章 69: Perfect End
Life was pointless.
Pointless and dull.
There was just... nothing of interest, nothing of worth.
Like a discarded doll, Rizevim Levim Lucifer lounged in a world of grey monotony.
How long had it been since he left his seat? Months? Years? Decades? Maybe even a century.
It didn't matter. Nothing did.
What was there to do, really? There was nothing new. Nothing interesting.
Rizevim hadn't experimented with his mother for a few years and still hadn't been able to create more Super Devils. He could return to that, he supposed.
Not that he had any real plan for them. It was just something to do.
An idle curiosity that soon waned as decades passed with no success.
...Were the servants keeping her alive? They should be. They fed him regularly, so they should still attend his projects.
...Did his last experiment leave her with a mouth?... Eh, it didn't matter. Nothing did.
The world was just too... dull.
His race was focused on rebuilding after their little Civil War, which bored him. Rating Games were just... empty. Not engaging in the least without the threat of death.
Not even the angels and fallen were any fun anymore, content to sit back and mope without their precious 'father.'
When was the last time something had stirred his interest?
...Probably when his servants mentioned something about a big war. But then it turned out to be between humans, so Rizevim ignored it as inconsequential.
He was proven right when they repeated it a few decades later.
Humans were just so... predictable.
That was their greatest failing in Rizevim's eyes. Their short lives meant they kept repeating the same mistakes over and over.
Their weakness could be excused if they weren't so dull.
So, even as the world changed around him, Rizevim Lucifer languished in boredom.
No matter how much those pathetic devils from the 'Old Satan' faction asked, he never left his reclusive mansion.
His servants were non-entities who had learned quickly that trying to 'entertain' their master was a dangerous and fatal endeavour. It was better to let him languish and cash their absurdly high paycheck for the easy work.
The only time he ever did anything was on the few occasions he interacted with his descendants.
The lot of them were worthless, but at least they could alleviate the drudgery. Sometimes.
Rizevim had let out a laugh when his 'grandson,' a half-devil, ended up with the Divine Dividing. He could appreciate some irony there, so the name Vali Lucifer stuck out a bit compared to the rest of his family, even his father... whatever his name was.
Rizevim couldn't be bothered to try and remember. It wasn't like he was the only decedent Rizevim had killed when he got too annoying. His pathetic wretchedness had ceased to be amusing when the brat had run away from home. Had Rizevim killed the human woman as well?... Probably.
What spark of humour was lost again with the loss of his favourite toys.
So, for years, Rizevim lay like an empty husk in a world of gray.
...
The first splash of colour in his life came when a severed head rolled to his feet, splattering the floor with fresh blood.
It wasn't the head itself that was interesting. Rizevim eyed it boredly, uncaring for the gruesome sight. He could tell that the head had not been severed but torn off by great strength.
Hmmm. Silver hair. That was a Lucifuge, right?
Hadn't seen one of them for a while... well except for that maid the new Lucifer kept as a trophy. If nothing else, that Gremory could appreciate the use of good servants.
The faintest spark of memory stirred in Rizevim as the bloody face, contorted in an expression of agony in death, looked up at him.
Right. This was that maid's... brother? Yeah. Rizevim remembered how funny the look on the Lucifuge's face was when he realized his sister had betrayed the Old Satans during the Civil War.
So he was dead?
Huh.
Rizevim's eyes rose to the person who had thrown the head at his feet and stained his rug.
It was a human. A boy.
The first thing that stuck out to Rizevim wasn't his age, the odd patterns on his face, or that he was accompanied by a three-tailed nekomata, a reincarnated devil.
It was his eyes.
Empty eyes.
Eyes that saw the world for what it was, an empty void of meaning.
Eyes that had ceased to care, that had given up on everything.
Eyes like Rizevim's.
"Are you here to kill me?" Rizevim asked blandly.
It might have been interesting if it was anything other than a human. They had managed to sneak in after all.
But Sacred Gears simply didn't work on him, so Lucifer's son couldn't muster anything but the barest hint of motivation.
"No. I won't kill you. I need your help."
His voice... like his eyes, they were empty.
"Then why the head? Most who want my help usually give me better gifts than an old servant's head."
"You don't care about his death, and it got your attention." The boy wasn't wrong about that, if only for the novelty of the introduction. Then again, how did these two get so close without him noticing? "In most futures, Euclid Lucifuge is an annoyance. I simply got rid of him early since he isn't needed."
Rizevim didn't even bother pretending to acknowledge the name of the dead devil, already forgetting it as the first smear of colour in a long time roused something in him.
