Chapter 16: Cataclysm Pulse
Yumiko's scream shattered the forest's breath.
Birds fled in flocks, animals scattered in terror, and every frequency-monitoring satellite recorded the pulse as an unexplained energy burst—coded "Event Echo Black."
What followed wasn't just destruction.
It was erasure.
The earth beneath the chapel cracked violently, veins of glowing black energy radiating from her feet like spiderwebs. The pulse surged through the ground, through roots and stone, across miles. Trees blackened in seconds, their bark turning to ash. Air pressure collapsed. Lightning tore through a cloudless sky.
The military—poised on all sides—watched their instruments fail. Radio signals scrambled. GPS died. Oxygen levels dropped. The field commanders screamed orders that never reached their units. Within seconds, chaos consumed the front line.
Then the first mech unit stepped forward.
Towering at twenty feet, bristling with weapons, it targeted the chapel and opened fire.
Yumiko didn't blink.
Her hair snapped outward like a storm of blades. The missiles never touched her. They simply dissolved midair.
She moved faster than any camera could track.
One step. Two.
She was inside the mech.
And then the cockpit exploded—blood and gears spraying out like rain. The mech collapsed to its knees, decapitated by invisible force.
The other machines opened fire blindly.
But it was no use.
Yumiko vanished and reappeared in flashes of black, tearing through metal, through armor, through everything. Soldiers screamed, but none reached her. Her body glowed with unnatural rhythm—her species' final instinct activated.
She had become the Cataclysm Pulse.
Inside the ruined chapel, Suraj opened his eyes.
The entire sky was glowing red and black. He heard the rumbling like thunder and screams he couldn't place. The ground shook with each of Yumiko's attacks. He tried to sit up but winced—his ribs protested.
He whispered, "Yumiko…"
Some part of him feared what she had become. But a louder part—the one with his heart—knew this wasn't rage for destruction.
It was a love that refused to be hunted.
He closed his eyes and whispered, "Come back to me…"
Back in the field, Yumiko stood amidst carnage.
Dozens of tanks lay in ruins. Drones spiraled out of the sky like falling stars. The air was thick with smoke, blood, and silence.
But she wasn't done.
Far above, the orbital weapon finally locked on.
A focused beam—intended to vaporize its target in under two seconds—descended from the stratosphere.
Yumiko looked up.
And smiled.
The beam struck the forest.
Everything vanished in light.
But then the beam stopped.
And Yumiko still stood.
She had absorbed it.
No—devoured it.
Her black aura expanded like wings of smoke and venom, stretching over the sky. The satellite shattered in orbit.
Earth had nothing left to throw.
Yumiko turned and walked back to the chapel.
Her feet burned the soil. Her body dripped with blood, both hers and not hers. But her eyes…
Her eyes softened when she saw him.
Suraj.
Still breathing. Still waiting. Still her world.
She knelt beside him, her strength barely holding. Her hand reached for his, trembling now.
"It's over," she whispered.
He opened his eyes slowly, smiled weakly. "Did we win?"
"No," she said, curling beside him. "We survived."
And for now, that was enough.
But the world wouldn't let go so easily.
Across the globe, news networks spiraled into hysteria. Citizens clutched their loved ones as burning footage of Yumiko's destruction leaked online in flickering bursts—tanks split open like paper, the earth itself cracking, a girl standing amid chaos, untouched, glowing black and divine.
Some called her an angel.
Others called her the end.
The name "Yumiko" began trending on every social feed. Spoken in panic, in awe, in worship. A deity born of desperation and violence—her face embedded in satellites, etched into human fear.
In a sealed underground defense council bunker, the remaining officials stared at looping footage, their faces drained of blood.
"She absorbed a solar-class orbital cannon…" one of the scientists muttered. "That was our fallback protocol. She ate it."
"She's a sentient singularity now," whispered another. "She's not even using technology. She is the weapon."
"We never had control," the general said, rubbing his temples. "We poked something that could've slept peacefully... and now the sky is bleeding."
Silence lingered.
Then someone finally asked, "What does she want?"
Nobody had an answer.
But Suraj did.
He lay beside her, skin bruised, ribs fractured, soul shaken—but safe. When he opened his eyes again, she was still watching him, not blinking, her hand never letting go of his.
"You didn't leave," he whispered, voice ragged.
"I told you," she replied. "No one takes you from me."
He wanted to cry.
Not from fear. Not from the pain. But from something deeper—a love too immense to carry.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. "They hurt me, but they were scared. Everyone is scared. And you—what you did…"
"I don't care what they think," Yumiko interrupted. "I would burn this planet ten times over if it meant you stay alive."
"That's what scares me."
She flinched.
He reached up, cupped her face despite the trembling in his arm.
"I'm scared… because I love you too much to lose you to that rage. You're not just death. You're my sky. My home. If you let this world turn you into a monster, I'll have nothing left."
Yumiko looked away for a second.
The glow around her dimmed.
"You don't need to be a weapon for me," he whispered. "You just need to be you."
Her breathing slowed. She pressed her forehead to his.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I don't know how to love gently."
"You don't have to. Just promise me… when the next storm comes, we face it together."
She nodded.
A soft promise—made in the ruin of a world.
And the stars above them, strangely, began to twinkle again.
Outside, the air still vibrated with residual energy. Creatures of the night stayed silent. The forest, scorched and broken, dared not move.
But within the quiet ruin of the chapel, two broken souls found a moment of stillness.
"I don't know what tomorrow holds," Suraj whispered.
Yumiko, now resting her head on his chest, whispered back, "Then let's destroy tomorrow if it dares to separate us."
A faint smile broke on his lips. "You're insane."
"I'm yours."
And in that madness, in that devotion too sharp to be human, Suraj realized—
Love was not always soft. Sometimes, it was war.