It was 11:30 PM, Gimori had just finished ten public executions and now laid in his gigantic bed.
The Demon Tower loomed like a pillar of rot in the sky, draped in shifting clouds of crimson mist. Deep within its core, in a room bathed in darkness and laced with cursed symbols pulsing faintly, he slept.
Gimori Aku no lay still in his black silk-draped bed. His long, pitch-black hair veiled half of his pale face, including the right eye that bore the cursed Aku no Eye. Even in sleep, it twitched slightly beneath the strands—its power never truly dormant.
The room was quiet, but not still. Shadows moved along the walls, whispering. And within Gimori's mind, a storm churned.
---
In the Dream…
The sky was gold.
No—not the warm kind. It was blazing, holy. Like the heavens themselves had split open, pouring divine wrath upon the world. The land beneath was broken and scorched. Torn mountains, bleeding rivers, and fire-ravaged ruins stretched endlessly into the horizon.
Gimori stood on one knee, panting, blood spilling from his mouth. His body was broken—his jet-black robes shredded, exposing deep lacerations across his pale, scarred chest. One of his horns had snapped. His right eye—the Aku no Eye—was slashed and blinded, oozing black mist from the wound.
His breath hitched. His one remaining eye widened.
Floating above him, wrapped in an unholy radiance, was Xzavier.
But this was no longer the Xzavier he remembered—no, this was something else. Something more.
His hair blazed gold like wildfire, lifted by divine wind. Two brilliant Sacred Eyes, glowing white with layered halos, stared down at Gimori with impossible calm. Behind him, a pair of massive, angelic white wings spanned outward, each feather shining like silver flame. A golden aura blazed around his body, thick like sunlight forged into heat.
In his hands was a blade that shimmered with unbearable radiance—The Titan Blade, its edge wide as a man's body, pulsating with divine resonance and inscribed with runes that trembled the very dreamscape.
And beside him… the Divine Wolves.
Jiyū, the wolf of freedom, with eyes like the dawn and fur as bright as morning light, stood at his right.
Jundo, the wolf of justice, with midnight silver fur and a stare colder than time itself, stood at his left.
Both snarled, but their growls held no rage—only judgment.
Gimori struggled to speak, coughing blood. "What… what is this…?"
Xzavier's voice echoed like thunder. Not cruel, not loud—but absolute. "This is the end of your sin. This is your reckoning, Aku no."
A sharp wind howled across the dream. Gimori rose, screaming as black tendrils of his curse lashed around him. "No! I am the son of the Devil! I AM FATE!"
He thrust both hands forward, unleashing waves of shadow. Tendrils formed demon faces, claws, scythes of night. But the light from Xzavier's aura instantly consumed them—shattering his curses like fragile glass.
The Titan Blade lifted.
Xzavier's aura pulsed, and the world itself seemed to tilt.
"This world… will no longer fear you."
Gimori backed away, stumbling over debris and smoke. "Stop! You don't understand! The world belongs to chaos! It belongs to ME!"
The Divine Wolves leapt forward.
Jiyū struck first, jaws biting into the air itself, dispelling Gimori's defense. Jundo followed with a whip of its tail, cutting a trench in the earth. The two moved like twin avatars of law, their eyes glowing with finality.
Xzavier's wings flared, and he vanished in a flash of light.
He reappeared before Gimori, blade raised, aura trembling with overwhelming divinity.
And Gimori screamed.
---
Back in the Demon Tower…
Gimori shot upright in his bed, drenched in cold sweat. His chest heaved. The room trembled slightly—the walls reacting to his power spike.
He ripped his hair back, revealing the cursed right eye—its sclera fully black, its iris glowing a pale red, the mark of his Aku no Eye. It throbbed painfully.
"A dream…" he muttered, voice low and hoarse.
He touched his face—his right eye was intact. The Titan Blade was still a myth. The golden wings were nowhere. The wolves were legend.
But the feeling remained.
He had felt something in that dream he hadn't felt in years.
Fear.
A low growl escaped his throat. "It's that boy again… that damn Xzavier…"
He stood, pacing. Shadows followed his footsteps like liquid, licking the floor. His room was massive, circular, lined with cursed tomes, sealed coffins, and floating relics. The ceiling spun with shifting constellations—an artificial sky attuned to demonic signs.
"I took his blade. I enslaved his people. I shattered his body. And yet…" he clenched a fist, blood dripping from his palm, "he still haunts me?"
He looked to a cracked mirror hanging above a blood-forged basin. In the reflection, he saw not himself—but the golden-winged Xzavier, glaring back with Sacred Eyes.
He hurled a blast of black fire at the mirror. It shattered instantly.
From the shadows, a Wraith appeared, kneeling. "My lord… another group of bandits we sent to Linka was destroyed. The boy may be alive."
Gimori didn't move.
Instead, he smiled slowly… a twisted, grim thing.
"So he's crawling across Linka now, is he? Let him crawl. Let him taste hope again… and I'll rip it from his mouth."
He turned, snapping his fingers.
He paused before his throne, lifting a single black feather from the ground.
"But not yet. Let the hero think he's rising. When the time is right, I'll disect him, I'll make sure his death is as slow as possible. No one defies me thinking they get away with it. "
He turned to the blood-soaked window overlooking the dead skies.
"I want him to reach the top… before I knock him into the pit myself. You hear that Sarutobi... I'll crush your worthless reincarnate. "
The feather turned to ash in his hand.