Chapter 80
At this point, Ryo had heard all about just how stupidly, incomprehensibly large this…Chaos was. It was managing to eat entire universes, so really, the sheer scale of this thing wasn't a surprise. Hadn't been for a while.
But when his eyes finally comprehended what universe eating size actually looked like, Ryo wasn't ready for how…shaken it made him feel. For the first time in his life, despite the innumerable giant monsters he'd taken on, he could finally appreciate what people meant when they used the phrase words can't describe.
It was like looking up into a clear sky at night and seeing an arm of the Milky Way and feeling how tiny and insignificant you were in the overall miasma of existence. It was like staring at the giant bones of long dead million year old animals and appreciating what it might feel like to meet something that big face to face when it was alive.
Trying to explain encountering something so big he could actively feel his hind brain react was just about impossible. Trying to process those hindbrain feelings was about the same.
All the hair on his body stood straight up.
And then Ami just…ran right for it.
He followed, feeling his heart stutter and nearly stop before it doubled its pace at the sight of Nasuti standing next to Kayura right in front of it, both of them glowing so brightly they were almost hard to look at.
As Ami had feared, it appeared the battle was well and truly underway. She and Makoto had been glowing since shortly after they'd all reunited, and when they'd found Rei and Shin, the Senshi of Mars had been glowing as well – a sign they all explained meant that Usagi needed their help.
Ryo tried not to panic about the fact that there were four of their party that was somewhere else, too far away, and that Ryo had no idea what was going on with them – what level of danger they might be in. He followed the thread between all their armors and monitored Seiji and Shuu on their ends. He frowned.
They weren't badly hurt. That, he could tell. But something was different.
It took him a moment to process it, but he realized everything at once. Just as the Senshi were helping Usagi, Ryo could feel Seiji and Shuu sustaining an attack as well. Interesting. Shuu and Seiji were…it was like when they created Kikoutei, but not.
They were sustaining their energy without Ryo absorbing it.
Ryo turned his gaze back to Kayura, Nasuti, and the senshi. Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars had arranged themselves around Nasuti and Empress Kayura, with the Masho and the Troopers sort of…drifting around without purpose.
But Ryo was getting an idea about how they should change that.
"Touma. Shin. Do you feel it?" he breathed quietly. Shin shot him a confused look for a moment but Touma looked thoughtful.
"You think we can combine power. Like when we make Kikoutei, only…not.," the archer supplied, sounding energized at the idea. Shin's own eyes widened in surprise and then determination.
"You're right. I can feel them," he agreed. "Let's do it then."
"What about the dumbasses standing around over there?" Touma added, furrowing his brow and gesturing with his chin in the direction of the masho. Ryo shrugged.
"They'll figure it out. Or not. Not my problem." He tried to sound nonchalant about it, but honestly it would be awesome if they'd figure it out and add their own abilities to the fight. Touma and Shin nodded at him.
Ryo led the way, summoning a Sou En Zan and letting loose into the darkness, directing it where Kayura and Nasuti were pointing their light. He tried not to feel…well…really worried about Nasuti working with the jewel like this. She was a civilian, and while she'd interacted with it before, he wasn't sure how she was actually helping to sustain this offense.
He couldn't think about it now, he reminded himself, centering his focus and drawing out his attack. This was a little different for him. He was used to being the one that received the energy, not the one who gave it. How did the others do this?
Shin had once told him that it was like an instinct. Suiko had known, without Shin needing to guide it, how to make Kikoutei. The issue was that Rekka had actually been the armor that became Kikoutei, so did he even have the ability to do something like this?
Ryo held the strike, even as his armor wanted him to release it, throttling the force back to a sustainable level.
And after a moment, it held. He couldn't help but raise his eyebrows in surprise as the attack held and sort of dissolved into something else. The way the energy moved, the way his armor supported it, sort of softened into something that Ryo realized he could probably sustain for awhile.
He looked over at the other Troopers, watching as they figured it out quickly. Their armors, he supposed, still probably knew what to do. The masho were staring at them all blankly, but hopefully they'd figure it out too.
He noticed Ami staring over at him and he waved, feeling lame. She gave him a sweet smile he struggled to interpret and then turned her attention back to the mind-numbingly huge monster in front of them. Gradually, he felt more than heard the masho contributing their own energies to the cause.
And then for an amount of time Ryo honestly couldn't keep track of, nothing seemed to be happening. They kept throwing energy into what felt like a black hole. Nothing was changing.
How long were they supposed to do this? Was this what it had felt like for the other Troopers? Ryo shook his head and tried to keep his focus centered. He was going to have to keep this up for who knew how long, and getting distracted wondering about how long wasn't going to help him.