"'Futures?'" Rizevim leaned forward. The nekomata shifted uneasily behind the boy as if ready to defend him. "Who are you?"
"My name is Eren Yeager. I am from a world beyond the Dimension Gap. I died there and was reborn in this one."
For the first time in his life, Rizevim's heart skipped a beat.
"Another world?" The devil asked, leaning forward eagerly.
"One without Sacred Gears," the boy, Eren, said.
Then, in a move so fluid it spoke of long familiarity, he raised his hand to his mouth and bit down on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.
An explosion of steam and force engulfed the room in an instant.
Rizevim didn't move from his seat, just watching the phenomena with interest. The fact that half the room was destroyed was utterly irrelevant to the Super Devil.
The steam dissipated, revealing an enormous skull with numerous sharp, jagged teeth on a too-wide jaw.
Eren stepped out of the giant skull's mouth, flesh steaming as the wound on his hand healed.
That... was not a Sacred Gear. Rizevim could say with absolute certainty that the giant... whatever that was, was not a Sacred Gear.
So, was this boy really from another world?
Was... was there more out there than this dreadful drudgery?
A world, or worlds, that was just beyond the Gap?
Ones less dull than this one?
Ones where Rizevim Levim Lucifer would no longer be subsumed in the endless grey morass?
For the very first time in his life, Rizevim wanted something. Longingly. Desperately.
But he didn't show that on his face.
Instead, he smiled and laughed.
"You're interesting enough to hear out," Rizevim waved his hands casually as if to say 'get on with it.' "What, exactly, do you want my help for? Something about the 'future?'"
"Ever since I've been reborn in this world, I've been able to see the future," Eren nodded sharply. "And I hate it. I need to change it. This world cannot go on like this. I need to use your name to recruit soldiers. I need your knowledge on how to release the seals on Malacoda. And I need your Sacred Gear Canceler."
While the fact the boy knew about the Malabranche was mildly interesting, the real jewel was the tidbit about his clairvoyance.
"If you know the future, you know what I want in exchange."
"I do. I know how to leave this world."
"How?" Rizevim carefully let his voice remain neutral as if it were a mere curiosity. "Or will you keep it a secret until I agree to your deal?"
"I'll tell you," the boy said. "But you'll help me anyway. Because even if you know, you can't get there while it is guarded."
"'Guarded?'"
"The Infinite and the Dream."
Ah. Of course. Other worlds would be beyond the Gap, wouldn't they?
"Then I fail to see what is in it for me if all you are going to give me is useless information."
"Not useless. I will weaken the Infinite and kill the Dream. After that, you won't have any issues getting beyond the Gap. You can take the other eleven Malabranche with you. I only need Malacoda. But to get there, you need to help me."
For the first time, Rizevim felt his eyebrows rise in surprise and was unable to stop them.
This human boy would kill Great Red?
Rizevim couldn't help the laugh of amusement that escaped him then, and he rose to his feet, clapping.
"That sounds like fun. Eren Yeager, right? I haven't heard an ambition like that in centuries. What do you say about becoming a devil? My race has been nothing but a disappointment for so long. I'm sure I can swipe some of those chess pieces."
"No," Eren's face contorted in a grimace. "If I become a devil, I lose my ability to see the future."
Interesting.
"No matter. A devil is a state of mind, not a race." Rizevim said flippantly. "So you want this world? If you kill the Dream, you deserve it. I'll content myself with a bit of a vacation in other worlds."
And if he failed, it would be an interesting diversion from the monotony, if nothing else.
Besides, now that he knew other worlds were out there waiting for him, Rizevim could pursue his own method of reaching them while the brat did whatever he wanted.
Those curious mentions from his father of a Beast from beyond the Gap were at the top of the list.
Supposedly, it had weakened Grandad enough before it was sealed that Pops and the other Satans had been emboldened enough to launch the ambush that killed all five.
Rizevim hadn't pursued that inquiry for the simple fact that he wasn't stupid. Anything that could strip the angel's precious Daddy of his power enough for him to be ambushed wasn't something Rizevim could handle.
But if he had another world to flee to while this one was destroyed... That would be a fitting end to a dull world, wouldn't it?
So the son of the devil shook a human's hand.
It was just a question of which was more devilish than the other.
And whose world would emerge in the end.
********
Rizevim laughed.
It was a laughter of pure, innocent joy.
The laughter of a man whose life, whose very existence had been saved.
