Chapter 12 Rising Dragon Saga (Part 3: The Inevitable)

Though in the middle of a desperate situation, Ichiro nonetheless found time to elaborate on his origins to both Naruto and Mine during their trek to the Imperial Capital. The Hunter looked down on himself sorrowfully as he began to convey the truth behind it all.

"Where do I even begin?

I guess… telling you about the Northern Tribes would be a start, wouldn't it?

A few years ago many of the barbarians of the North were exterminated… in one fell swoop, hundreds of thousands were made to bend their knees or to die trying to fight back. The man behind that genocide, you know him as Nox… those who know of his terror personally call him the Angel of Death.

From what I could gather… he has been around for a very long time despite looking so young. Only in recent years has he shown physical signs of aging past his teen years. I'm not sure why. Records say he joined the Empire when he was a boy, but that is most likely a cover-up.

Nevertheless, I met Nox long before his genocidal act. More than a decade prior to the destruction of the Northern Tribes and predating his allegiance to the Empire — that man led a platoon of his Death Troopers into the home of the Partas clan… my home.

We were simple enough. A band of misfits wary of the world around us and that was reflected in our way of living. Our home was but a small village mostly built off of what the region had to offer, we had very little in the way of worldly possessions. Above all else, we had a creed to keep us going forward no matter how bleak things got.

" The strong will forever prosper into the new dawn. Those who surrender to fate will perish under the great twilight."

That is who we were.

Hunters in the wilderness, we fought our hardest to live forevermore. The strong would live, the weak would fall… a cruel but very precise assessment of our reality.

My father was the head of the clan, but I never met him, never even knew his name. The woman who gave birth to me was no more than a whore to him, but alas she tried to get him to acknowledge me as his son anyway when I was but a baby.

The leader already had a family… and thus my mother was promptly excommunicated from the clan and killed. I, however, was allowed to live under the care of a few kind clansmen who took pity on my infant self."

Ichiro paused for a moment reflecting on what he had said so far.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Partas Clan? I think I recall hearing that name somewhere…"

"You should. That's where Esdeath was born, she's supposed to be the daughter of their leader," Mine interjected with a perplexed expression.

"Then that means…" Naruto slowly reached the same conclusion as a young girl.

"Indeed — Esdeath and I shared the same father. Though, I'm sure she doesn't know a thing about me. After all, our father made sure we would never cross paths. I was to be but a talentless foot soldier to be thrown in the wild while my sister was a true prodigy."

"Ichiro… don't tell me that—

"It's all true I'm afraid. They came as swiftly as the wind and as a destructive as the flames of a forest fire. Nox and his Death Troopers killed everyone in sight without a hint of mercy. By pure chance, or perhaps one of God's miracles, Esdeath was out hunting that day… but I was there through it all."

"How did you make it out?" Mine gently inquired.

"I didn't really. Nox was there… for me."

"What?!" the two reacted.

"His exact words were:

I've finally found you, little Ichiro Hajime. Here you're no more than an inconvenience… but I'll make good use of you, bastard child. Within the walls of my Mausoleum, your life will have a new meaning.

And he was correct.

The Mausoleum itself is an ancient superstructure built in the formative years of the Empire as what was to be the 49th Teigu, but it was deemed far too dangerous and abandoned. It was meant to serve as a device that would draw on the very sins of those held as prisoners there turning their raw life force into a manifestation of power.

Over the long years that followed Nox has captured hundreds of thousands of people and tossed them in there… and as they fought for their survival the Mausoleum did its job. It effectively harnessed their lives into a new, raw, and untainted form of power.

I was to serve as the immovable barrier that kept everyone inside… to that end, Nox gave me the living shadow that now lives inside my soul and Mito would then brainwash me into becoming the mindless monster you saw a few hours ago."

Suddenly coming to a halt atop a verdant hill, Ichiro reached for the bandana he used as a facemask and lowered it; thus fully revealing his face as tears streamed down his cheeks.

"If it wasn't for you… I might have never awakened from that nightmare," he spoke honestly.

Naruto clenched his fists. "Ichiro… I swear that Nox is going to pay for this!" he proclaimed.