They passed more time.
And then some more time.
And then more.
And then.
It escaped his notice at first. But there was light. Not the light coming from their group, but from the other side of the blackness. He went from feeling Seiji and Shuu to seeing the glow of their efforts far away.
Something was happening. Finally, something was actually happening. Ryo locked his stance and pushed harder. They had this. They were going to do it. They were doing it.
Across the vast darkness, the light of the Silver Crystal, surrounded by that of Venus, Kongo, and Korin, reached for them, their own light reaching back. It started as a tiny spark, but now time was moving quickly, eating up the vast distance between them, until the light was eating up the shadow – the shadow was actually becoming less of a shadow.
He had no idea how they were managing, but they were.
Ryo doubled down on his focus, not wanting the sudden hope to derail their efforts. The world shook and a shriek that was both piercing and guttural at the same time felt like it blasted right through him, but Ryo held on, his gaze straying anxiously over Ami, then their group, then back to Ami.
Everyone was focusing. They looked unharmed. Determined.
They had this.
The shadows began to shift then. Less surrounding them and more solid. An actual something. A something with eyes and a mouth. A something with a vague shape. And seeing the shadow take shape changed the way Ryo felt. It made him both scared and triumphant. The dark shape snarled at them, attempted to lash out.
The attempt was caught neatly by the light from the silver crystal.
A light that didn't release the part of the shadow it had latched on to. Instead, it…pulled Ryo realized. It was pulling. At first it wasn't clear why.
Was Usagi trying to pull that thing toward her? Was she nuts?
But no. That wasn't it. Slowly, another shape began to separate out of the shadow. Something that was both darkness and light. Something that glowed even as it held a void within itself. The light of the silver crystal was attempting to pull this thing from the other shadow. After a few more moments, the light from the shakujou and the light from the jewel joined in, separating the two forms from each other.
Once separated, the dark shape of the…thing…shrieked in aggravation, tearing at itself and reaching for the dark and light thing with desperate claws. The light surrounding both forms shifted again – the silver crystal leading as before – and now began to pull one shape inside the other, dragging the monstrous shape into the void of darkness and light.
The shadow went willingly at first, until it realized that it was being sucked into the void instead of being allowed to merge with it again. Then it shrieked and began a mad scramble to get out. Ryo felt the tug on his armor increasing as the light from the three different weapons pulled for more power, and he gave it willingly as he watch the three powers wrestle a universe eating monster into what appeared to be some sort of black hole.
It fought hard, but once caught in what Ryo assumed to be the cauldron, it made no progress. In fact, the cauldron itself looked to be acting in earnest now, pulling it in. As it was sucked in, the monster looked, for a moment, as if it separated again, and two shapes were struggling instead of one before they merged back together as they were pulled deeper into the cauldron.
After that, it wasn't long, despite being one of the most epic battles Ryo had ever seen. The black hole just…ate the universe eating monsters, leaving them with the strange void of darkness and light.
And then with the light from all three points still surrounding it, the void itself began to dissolve. First just the edges, but rapidly eating inwards, the light and darkness stilling, calming, and fading away like the sparks that remain after a firework has exploded.
Until there wasn't anything left of it.
Until they were on the ground, staring at Usagi, Minako, Seiji and Shuu up on a cliff edge not all that far away, despite the millions of miles that had seemed to exist between them. Ryo straightened as the glow from the staff, the jewel, and the crystal all faded and he felt the energy streaming from his armor dwindle before cutting off.
"Was…was that it?" he asked numbly. Touma shot him a look.
"Sorry, was that not enough of a massive battle for you?" he asked, one side of his mouth tilting up at a wry angle. Ryo shrugged.
"I thought there might be like…more explosions?" he asked. Shin laughed loudly, then gestured in Ryo's direction, his expression fond.
"The guy with the fire based armor says there wasn't enough fire," he snorted, getting his laughter under control.
"Yeah, well as the Senshi of Fire, I'm definitely ok with less exploding in this case," another voice quipped. They all turned, and Ryo could say he was very happy to see Rei on her feet and looking none too worse for the wear.
"So like, this is the part where we all go home, right? And eat food. A lot of food. Then maybe…sleep?" Ryo couldn't help himself. The effort of sustaining a Sou En Zan for that long was making itself known, and he kind of wanted a giant steak and a bath, and he might not even care if those two things happened at the same time.
Probably not the sleeping part though. Pretty hard to eat and bathe if you were sleeping.
And then Ami was standing next to him, looking tired but triumphant.
"Why yes, Ryo. I do believe that this, in fact, is the part where we get to go home," she intoned gently. "But first, let's make sure everyone's all right."