It was the laughter of a man trapped in a prison, a cell of grey monotony that had finally been freed.
Eren had really done it. He'd killed Great Red.
A human had killed the Dream.
Magnificent. Wonderful. Stupendous.
Rizevim wasn't going to lie. He'd thought the boy would fail.
It was the Dream!
Killing Great Red...
Even with the ability to see the future, even with Ophis' power, that just shouldn't be possible.
When Eren fell for that little distraction from the Gremory girl, Rizevim had honestly thought that was it. A good showing all together but a bit disappointing.
But when that arm tore out Great Red's throat?
Mwah. Chefs kiss.
Just wonderful. Rizevim hadn't been able to stop himself from applauding the show.
Now, it was just time for the actors to exit the stage and the curtain to fall.
Nobody likes a story that doesn't know when to end after all.
And the finale was just right.
So Rizevim appeared over the corpse of Great Red, on the hand of the Titan that began to pull itself from the bloody remains of the dragon.
As soon as he touched the flesh of the Titan, it was all over.
Rizevim cancelled the one Sacred Gear Eren had used that he could touch.
Rizevim's laughter was just as joyful as before, though the purity was tinted toward a darker joy as the Titan stopped moving.
All Titans stopped moving.
Standing there, atop the body of the Dream and the one who killed it, Rizevim couldn't help the surge of... ecstasy.
This was it. The very climax of this world.
Nothing in this reality would ever be able to top this moment.
Better to destroy it now so the memories would remain pure and find new pleasures in the freedom of other worlds than to waste more time letting the colour bleed from it once more.
There was no hint of grey in this world of red and white.
"You should have a few seconds left before that power tears you apart," Rizevim taunted as the Titan's flesh started to steam, wafts rising to the purple of an Underworld without a sun. "How does it feel? The Grail no longer supporting you? Your own regeneration just prolonging your agony as your body tears itself apart from the power you should have never wielded? I can't imagine it, so you need to tell me."
The Titan was half gone already.
Great Red's corpse, bloating and distending as the Titan wanted to break free, now rested in a pile of blood, bone, and scale, slowly deflating as its titanic contents dissipated.
There was movement, though.
Rizevim's smile widened as a human hand feebly reached for the opening in Great Red's neck, struggling for freedom in a last, desperate attempt to survive.
Rizevim's wings carried him over.
Eren was covered in blood. So much blood.
Not one inch of his skin or hair was any other shade than the deep crimson of Great Red's blood he crawled through as all his power left his body.
His eyes, though...
Rizevim took a deep breath, savouring the moment half a decade in the making.
He couldn't stay long before others came to investigate, but he would enjoy the moment while it lasted.
Then he reached down, grabbed Eren by the hair, and yanked him upward.
The boy tried to resist, to use the strength that had cowed gods and killed the Dream, but all he managed was a helpless flailing as he was held aloft.
His eyes never changed, though.
Eren continued to glare, burning green boring into Rizevim with a hatred and rage that sent a shiver of joy up the devil's spine.
"You know why you lost in our little game?" Rizevim smiled.
Eren spat blood in his face.
Rizevim laughed and started to squeeze, fingers tearing through flesh and bone, digging into Eren's skull.
"Because your clairvoyance? It's a Sacred Gear."
Brain matter squelched as Rizevim continued to squeeze. Eren didn't scream. Didn't utter a sound. Just continued to grit his teeth in rage as he glared at the devil who had bested him.
"You were too careless. Too self-assured in your ability to see the future. You've broadcasted your ability so much that I learned its secrets. Because it's His ability. You have been the first to use it since Him. You have to choose to look into the future. You have to see it with your own eyes. What you don't see, you will never know. What a Sacred Gear can't see you will never know. Me."
Rizevim's other hand reached for the boy's neck, wrapping around it while one hand kept a firm grip on his brain and scalp.
Regeneration was such a curse when you couldn't die, wasn't it?
By now, Eren fully couldn't move.
The blessing of the Grail that had allowed him to handle Ophis' power had long since faded. Without that reinforcement of his flesh, he couldn't move a muscle.
Rizevim could leave him here to die.
Ophis' power was holding him in place, his body unable to handle it. Still, once it ran its course, Eren would die to the Grail's after-effects, his regeneration no longer exceeding the amount of damage the Sephiroth Grail inflicted on him.
Would he start to crack like Cao Cao had been before running off to die to the New Satans? Or would he wither away, helpless to do anything as he remained trapped in an endless cycle of destruction and regeneration?
Rizevim was mildly curious but had long known he wouldn't leave death to chance.
