Nanashi journeyed through the caverns of death, mazes spawning twists and turns that formed their own mazes, as he frowned at his cell phone holstered on his arm. The screen indicating yet another city atop previous ones in what should have been impossible.

How long did it take the fiends to make this hellish world? Decades? Centuries? Eons? thought Nanashi, as he trekked through the landscape. Each of the caverns subtly different, Red Rider's filled with human blood, another filled with grassy areas, and others with magic . . .all formed in a twisted, dark, and ominous spiral of weird plants making up the furnishings of the walls and the floor tiles. No sunlight . . . no life whatsoever.

Each fiend gave a bored grunt before going into some spiel. Their black hearts were not dedicated to their words. The stench of death permeated throughout the darkened cavernous and sprawling mazes. Nanashi had to redouble his efforts each time and the enemies tested his skills with greater precision, skill, and power behind their attacks for every time that he re-entered after completing Twisted Tokyo. The pale man, a White Shadow from the Expanse, who looked remarkably like Nanashi's own father always there to direct him.

Death really has no meaning, thought Nanashi, as he defeated yet another fiend and went on to the next one. Fully knowing that Twisted Tokyo would reset once he defeated En no Ozuno yet again. Without life to snuff out, death has no real purpose or element of fear. It's meaningless. Eternity and other such forms of the afterlife is meaningless . . . Death may feel like a solace, but it serves no purpose.

He defeated yet another fiend, his memory no longer fully registering which one since all the battles became too tedious and the sameness too boring to fully keep his attention to it. Nanashi had become so proficient that simply going through the automatic motions learned from trial and error had brought him to such instinctual effectiveness against the random enemies spawning across the dreary landscape and against the fiends. Nothing challenged him; he'd already amassed too much power for their actions to be of any real consequence to him. Nanashi had perfected the motions of thoughtless deeds to the point that he could automatically pinpoint an enemy's weakness and slaughter them nearly instantaneously.

Even Stephen would be no match for me now, thought Nanashi, idly, En no Ozuno and I have surpassed him by leagues beyond. The only one who could pose any real challenge to me is the Demi-fiend, should be maximize his power and then go further beyond. But neither he or I have any reason to fight, and I'm fairly certain that his existence is eons into the future and in a different timeline than any that versions of myself inhabit. Yet, this power won't remain, if I go back to being human again.

Nanashi once again defeated En no Ozuno after Toki dove at him and slashed him with a litany of physical attacks. En no Ozuno's weakness was easy enough to exploit, Toki's final attack ended his life and Nanashi found himself brought back to his own universe of dystopian Tokyo. The Pale Man, a White Shadow from the Expanse, explained how it would rise again. Nanashi furrowed his brows and sighed. Is there truly no end to this horrifying world that I try to save?

"Why does it keep returning?"

The Pale Man gazed at him directly in the eyes. The dead, bloody face of his father gazed at Nanashi with its lifeless and disembodied orbs. "I've already told you, it is because . . . no Messiah ever came to save it. Thus, no matter how often you try, you will be brought forward to after the Fiends wrought destruction and death to end all of life within that world. Each era reviving them anew and stronger than before."

Nanashi blinked and tilted his head. "Which means . . . you've been jettisoning me forward in time for each separate occurrence. This perpetually dead universe must keep being reinvigorated by En no Ozuno and yourself out of pity, it has no hope of an everlasting future . . ."

"Precisely, I am in my most weakened form and must siphon power when I get close to that alternate reality. It is why you see only one of me and not the four generations that I represent in your mind." explained The White Shadow, "Alternatively . . . you could free us from God's plan and destroy the Yamato Perpetual Reactor."

Nanashi snorted. ". . . why was there no Messiah to save that world?"

"That world only had a scant few Messiahs who could reshape their future," explained The White Shadow. "However . . . through ignorance on their part of our teachings, they banded together and sought to free humanity from God's plan."

Nanashi froze at the White Shadow's words. No . . . surely, it can't be that . . .