"The odds aren't in our favor here, Naruto," the Red-Eyed Hunter put it bluntly. He then continued to speak honestly:

"All that dense cosmic energy you saw being sent towards the Capital… Nox and Mito plan to absorb it and ascend into a whole new level of existence. The concentrated sins and dark emotions of innumerable souls have been weaponized by the Mausoleum and given birth to something endless, a power so great that it could very easily return the infinitely branching timelines of our universe to nothingness and recreate it in Nox's twisted image."

"My… My brain hurts," Mine admitted, she was unable to grasp even half of that.

"I get that we're on the losing end here… but there is a chance we could stop those two if we get to the Capital before they do," Naruto proposed in spite of the overwhelming sense of hopelessness. The other two merely nodded in response.

"And another thing, Naruto," Ichiro added.

"Yes?"

"Back when Nox took me, I saw some of his best soldiers. Some of them were Heroic Spirits — a lot of them are girls like the ones who stand by your side. Chances are that Nox himself is not someone of this world just like you."

Naruto fell silent, biting his lip in frustration. The thought of Nox exploiting the Throne of Heroes for his own benefit was infuriating. Nevertheless, the Dragon Knight continued to journey alongside his group. The thought of stopping Nox was the only thing he could really focus on the right about now. After all, the entire world depended on that.

"Guys look!" Mine suddenly pointed towards the horizon with great haste.

In the far horizon, a vast, swirling field of cosmic energy could be seen encircling the Capital from ground level all the way to the clouds high above. Like a great hurricane, it engulfed the entire city in its rotation, but somehow it did not annihilate the sprawling urban jungle in the eye of the storm.

"We're running out of time…" Naruto thought.

Without delay, the trio rushed into the eye of the storm.

-Some time ago in the woods surrounding the Capital's entrance

Standing atop a hill overlooking a large verdant clearing where his many Death Troopers remained stationed, Nox calmly reached for his face in order to remove the silver reaper mask he usually wore in battle. He was no longer the youthful trickster that Ichiro and Najenda knew, but instead, a commander of war with a stern look, long flowing jet black hair with silver highlights, and an imposing muscular build.

With no further delay, he began his speech.

"Lads… for years we've strived to attain what we rightfully deserve. Necessity is truly blind until it becomes conscious. The freedom we, at last, attain here is but the consciousness of that necessity, a necessity for a world free of the corrupt capitalist scum that runs this Empire!

You pledged your loyalty to my cause and for so long we have fought… now let the ruling classes tremble in the wake of our revolution! Let no one stop you, lads… we have naught to lose but the chains that bind us!"

Nox's words resonated amidst his troopers followed by thunderous applause from the crowd. Hundreds if not thousands of men and women alike cheered and roared in unity. All of them dressed as reapers, all of the weapons in their leader's quest for true liberation.

"Behold!" the Angel of Death pointed to the skies directly above the capital.

The cascading river of cosmic energy gathered by the Mausoleum parted the skies at light speed. In as little as a blink of an eye the glistening storm went on to crush the Capital's thick walls and encircle its territory. All of this was accompanied by the crude and unfiltered laughter of the Angel of Death.

"No matter how tall the walls they build… here we make a stand against the pigs in power!" he shouted with all of his wills. Around the same time, Mito could be seen landing beside Nox.

"Well, well aren't you excited. Careful there, don't wanna have a stroke before becoming God now do you?" she joked before playfully punching his shoulder.

"Heh… you may not show it but you too yearn for the power to crush Minato," he analyzed.

"Well duh, and by the way, Naruto is still alive and should be making his way here."

"Very well. He too shall be a witness of the coming revolution," Nox once more reached for the sky but this time with a flare pistol in hand.

"Listen well! Your armors shall shield you from the energy… now go! Rise up and storm the Imperial Palace! Kill whoever threatens your advance! And make sure to leave the Prime Minister for us!"

Alas, he fired. The bright red flare rising into the sky gave way to the ground quaking beneath the march of the legion under Nox's command. This was the beginning of the end for the current ruling government.

Present Day - The Streets of the Capital

An unending inferno.

