No one is stronger than me." The way he said it, it sounded kind of sad. The glow from his eyes intensified and he began to float in the air, rising straight up into the sky. "Form spear isn't going to cut it with you. Time to do something much more… drastic."
It was my turn to say, "Um, what?"
"Bankai,"he said.
Again, I said, "What?"
Then his look changed. His overall appearance hasn't become any different, but the way I was looking at him has. It's as if I was looking at the very embodiment of an actual thunder storm.
"Constant Odinhieme," his spear disintegrated again, but instead of being remade, it dissolved into mist around Michael. The thunder storm overhead went crazy, lightning striking down around him, hitting him, sending electricity coursing across his body. And then more ethereal weapons formed around him.
"Welcome to mt bankai Steven," he said. "In this state, I am the embodiment of the storm, as well as a few other aspects, but the main key is the storm. Now, let's end this."
He raised his right hand, and thrusted out his arm towards me. The weapons floating around him flipped, their points facing me, and shot at me like rockets. I flew up, just barely dodging the weapons that exploded when they impacted the ground.
I looked up and raised my shield just barely in time as Michael was upon me, swinging two more weapon constructs at me, one in each hand. The impact from the slashes pushes me through the air, he was above me. And slashed down on me knocking me out of the air. I managed to make another shield inder me, it took the brunt of the impact, but it still broke my left arm and a few ribs from the intense pain I'm feeling in my side.
Then Michael was in front of me again, a dozen more weapons already made, an ethereal broadsword in one hand. He pointed the sword at me, and the floating constructs flew at me at supersonic speeds, slicing and tearing at me in all directions, or they would have if I hadn't put up a shield around me at the last second.
The tornado of blades stopped, and he dashed at me and sliced my shield with his sword, shattering it. He kicked me and I crashed through a tree. I stopped moving. My arm still hurt and now it feels like 5 more ribs got broke when he kicked me. How many ribs does a human have? I'm pretty sure I broke more than what the human body actually has.
Michael walked towards me, the storm continuing to age all around us. He stopped in front of me next to the broken tree.
He shifted his leg back, he put his hand to his chest, the wind started to blow to him, and swirl around his feet.
"Now, all winds become my shield, all gales become my blade. Lightning tear thunder shreds!" The wind was getting stronger and stronger. My instincts pushed me to make a shield, so I didn't this time digging it into the ground to anchor it in place. "Heavenly devastation!"
He swept his hand to the side, the wind around his exploded, lightning arcing up from his feet. The gale hit me, the wind screaming in my ears, even through my shield, arcs of lightning shearing off the edges of my angular shield. I was inside the center of a massive tornado, wider than I could see, the trees splintering from the sheer force of the wind, splintering to pieces and being destroyed by very intense lightning, same as the tree roots that got sucked up from the ground and flung into the air.
After about a minute the lightning stopped and the wind died down. Once the screaming stopped I dropped the shield and collapsed on my stomach, the pink draining from me and my body going back to normal.
Looking up, I can see a big hole in the clouds, sunlight filtering down, a big vast blue sky in a tunnel of grey and yellow from lightning flashes. It was beautiful. As if looking into a doorway straight to heaven.
"That was the power of my zanpakto, of my bankai. Still think you can win this Steven?"
"Not… not really," I said. "I kinda just want to go home."
"You will Steven. Soon." He started to float in the air again. "Soon this will all be over, and you can go home."
He put his hand to his chest and closed his eyes. He started to glow this blue aura. Then, hundreds upon hundreds of ethereal weapons formed all around us, a collum of thousands of swords, axes, poles, spears, bows, guns, any and all kinds of weapons that you could think of, thousands of them, forming all the way up through the eye of the storm in the clouds.
Realization hit me. "No please!" I started to beg, scared of what he was going to do to me. "I don't want to fight anymore! I just want to go home!"
"Sorry, Steven," he said, his eyes still closed. He actually sounded sorry. He opened his eyes, "You wanted this Steven. You wanted a slaughter."
He raised his hand, straight up into the sky. The weapons flipped so their points were facing straight up. "This is my most strongest attack Steven! My most powerful technique! This is goodbye Steven. Goodbye, and good fight." The weapons, all of them, shot straight up into the sky, going do fast that the light trails looked like lightning. There was a flash so far up in the sky that it looks like the gates of heaven were opening up. Michael brought down his hand, as if signaling an execution. "Heaven's Judgement!" All at once, thousands upon thousands of weapons raining down towards me, the sky awashed in a halo of arrows, as if shot from God himself. And I did the only thing I could do. I laied my head down, and closed my eyes.
I opened my eyes. I was standing hundreds of feet into the air. The arrows that were previously aimed at me were in front of me, frozen in mid air, as if time had stopped completely.
