บท 41: Chapter 41
"This is…" My pupils shrank as my gaze locked onto the figure floating through the crack into the DC Verse. A red-haired girl, her presence radiant and overwhelming.
She was breathtaking—easily the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Somehow, impossibly, she was even more beautiful than the last time I saw her. Just looking at her made my chest tighten. God, I hated how much I wanted to fly up to her, to hold her, to pour every ounce of love and care I could muster into her.
Her head turned slowly, her piercing gaze scanning the vast multiverse until her eyes landed on me. At that moment, something inside me shattered, or maybe it was something awakening.
A storm of emotions erupted within me, each one warring for dominance. Hatred, love, fear, longing, despair, and countless others—all of them surging like an uncontrollable tidal wave. These weren't normal emotions. They felt alive like they had minds of their own, and I was helpless to reign them in.
I clenched my fists, trying to steady myself, but the weight of her gaze made it impossible to breathe, impossible to think.
"Time moved differently for her," Doctor Manhattan said, his voice calm but tinged with an unusual sense of urgency. "I thought we had a few days—more than enough time for you to grow stronger, to prepare. Random events seem to orbit you, creating chaos, but now I see… none of it was random. Everything was connected to her."
He held out his palm, glowing with an otherworldly light as if offering a piece of infinity itself.
"I will share part of my power with you," he continued. "With it, you should evolve, allowing you to channel Crisis Energy on your own. The future I keep seeing is ever-changing, an anomaly for someone like me, as I am one with my future self. In one vision, she destroys everything. In another, every being in our reality joins forces to fight her. But no matter the scenario, she is fixated on you."
Manhattan's gaze met mine, steady and unwavering. "Perhaps," he said, "if you can stand as her equal, to speak with her on equal footing, we may reach the best possible outcome."
I nodded, taking his hand, feeling the surge of his power coursing through me. The energy was overwhelming, threatening to tear me apart and rebuild me at the same time. But before I could fully process the transformation, I noticed something.
The redhead above had stopped scanning the multiverse. Her eyes, cold and unyielding, locked onto us. The moment she saw Manhattan's hand in mine, her expression darkened. A pulse of energy radiated from her, shaking the very fabric of reality. She didn't like this. Not one bit.
Boom.
Doctor Manhattan was sent rocketing away like an arrow loosed from a bow. His mouth opened in a silent gasp as he coughed up a mouthful of glowing blue blood. He hurtled through dimension after dimension, his form blurring as he was violently ejected from the multiverse and cast into a space both outside and inside the Metalverse.
"I don't take cheating lightly," she said coldly, her voice sharp as a blade. Her eyes turned to me, glowing with an intensity that pierced through every layer of my being.
Her death glare wasn't just terrifying—it was annihilating. It reached deep into my very concept, shaking me at a level I didn't know could exist. My body trembled, not purely from fear, but from the absolute loss of control she imposed on me.
I tried to muster the strength to fight, to push back, to do something, but I found myself paralyzed. It wasn't just physical—I had no free will before her. She was a force beyond comprehension, and I was utterly at her mercy.
"He was just sharing his power with me," I said through gritted teeth, each word a battle as I fought against the suffocating force she radiated. "Unlike you, who actually cheated."
The effort it took to speak felt like lifting a mountain, but I forced the words out, refusing to let her dominance silence me.
Her eyes flared with fury, and for a moment, I thought I'd pushed too far. "How dare you!" she spat, her voice echoing like thunder. Her palm rose, glowing with immeasurable power, ready to strike me down.
But then she hesitated.
Her expression shifted, the anger giving way to something more restrained—disappointment. The shift in her demeanor only made the tension heavier, her disappointment somehow more oppressive than her wrath.
"I didn't cheat in the sense you're thinking," she said, her voice softer but no less intense. "I laid the pieces out for you. You were supposed to think I cheated. You were supposed to come fight for my love."
Her eyes shimmered with a mix of hurt and anger as she continued, her tone trembling. "But you so easily believed I would ever hurt you? And then you went ahead and left me? That… could have been forgiven. After all, that truck goes around making mistakes all the time"
She paused, her voice dropping to a heartbroken whisper. "But when you had the chance to make the wish—to have me, to fix everything—you didn't. How could you do that? To me? To us?" She let out a heavy sigh, the weight of her disappointment palpable.
"...What?" I asked, my expression twisting into a mix of confusion and discomfort. For some reason, all I could see were giant, blaring red flags waving furiously in front of me.
"I'll start from the beginning," she said, her voice soft. "I wanted to have the perfect husband. So… I created you."
Her gaze locked onto mine, her smile radiating love. "I ensured you would grow up in that sad and sorry background so I could step in and be your only light, your only sign of joy in your miserable life. I was your Aizen… your Reverse Flash."
She leaned closer, her hands gently cupping my cheeks, her touch deceptively tender. "I was there when you were born, when you took your first steps when you said your first word. Every single moment in your life, every decision, every challenge… all of it was planned by me. Every step you took was carefully designed to make you the perfect man. Perfect for us."
Her loving smile widened, but it only made the weight of her words heavier, the unsettling truth of her confession suffocating. I wanted to pull away, to say something, but her grip—both physical and emotional—held me in place.
"When we met, it was all planned," she said, her voice. "When you couldn't bear the weight of being the backbone holding your family together, that's when I stepped in. I gave you the strength to push forward, to strive for a brighter future."
Her hands brushed against my cheeks as her smile deepened, impossibly sweet, yet carrying an undercurrent that sent a chill through me. "In other words, I brought you the power of love. And you don't need to thank me for that—after all, we're meant to be together."
Her eyes sparkled with a manic sort of devotion. "Not just because I created you that way. Like how I can never get you out of my mind, you'll never be able to get me out of yours. We're the same—crazy for each other."
Her smile—so tender, so loving—was somehow the most unsettling thing I'd ever seen. It was perfection, but it was a perfection that came with chains.
"Anyway," she continued, her voice dripping with a casual affection, "I had to craft the perfect origin story for you. Something that would set everything in motion. You'd go ahead and die, meet ROB, and make your wishes. Everything was going perfectly."
Her smile faltered slightly, a flicker of disappointment crossing her face. "You'd think I cheated, but in truth, all I cheated at was a game. Heartbroken, you'd hold onto that pain, using it to drive yourself to win me back. I'd act like I was still cheating, escalating it just enough to break you entirely."
She sighed wistfully as if recalling a dream that could never be. "In the end, you'd die of a broken heart, meet ROB, and make your wish—to be with me. Then I'd step in, secretly guiding you to make the most overpowered wishes possible. Together, we'd be unstoppable. And boom—happily ever after, just the two of us."
Her gaze softened, though her disappointment lingered. "It was going to be perfect," she said, her voice tinged with regret, as if mourning what could have been.
I said nothing, too stunned to respond. The sheer number of red flags she'd just laid out was staggering, each one more horrifying than the last. My mind reeled, trying to grasp the scale of her manipulation and the sheer depth of her obsession.
"You made me cry," she said softly, her voice trembling with a mix of hurt and disappointment. "How could you give up on us so quickly? I did all of this for us."
Her expression hardened, a frown forming as she continued. "Now I have no choice. I'll have to erase your memories, start all over, and mold you back into the perfect man you were meant to be. You've been dirtied by this… freedom you found here."
Her words sent a shiver down my spine, but before I could react, she leaned in closer. Her nose brushed against my neck, and I froze as she slowly inhaled, trailing down to my chest and stopping at my stomach.
She paused, her frown deepening as if she had just discovered something. Her silence only made the moment more suffocating,
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