The stench of death bathed the streets of the urban jungle painting its structures in the blood of those trying to defend the city. Like a gale of death and destruction, Nox's forces opened moved into the open battlefield slicing apart guards left and right. Armed with serrated blades, the masked killers dashed across the streets at speeds close to that of sound only to then cut them apart like onions.

Those lucky enough to fire their weapons were met by nimble Death Troopers that proved themselves more than capable to dance around their bullets. In the end, those gunners also met their demise. Mercy was not something the Death Troopers partook in.

Meanwhile leading the assault, Mito speed blitzed entire legions of guards splitting open human skulls like they were made of paper and tearing apart human hearts from their chests only to bite down on them viciously. A half-vampire like her simply had to keep herself at peak condition after all.

However the swiftest and most brutal of the group was none other than the Angel of Death himself. His treads weaved together in one swift motion and turned dozens of armed men into bloody paintings in but a single instant. It was truly the sight of a massacre.

"BASTARD! GRAND FALL!"

An unexpected occurrence.

Leaping high into the sky, the Jaeger known as Wave activated his Trump card. Like an armored missile, he dives kicked in Nox's direction ready to end his life.

Durable.

Strong.

Unstoppable.

Wave was a bastion of hope for the Imperials that now found themselves on the receiving end of carnage incarnate.

"Big mistake lad," Nox mused.

Like he was caught in a spider's web, Nox's all but invisible threads converged towards the boy and bounded his limbs in place.

And just like that…

"Wha—

His battle was over before it even began.

" Gah…" a deathly whimper escaped Wave's mouth as the bifurcated pieces of his body and armor disassembled and rained like a river over the streets. Blood, guts, bones, and the remnants of Grand Chariot itself, it was all there. But the key to it all was the boy's head which Nox wrapped in his wires and swiftly pulled it towards his own hands. Proudly catching it midair, the Angel of Death grinned proudly as he held Wave's severed head up high for all to see.

" An Angel of Death is always prepared! Be Prepared! Be Prepared! Be Prepared" he chanted triumphantly as the march towards the Imperial Palace continued. This chant was mirrored by all Death Troopers under his command. The noise their war cries produced was thunderous, so much so that it shook the hearts of all on the opposing side of the war.

"Wave…" a young girl whispered her deceased lover's name.

Atop the palace's balcony overlooking the city Esdeath, Prime Minister Honest and the rest of the Jaegers could only watch. Kurome, in particular, broke down as she fell to her knees and cried over the realization that the young fisherman who had fiercely battled for her affection met such a cruel end.

"Wave… tch!" Seryu tried her best to hold back the tears. Though her time with the youth was short, it was nonetheless enough to endear him in her heart of hearts as a loyal comrade.

"Let me kill him… now!" Esdeath vehemently demanded whilst clutching her fists. The deep humiliation of having one her underlings killed in such a manner was enough to make her want to disembowel Nox without a second thought.

"Not a chance in hell. With Budo out of the Capital, it is up to you to keep me alive! That bastard Nox cannot be allowed to win!" the Prime Minister bemoaned the Ice Queen's desire for revenge. But truth be told, he was just terrified of meeting that same fate.

"We won't stand still while the world comes crumbling down!" Run interjected his own emotionally charged feelings into the debate.

"That's right! We must fight!" Seryu concurred with anger and resentment commanding her actions.

"Very well, Jaegers! Avenge your comrade! CHARGE!" Esdeath commanded in tandem with her companions' bloodlust. Honest could do naught but watch as the group prepared to leap towards danger in spite of the overwhelming odds.

Comradery.

Respect.

Togetherness.

Such things would never have swayed her thoughts once before, but Esdeath was different now.

"If I was uncaring and ruthless if I just killed for the sake of probing my strength… then I'm sure you'd hate me, Naruto."

Indeed. Though their love was short-lived it happened to make the Ice Queen reconsider her ways.

Like lightning bolts coming down onto the land, Esdeath's group landed causing great excitement to come upon the dwindling numbers of Imperials. No more than a second later, Esdeath led the charge against Nox's Death Troopers.