"What's… what's going on?" I had moved faster than time itself sometimes, but never like this. And I've never been able to stand in mid air before. Usually I can feel gravity beginning to pull me down, but even though there's no solid ground under me, I'm standing as if I was standing in my own living room, but I couldn't feel anything solid at all.
"You feeling alright kid?"
"Ah!" I jumped, Michael was standing next to me, hands in his pocket, which was strange because he wasn't there a second ago when I was looking around. I got into a fighting stance, but for some reason my heart wasn't into it. "What do you want?"
"Easy there kid," he said, completely at ease. "The fights over. But then again, it wasn't exactly a fight was it?"
I deflated, what little fight I had in me left my system. I dropped my arms, "Yeah. A slaughter. I know."
"Actually, that's not entirely accurate either. As we haven't even fought either, technically."
I had to take a pause. "What? How?"
"Look down at yourself Steven. What do you see?"
I looked down at myself, and, I'm completely fine. Not a scratch on me, my shirt fresh as if it came off the dryer and my jacket was back on me. "I'm… I'm ok. How am I ok? I took a major beating, and… that." I pointed at the hail of arrows, weapons of countless shapes and sizes, raining down where I was at.
"Life is funny that way, isn't it?" Michael said, taking his hands out of his pockets and crouching down. "One second you're fighting a being of unimaginable magnitude, and the next, time freezes and you're standing up, watching the attack that will kill you. Isn't life funny like that?" He glanced up and looked at me in the eye. "Or lack there of, right Steven?"
I didn't even have the strength to argue anymore. "Who are you?" I ask. "No more games, no more riddles. Just give me a straight answer. Who are you? Really?"
He looked straight ahead, the attack that would have killed me, the iricident blue of the arrows being cascaded by yellow light from the sun, surrounded by grey clouds as if painted on a canvass. It was beautiful.
"I told you my name is Michael," he said. "I told you that. I also said that I am a soul reaper captain. Although, soul reaper is a description of my job actually, now that I'm thinking of it. What I actually am, is a Shinigami. Or, a Death God."
My stomach dropped, but then the feeling went away.
"So… I'm dead?" I asked, completely in a daze. "I've died and you're here reaping me? Is that it?"
"No, nothing like that. Technically, you're not dead. Technically, this fight never even happened either."
This time I was surprised, and this time the feeling stayed. "What?"
"Right now, you are still in your bathroom, clutching the shattered pieces of Jaspers gem. I told you that I'm an observer, it's my job to watch, and observe, record my days and give my recordings to my boss. Sometimes I take souls to the other side, but I mostly just watch. But you're the exception Steven Universe."
"I am? Why?"
He stood up, and walked towards me. He stopped right in front of me, and looked me in the eye. Looking at him, head on, I can see the depth and age of a person who has seen ages and ages of time. A bit like looking into the eyes of the Diamonds. Or Garnet, but she can see everything that might happen.
"Because you cheated death. Over and over again. You broke your body in ways when you were younger that would have killed a normal boy half a dozen times over. The fractures to your skull alone should have given you brain bleeds in such a way that death would have been certain. Your friend Lars died out in space, but he wasn't in my jurisdiction then. So imagine my surprise to find that not only did he come back in a state between death and life, but also immortal. And now, you've killed someone with your own bare hands, and are about to to cheat me, yet again."
"Oh… sorry?" I didn't know what to say honestly. How do you say, well, anything to the very embodiment of death itself?
He laughed, genuinely laughed. "Don't worry about it so much." He walked and stood next to me, his hands back in his pockets. "Like I said, technically none of this ever happened. You cheating death so many times that I was able to exploit a loophole in the rules that my boss put into place many, many, many years ago."
"How many years ago?"
"Hmm…" he put a hand on his chin in deep thought. "How many years ago was the beginning of time?"
If I could feel surprise right now, I would be surprised. "Never mind, it's not important for me to know."
He laughed again, and put his hand back in his pocket. "Yeah. I guess. I've only recently come into this job myself. But being an embodiment of Death, the knowledge comes with the territory."
"Ok. I guess I do need to know one thing."
"Why do all this to you?"
"Yes."
He made a 'hmm' noise. "Before I answer, I want you to understand something."
"What is it?"
"Just because something isn't real, doesn't mean it hasn't, or isn't happening. It can feel real, but it doesn't have to be real. Let me give you an example."
I looked at him. "What?"