"They believed in the power of the people to change the future; unfortunately for them, people are like headless chickens when there is no political system to keep them under control. They foolishly thought God's world would be theirs once He was eliminated." continued the White Shadow, Nanashi remained silent to listen closely. "Since they did not create a new universe, and their physical bodies were therefore shackled to God, their world was cast into self-destruction by God's plan as we had warned. Once each of them passed on, the Messiahs and their comrades suffered eternal damnation and their world of people bonded with hope fell into disarray and slowly dissolved when faced with calamity after calamity with no future Messiah to save them from the specters of death."

Wait, so eternal damnation happens if you kill the Creator God without replacing the universe? That's why Demi-fiend and Aleph are damned . . . thought Nanashi, And if this universe is parallel to my own since it's so close and making a dimensional portal, then . . . Walter, Jonathan, Flynn . . . and myself . . . were all damned to eternal suffering after killing YHVH upon our natural deaths. Why were Walter and Jonathan still alive in their universe but not mine? Perhaps that means I can avoid it? Then again, there's too many variables, such as the prospect that while it may seem similar, I'm simply applying our universe's history to an entirely different universe with their own history that could be utterly divergent from anything I know of.

Nanashi stalked off away from the White Shadow. The collective nihilism of humanity vanished to return to the Expanse.

Still, the general question remains the same . . . thought Nanashi, as he walked to the Cosmic Egg. If the Bonds of friendship and power of humanity are enough to destroy YHVH's plan, then why does Twisted Tokyo even exist? The Messiahs should be a non-factor, but the White Shadow just told me that Twisted Tokyo came about because no messiah was there to save them . . .

Nanashi stopped abruptly and looked up at the dark wall of the Mikado lands above. The dark walls of Masakado's body had blotted out the sun since before his birth; it was only by Krishna's declaration and Shesha breaking space-time upon being summoned that Nanashi was able to witness the sun and the blue skies for the first time instead of seeing it through old picture books.

Why is it so difficult . . . for the right course of action to be the most moral? thought Nanashi, Demifiend's haunting words echoed in his mind. I wanted to see the blue skies of Mikado and enjoy sightseeing some more, perhaps even witness the night skies of Mikado. I wanted to enjoy a single day and just lounge about with Asahi by the pond in Mikado. Perhaps invite the rest of them for a nice relaxing get together. No violence, no war between gods and demons . . . just lounging on some nice beach area with none of the bloodshed and worries about personal safety for at least one day in my life . . . Is it so wrong to feel so tired of always being demanded to make sacrifices for others? Is it so wrong to want respite once in a blue moon? Is it . . . wrong to feel so tired of all this? I don't see it going anywhere, nothing I do changes anything for the better . . .

Nanashi turned his gaze forward and gazed at the Cosmic Egg. But that's impossible, Asahi's dead and this world is shackled to an arrogant God that created all of this for the sole purpose of toying with our lives. I was so happy the day after I killed Lucifer and Merkabah, the day I was going to celebrate with all my loved ones at a party . . . and then Shesha killed that happiness right in front of me.

Nanashi began to sedately walk to the Cosmic Egg, where the rest of the group awaited. Toki remained silent and by his side as he reminisced on the meaning of his life.

Why do I feel so helpless and weak, even though I've amassed all this power? What do I want? pondered Nanashi, The correct choice . . . isn't always the most moral choice. I know that. I understand that. I don't want to live in a world of ambiguous meanings where the extremists and the dispossessed who turn power-hungry constantly vie for control of the world's future. But I love my friends; they're the closest thing I have to a family, and this shattered, broken world is the only one I know to be home.

Why is this up to me? I'm always being pushed down, talked shit to, spat upon, attacked, and ridiculed . . . who am I to judge what's right for the future of the world? Despite my enduring burdens, I'm still only fifteen. Why was I created as a Messiah like the others in those alternate worlds? pondered Nanashi, In the end, I suppose after an event is forced upon you without your consent, it stops mattering and you just have to deal with it. I can't react with a victim mentality, but what do I choose? I . . .

Nanashi dropped his trail of thinking as he finally arrived where his friends were and the Bonds group headed to the Cosmic Egg. Odin met them at the entrance and Nanashi readied himself.