"You shall not pass!" Run shouted whilst spreading his angelic wings wide open.

Immediately a hail of feathers as sharp and as deadly as blades began to rain upon the invading force. The normally calm and collected Jaeger felt a great deal of pleasure as his onslaught of angelic justice tore apart many of Nox's men. If one was hit by a feather their bodies would more than likely be cut right through like they were made of butter. In no time at all the battlefield would be filled with body parts and bloody remains if nothing was to be done.

"FEEL MY WRATH! JUSTICE VOLLEY FIRE!" Seryu, armed with an assortment of oversized canons and other weaponry, commenced her own brand of slaughter.

Hundreds were either shot down due to Seryu's insane rainstorm of bullets or pierced by the equally overwhelming feathers shot down by Run. Nevertheless, one could not but help but notice that both Nox and Mito were seemingly unfazed by it all. Their natural durability alone was enough to no sell those projectiles as they just stood there with a menacing smirk stamped across their lips.

"I'll be your opponent!" Esdeath appeared right in front of Nox in the blink of an eye. Her rapier was intended for piercing his heart, however, the man merely weaved his wires jointly to halt the Ice Queen's movements.

"Guh!" she gasped as a razor-sharp wire came dangerously close to her neck.

"Would you give me a moment dear?" Nox belittled her before turning his casual gaze towards the so-called Angel of the Jaegers.

"Mito, would you kindly do the honors?" he inquired nonchalantly.

"But of course," Mito Uzumaki's witty and quirky nature came through in her quick response and tone.

In but a second, Naruto's mysterious sister was also floating above the battlefield.

"Who are you?!" Run demanded to know.

"Me? I'm the last person you'll see before you die," she shot back at him. Suddenly a golden cloak and aura surrounded the girl's body as a powerful but condensed sphere of red energy gathered in her grasp.

"Tailed Beast Ball," she spoke whilst effortlessly firing it towards Run.

"I won't let you!" the Jaeger attempted to redirect or match her attack by focusing his onslaught of feathers towards it, but it was no use.

Run could do nothing but smile.

He would not live to see a world free from corruption it seems.

"I'm sorry everyone… I'm sorry Wave… it seems I'll be joining you sooner than I expected."

As the ball of energy collided against his body at the speed of light, its mass grew. Enveloped in a massive explosion, Run didn't even feel death's embrace or anything of the sort. His entire body was simply dismantled atom by atom in a singular second.

"Two down, three to go…" Nox contemplated in a mocking tone whilst looking at the restrained and powerless Esdeath eye to eye.

"You won't… get away with this!" she struggled to speak.

"I already have," he put it simply before quite literally smacking Wave's severed head against her cranium with enough impetus to knock her out cold and at the same time splatter the dead fisherman's brain all over her fallen body.

"Truly a work of art," he complimented himself. Now only Seryu and Kurome remained active on the battlefield. The former had stopped firing the moment Esdeath entered the shooting range and the latter was too shocked to do anything relevant. Nox had clearly triumphed this day.

As Mito landed beside him, Nox smiled. "Alright Mito, take these three. Esdeath will be the hardest to control, but they'll make for excellent Death Troopers," he reasoned.

Mito merely nodded. Before the two girls could even process what was about to happen - two doppelgangers of Mito had appeared from puffs of smoke and proceeded to strike each Jaeger on the back of the head with a karate chop strong enough to knock them out.

"And so… the reign of the Jaegers comes to its premature conclusion."

It wouldn't be another hour before the remnants of the Imperial forces collapsed under the invading force's overpowering force. Now with nowhere to go, the Prime Minister could only watch and wait as Nox and Mito made their way over the corpses of the fallen and towards the balcony wherein he stood.

Little did he know that this was just the start of a far greater catastrophe.

-Two hours later

"My god…" Mine muttered in absolute disbelief. Naruto and Ichiro in the meantime could hardly believe what they were seeing as well. The stench of death, broken corpses, devastation on a larger scale than any of them had seen before.

"This place is dead," Ichiro said whilst clenching his fists.