He pointed forward. I looked at the rain of arrow weapons. Time started up again and they started to fall. There was no sound, but as the thousands and thousands of them hit the earth they exploded. They exploded big. More and more until after a few minutes, the last of them fell and then one big one fell and hit directly in the center of the fire storm and a bright flash. The forest for miles and miles around started to burn up, and then was obliterated in an instant as the shockwave swept the entire forest as far as the eye can see to dust. When the flash died a firey mushroom cloud was rising up high, parting the storm clouds as it did. Sunlight came down in cascades, lighting up the dreary day, and putting a spotlight on the mushroom cloud.
"Boom," Michael said. "You're dead."
"Isn't that a bit overkill?"
"Maybe. But I wanted to make sure the message stuck. You died. It happened. But you're also up here. Alive and well. But you are also, also still in the bathroom back at your house. Now, why is that?"
I thought about it. And I knew the answer. "Because you are a god. You can do what you want."
"Yes! And actually no. No and yes at the same time. You see, you broke the rules by bringing people back to life the way you do. You shattered someone with no soul and are about to bring them back to life. And that allowed me to bend the rules a little bit in turn. I was able to take you out of your present time, and put you in this, kind of alternate time. Well, more of an intense hallucination inside your brain, but the specifics don't matter. What does matter is why and how I could do this, and do this to you."
"Ok, I'll bite. Why?"
"Because, in a way, you died too today." He looked at me, and I to him. "In a way at least."
"Huh?" I am completely confused.
"Steven, all of the trauma, all of the stuff you've been through, a little bit of you dies away. From a certain point of view."
"A certain point of view? What does that mean?"
"It means, that you put yourself under so much pressure that the damage that you do to your psyche is almost physical. And when you killed Jasper this morning, a big part of you died. And that's how I can use that loophole to get to you. If your going to keep escaping and cheating me out of what's mine, I thought I should at least get to you once."
"Ok, that answers the 'how', but not the 'why'. Why did you do this, all of this to me?"
"Short answer?" He looked at me and I nodded. "Because I could."
"Ok… long answer please?"
"The long answer is to show you in a way that things could be so much more worse than you could ever imagine. And so you could know that there is always someone out there to help you. Your friends, your family, your girlfriend-"
"She's not exactly my girlfriend," I said blushing.
"Really? Huh, I must have misread some signals you two were giving each other. Anyway, back to my point. You have people for you. Even when you push them away, they will be there for you."
"I know that but…"
"But what?" He asked. The look on his face said that he knew what I was going to say.
"But I'm dangerous. I killed my friend. What if I hurt someone else? If I hurt my dad or… Connie. I don't know what I would do."
"You're right. How could you know? I wouldn't even know, and I know a lot. I've killed people before. People who were important to me, some I even loved. But there was always a reason for it. That makes all the difference between murder and self defense. But I can't give you the answers. Those you have to find for yourself."
"Well what can you tell me?"
He looked at me and smiled again, the sun lighting up his face. "I can tell you that everything will be alright, and I can tell you that this won't be the end of the world. Once you figure this life out for yourself, you will feel better." He looked away back at the mushroom cloud. "Take this devastation, for instance. The explosion pretty much ruined the ecosystem, all of the flora and fauna are dead, and that cloud looks as if a signal for the end has started. But once the dust clears, and enough time has passed, there will be another forest here, more lush and greener than it has been in eons. Since before humans were even mudskimps in some far off swamp. But it doesn't mean that it hasn't happened. Doesn't mean that it's not real. Bad stuff happens, but we still survive, recover and move on. Remember that once you get back."
I looked around, and I could almost see it. The forest reborn new, with fresh wildlife and trees more green than the greenest place on earth.
I smiled. And I actually felt better than I had in months. "Yeah. Yeah, I will remember it."
Michael clicked his tounge. "Well, not remember. Once you go back, you won't remember any of this. I have to follow the rules. Once this loophole comes to an end, I have to do my job."
"Oh," I said.
"But when the time comes, you'll remember the lesson. Or, at least the feeling you're feeling right now. I'm sorry for the hardships you're about to face. But it's time to go back."
"Ok," I said, turning to face him. "I'm ready to go."
"No one is ever ready to go," he put his hand on my shoulder.
I looked at him in the eye. "Will I ever see you again? Before I die for real?"
He smiled a sad smile. "Perhaps. Maybe someday. Stranger things have happened you know. Now, close your eyes, and this will feel like it's all a dream."
I did. It felt like I was sleeping.
"I bow to your strength, my Diamond."
A/N: wow. This was honestly probably the best fighting sequence I've written so far. I hoped you lot enjoyed it, this was my attempt to make an AU within cannon on a technicality. Who else is excited that Bleach is coming back for the final 1000 year blood arc? I know I am. Anyway, let me know what you think down in the comments. Feel free to check out my other stories, this will be cross posted on both AO3 and fanfiction. Have a nice quarantine.