Besides, this was so much more satisfying.
"Your Titans might be from another world, but the ability to see the future? I know it's not. I know who had it last. I know how He died. Weakened. Alone. In a moment of triumph. Because you chose to look for a future where you'd win. Not one where you'd survive."
The Holy Grail appeared over Rizevim's shoulder, where Eren could see it, floating so as not to touch his skin.
Rizevim grinned as realization dawned on the boy.
Rizevim's Sacred Gear Canceler worked on the Gears he touched. There had been no way for him to interact with whatever Gear gave Yeager his Clairvoyance.
Until the boy chose to consume the power of another Gear, one the Lucifer had handled directly.
"Don't worry," Rizevim said patronizingly. "I'll put it to good use. This little cup and I are going to do what you couldn't. We're going to destroy everything. Your memory will be forgotten with this world as it dies, taking your plans, friends, and pet with it."
With those last words ringing in Eren's ears, Rizevim tore his head from his neck in a shower of blood, bone, and flesh, paying careful attention to making sure the spine was severed.
After all, he'd watched the battle the whole time and learned the Titan's weakness, just like everyone else there.
The moment Eren's head was severed, every Titan in the world disappeared.
One moment, they were there.
The next, they were gone, falling to the ground and dissipating into the air like a dream that had never been.
Leaving only a wreck of a battlefield and survivors haunted by a battle they could never forget.
Rizevim savoured the moment like a fine wine, holding Eren's severed head in one hand and dropping the corpse from the other.
...
It was the cry that saved his life.
A cry of so much anguish, rage, grief and loss that it would have torn through the hearts of anyone with an ounce of empathy as it involuntarily escaped from a heartbroken woman's throat at the sight of the severed head of the man she loved.
Again.
Rizevim only had a moment of confused realization. Just a moment to wonder how anyone else could be there.
He hadn't felt any magic or teleportation, and the spells he kept up didn't detect any other distortion in space except those wounds in reality that still lingered from the battle between the Titan and the Dream.
Which meant whoever had cried out had arrived from beyond the battlefield through physical means, relying on pure speed and ability to dodge the hazards from the apocalyptic clash of man and dragon.
That speed... That distance... Even one of the fastest in the world would have had to have left that Wall before Eren tore out Great Red's throat to get there so soon.
Those thoughts were all Rizevim had time to form as he turned, arms raised to defend himself from the attacker, Eren's head still grasped tightly between his fingers.
Mikasa could have killed Rizevim Lucifer right then and there.
Her speed might still have been enough, even though her cry had ruined the surprise.
Her abilities were not Sacred Gear dependent, just the pure physicality she had trained and a hint of Touki that pushed her into the realm of the Ultimate class.
She could have done it.
But...
Seeing Eren die again...
Seeing that head, the source of her nightmares for the last eighty years...
Mikasa could not bring herself to drive her blade through those sightless eyes. Could not cut into the face she had last seen sleeping in a bed with a content smile.
Mikasa's attack shifted minutely to avoid Eren's severed head.
Two copies of Purgatorio were carved through Rizevim.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Rizevim's scream of agony echoed in the now silent Underworld as the arm holding the head went tumbling to the ground with half his right leg, joining Eren's body on the mountain that was Great Red's corpse.
Purgatorio dissipated from Mikasa's hands, destroyed by Sacred Gear Canceler, alerting her to who she was dealing with.
So she pulled out two of her regular enchanted swords and lunged for the devil who had killed Eren, rage and grief warring in her.
Eren... might have needed to die. She might have prepared herself to kill her heart once more, but this... Mikasa had never wanted Eren to suffer.
Rizevim, in excruciating pain, unleashed a spell intent on destroying whoever this woman was.
The loss of his arm was an annoyance, but he could replace it with some of his mother's flesh.
More important was to kill this bitch who had ruined his moment of triumph.
Mikasa twisted out of the way of the spell, the tears in her eyes not hindering her movement for even a heartbeat, as she lunged once more.
Rizevim managed to get a barrier up to save his life again, but the enchanted weapons did not have the same cutting power as the copies of the Sacred Gear. With the benefit of Touki, they still cut deep into the magic but were stopped before they could reach the devil's neck.
For an instant, Rizevim locked eyes with the woman after his throat.
She looked at him with all the rage, hatred, and grief he had hoped to see in Eren's face.
Yet instead of the satisfaction of triumph, all Rizevim could feel as he looked into those eyes was a terrible, gripping fear that overcame the pain and rage from his wound.