"We had to wait for all that energy to dissipate… there was no way we could have saved them," the Dragon Knight tried his best to stick to objective reasoning yet even so he kept his head low and grasped his chest as if feeling the pain of what Nox and Mito wrought upon these people.

Genocide.

There was no other way to put it.

Nox's army had completely decimated the Empire's homefront and now they intended to end it all only to start over in a new world made in that madman's image.

"I swear… I'm gonna kill those two. No matter what it takes, I will avenge these people!" Naruto gave into his fiery anger. A swirl of flames came upon his frame as a set of golden armor pieces enveloped him and a golden spear came upon his possession. These were his strongest gifts - the weapons of the legendary hero; Karna.

Without further ado, the trio made their way to the Imperial Palace in the distance. There was not a soul left to stop them, but something else had the group stop in their tracks.

Ahead.

Specifically, the head of Prime Minister Honest stuck to a spear that was planted right in front of the gates to the palace.

No words were spoken.

The three could do little more than gulp down any doubts and charge straight to the throne room, but before they could do so a familiar voice reached them.

"Rushing into danger, as usual, you foolish man?" the proud and mighty words of the King of Heroes resonated through the wasteland giving hope to Naruto's heavy heart. In that same second the members of Night Raid and his lovers could be seen emerging from the Gate of Babylon's golden portals alongside Gilgamesh herself.

"Gil-chan!" Naruto rushed over to her and embraced the woman in a tight hug.

"Kept you waiting long enough eh, shrimp?" Najasho casually remarked as he stepped into the scene.

"I'm honestly surprised you're still alive, chief," Akame spoke to the side in regards to her former teammate.

"No thanks to you… Gilgamesh was the one who sent our unconscious bodies to her treasury," Mashiro glared at the Red-Eyed Killer.

"Woah easy there you two! I get that there is some bad blood there, but right now there is a lot at stake here," Tatsumi tried to reason with them. In the meantime, Naruto let go of Gil-chan and walked to the front of the group as if he was about to give a speech.

"Listen… we've been caught off guard. It seems Nox has been planning this takeover from the shadows for years and we still don't know who he really is or where he came from. But I know this… the Death Troopers will be waiting for us in there. So I need y'all to keep them preoccupied while I, Gil-chan, and Ichiro deal with Mito and Nox."

"Why only three? Wouldn't we stand a greater chance if we gang up on those two?" Sayo proposed.

"You'd just get in the way, mongrel. Even at your best all you'd succeed in doing is getting yourselves killed. Only Naruto, Ichiro, and I have the means to battle Nox and that fiend called Mito," Gilgamesh put it bluntly, "But at least you have the guts to ask."

"No need for further delays… let's move, yes?" Ichiro proposed.

"Very well," Naruto concurred.

Delays were unnecessary at this point- it was done or die.

The main hall was littered with Death Troopers for Night Raid and the Heroic Spirits to hold back. Just like planned, Ichiro moved Gilgamesh and Naruto through the shadows and thus the strongest trio emerged within the confines of the Throne Room.

"At last, our hero reaches the castle," Nox spoke up whilst indifferently clapping. Like a false Emperor, he sat upon his stolen throne.

"Nice to see you up and about, Onii-sama," Mito grinned devilishly. Up above where the ceiling would normally be- the energy harvested by the mausoleum spiraled like a large galaxy of bright lights. Condensed to the point where being near it was almost hard on the three heroes, that power could essence rewrite reality itself.

"So… you have gathered this World's Evils and harvested that sinful essence for power. Fool, are you planning on becoming a Beast class?" Gil was the first to respond all the whilst summoning Ea and Enkidu to her grasp. If not obvious before, it was clear now that Nox and Mito were dangerous beyond any measure.

Naruto followed his lover's actions by unleashing Vasavi Shakti's larger, true form at the cost of dismantling his armor. "We'll kill you before you get the chance! Now Ichiro!"

"Shadow bind!" Ichiro shouted out. At the same time, Nox and Mito ceased all movement.

"Bind them! Enkidu!" the King of Heroes declared at around the same time in order to further entrap her foes within the nigh-indestructible chains.

"Oh? This is Interesting," Mito giggled innocently.

But Naruto didn't care for in his mind this battle was over.

"On the battlefield, there are no regrets. My mentor and brother Karna, I ask for your forgiveness. I must use your gift against these foul creatures for the first and last time."

"Well spoken my love… I too shall offer this one strike as a means to end these fools! My Sword of Rupture shall rend them apart. The vortex that turns the stars, yes, this heavenly hell signifies their end!"

The King of Heroes and the Dragon Knight charged their strongest attacks till finally...

"Enuma Elish!" / "End everything, Vasavi Shakti!"

A funneling attack of crimson energy that purged space-time merged with the extending golden line unleashed from Naruto's lance. Everything turned to white in that split second as the powers merged together generating an unstoppable force. Even an extremely powerful being like Ichiro had to shield his eyes from the issuing brightness.

Nothing could have survived that attack, not even Nox or Mito.

But even so… intellect would triumph over raw strength.

"Henceforth… we, abandoned children of the leaf, the Gods of this new world."

Coming down like a waterfall onto the Angel of Death and his female companion intercepting the colossal powers targeting them.

"From the evils of humanity, a new beast is born."

"This– This presence is…" Gilgamesh stepped back showing genuine fright for the first time in a long time.

Once the tide of overwhelming energies had settled down the man known as Nox was no more. In his place stood a being of absolute cosmic splendor and might, a creature whose very body reflected the glory of the many universes within himself. His skin black as the void and dotted with the endless glow of stars. Moreover, his left and right eye were magenta red and sapphire blue respectively. By all means, this being was to those present the truest image of God.

Beside him, Mito Uzumaki seemed to retain her human form but nonetheless appeared to possess a similar cosmic aura outlining her body.

"No… nothing could have survived Vasavi Shakti and Enuma Elish at the same time!" Naruto shouted in disbelief.

"It seems this is the end for you little brother…" Mito grinned at the Dragon Knight, her voice now echoing with potency thanks to the energy she absorbed.

"Naruto…" Gilgamesh called out to him, "It was an honor to fight by your side."

Hearing those words coming from the mighty King of Heroes made the knight gasp.

"There has to be away…" he remarked desperately searching for a way out.

"Naruto… the man you are now cannot best Nox now that they have transcended into the realm beyond the Gods," Gilgamesh put it bluntly.

Turning his gaze to the knight, Nox felt triumphant.

"Lad… you fought like a true champ, but in the end, I was still one step ahead every time. But… I shall nonetheless give you punishment equivalent to the trouble you gave me…"

And with that said, the cosmic God merely pointed at Naruto with his index finger.

"GAH-RAHHHHHHHH!" Naruto howled in unending agony as his body was enveloped by a tantalizing light.

Almost immediately after Naruto's mind eye bore witness to something otherworldly. He could see his other selves, other incarnations of the man named Naruto from across the Multiverse; the Hero of the Sky, the one who followed the Path of Assassin, the Red Dragon Emperor, and even he who became the Seventh Hokage. Like himself they all screamed in agony as the very concept of "Naruto" was crushed under the immense power Nox now had.

Alas…

He saw those other versions of himself turn, all in those infinite parallel worlds destroyed on what can be described as existential or conceptual level. The only one left… was himself- but something had changed.

"I…"

He dropped to his knees, powerless.

"Tell me las, are you familiar with Superstring Theory? In physics the theory that all matter in the

universe is composed of "strings" — these being the vibrations that manifest as the elementary

particles. It is said that if this theory is proven it will explain all phenomena from the birth and scope of the universe on the macro level, to elementary particles like quarks on the micro-level.

With the power I now have… I understand and control it all… I am the God pulling the strings. On a whim, I erased the man named Naruto across every world and left you behind… a man with no power and no name — a worthless failure."

"Nox…" He Who No Longer Had a Name could do naught but mumble.

"I am sorry," Gilgamesh muttered whilst clutching her fists- a tear streaming down one of her cheeks.

"Now watch… as this flawed world is washed away."

With no further delay — Nox snapped his fingers.

And so… the universe came to an end in a brilliant flash of light.