If he fought this woman, he'd surely die.
She was a rabid dog, hell-bent on tearing him to pieces. Missing an arm and without a Sacred Gear to nullify, Rizevim had a very real sense of impending death if he fought her.
In his mind, he created a thread of logic for the feeling.
He had already won. He didn't need to remain here. The angels, fallen, and other devils would reach him soon enough if he stayed. They'd help... whoever this woman was.
He didn't need to stay.
Once he finished destroying all the seals with the Grail, the Beast would destroy this world, this woman included, while Rizevim would be away in another world.
So long as he had Lilith, his severed arm didn't matter, so he hadn't truly lost anything. He could create any number of new devils to act as his army. He didn't need Eren's or Great Red's body to unify the remnants of the Brigade.
...There was a thread of logic in Rizevim's thoughts, but they were a simple mask for the truth.
Rizevim Levan Lucifer had never suffered a day in his long life.
He'd fought. He'd killed. He'd even been injured a time or two.
But as the world's first Super Devil, one only born near the end of the Great War, the simple truth was that his centuries of existence had been ones of luxurious drudgery, his every need taken care of by servants and what foes he did have he simply suppressed with his enormous magical power.
Rizevim wasn't a battle maniac or someone with a grand ambition or a dream. His only conviction was in his own superiority.
There was a simple truth that Rizevim could not, would not acknowledge.
No matter how much he thought of himself as the prime example of devilkind or the disdain he held for everyone else, Rizevim Lucifer was no different than any other petty tyrant given power. Just as human as the worst human. He wasn't special.
He was a leech, a parasite on the world that contributed nothing and only sought to satisfy his own sense of arrogance, sadism, and greed.
Confronted for the first time with the genuine threat of death, that the millennia of life he still hadn't lived would be cut off abruptly by this nobody, Rizevim did what all cowards did and came up with excuses.
He could have won. Could have killed Mikasa. His power, even without Sacred Gear Canceller, was nothing to scoff at, firmly in the Satan class. If he had just unleashed everything he had, Rizevim could have killed Mikasa before reinforcements arrived.
He didn't.
Content his justification, Rizevim detonated his shield, sending the terrifying woman away.
He didn't try to attack her again, just casting a spell to create a magic wall between them to block her sight and slow her down.
By the time Mikasa rounded the wall, the teleportation was already underway.
Mikasa lunged, unwilling to let Eren's murderer escape alive.
Her swords passed through where his throat had been only moments before, the faintest hint of blood the only marker of the shallow cut they managed to make on the Super Devil before Rizevim disappeared.
Mikasa had been too slow.
Always too slow.
And, as her eyes filled with tears, she noticed the familiar mist consuming Great Red's corpse.
Mikasa dove.
Every ounce of speed, every drop of Ki.
She used it all to try and reach for the head with blank eyes that stared up at her as if demanding to know why Mikasa was always too late.
Her hands caught nothing but mist as Dimension Lost claimed its final prize.
Still weeping, Mikasa was still staring at her empty hand when Serafall arrived to pull her friend into her embrace.
She wasn't the only one there. Many others had arrived to try and discover what had happened to the Dream and the Titan it had been fighting.
Already, the other Satans were trying to do damage control, trying to discover everything they could about the situation.
It slowly settled onto everyone around then.
They had endured.
They had survived.
They had won.
Yet, there was no satisfaction in the ruins of a broken world, one that would not, could not continue as it had.
Victory tasted like ashes and blood.
クリエイターの想い 
ReadingDangerously
ReadingDangerously Hmm. What to say? The reception to the last chapter was much better than I expected, though the confusion is understandable. Hopefully, it will make more sense by the end. I fully expect this chapter to make up for the lack of divisiveness and then some.
As I mentioned a few times, there were still twists and turns to go. Despite all the crumbs I've left, nobody has yet discovered where this Path yet leads. To avoid speaking on it, I'll just say this: Baring those who were with Mikasa when she explained her past, nobody else in this world is familiar with Titans and their powers.
Eren has made it clear his powers are from another world, but their exact mechanics? He only told Kuroka those, and even then kept major parts of it a secret till meeting on the bench. When confronted with something you can't understand, you rationalize. You compare it to something you do. And if the source of that lack of understanding encourages that mistake? Well, you make more mistakes.
They pile up, one on top of the other, each justifying another mistake. Until you have built a tower of false beliefs and assumptions that seem to conform to reality but are based on a fundamental lie.
I'll meet you all on Sunday on the bench.
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