The Village Disciples

The last place Tanjo expected himself to be was on the surface of the moon, feeling the effects of the celestial body's weak gravity as his shredded cloak and jet-black hair floated in the abyss of the universe. Yuso had unwillingly teleported him and Tanjo outside Earth due to an unknown alienation prompted by Regashi's eye in the sky. Evidently, hypnosis could be added to the array of attacks that the leader of the Furusato Unit had readily available. 

Similar to when Tanjo and Yuso fought within Yuso's pocket dimension—an extension of the Shirugeto—he discharged copious blue rifts that encircled the two of them.

'Permit breathing, auditory usage, and vocalization!' Tanjo mentally commanded the Disruption of Reality, feeling its powers seize his body. 

Upon the command, Yuso felt the desire to inhale, briefly stunned by the ability. The redhead glanced at Tanjo, his Shirugeto eyes analyzing the teenager.

"Tanjo!" Yuso called out to the boy, "he possessed me into transporting us here!"

The teenager huffed, surveying the emptiness of the moon's surface. "I figured as much."

Tanjo noted Yuso's panicked expression before they were transferred to the moon. Second, Yuso's rigid movement was another sign that the younger Takuetsu's motions were unwilling, especially as Yuso's gaze was not diverted from the sky at the time.

"Shall we return to Earth? It's vulnerable with us here." Yuso queried, clenching his jaw. 

Tanjo shook his head. "It's vulnerable even when we're on it. Besides—knowing how Regashi is, he's here, too."

The two rogue warriors focused on their surroundings, neither sensing nor spotting their brown-haired adversary. It was a constant gamble whether Regashi would finally attempt to end the fight by going all out or if he simply wished to keep toying with them. Tanjo and Yuso had managed to land what appeared to be detrimental blows on the man; however, they kept their heads on a swivel, looking out for Regashi. 

"Let's hope he prolongs this fight a bit longer." Yuso commented, his voice hoarse. 

"I'm glad you think that way, Yu-Yu!"

*KABOOM!*

*PRSHH!*

Instinctively, Tanjo swiftly spun around and unleashed a blast of his four-phase Aura Amalgamation, while Yuso immediately expelled pentagrams that utterly obliterated the space around them. Regashi had just been standing directly behind them, with his voice sending both of the rogue warriors into a state of dread. The two strongly doubted that their attacks damaged the brown-haired man to any extent, but their actions did prompt Regashi to vanish once more for the time being. 

"I can't even speak around you guys!" Regashi's voice boomed in the distance, garnering their attention. 

Turning around again, Tanjo and Yuso spotted their malevolent opponent standing tall and unscathed just a few feet away, his hands raised as he adopted an expression of faux frustration. The two would most likely be dead if honest vexation was present within the brown-haired menace. 

Throughout the entirety of their fight, Tanjo incessantly rejected Regashi as both a person—but what was his idea? All this fighting, but no answers. Barely any questions had been thrown around. 

"Regashi!" Tanjo hollered, sliding his feet apart slightly. "Please! Why do this!?"

Regashi stared at Tanjo with a solid gaze, his face torn between showing a jovial and serious countenance. Was the extremist truly taking a moment to think? Perhaps Tanjo could make some degree of advancement with the older brother. 

"Dropping every layer of comedy—why not?" Regashi spoke with visible curiosity, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow. 

Tanjo and Yuso's eyes bulged at the answer, feeling bewilderment and anger bubble within them. Such a lackluster answer was given for an incredibly important question. 

"Why not!? People's entire worlds are crumbling around them, even ending because of your actions! Days that could have been happy or rejuvenating are now nightmares because of you!" Tanjo roared, taking a step forward. 

Yuso cautiously reached toward the teenager, stopping halfway. 

"Dreams wilted away; futures burnt down! You alone spark the negativity in life that people work tirelessly to avoid!" The jet-black-haired boy cried out, pouring every ounce of emotion into each word. 

Slowly, Regashi extends his right hand, aiming the tip of his index finger at Yuso. 

"Ryouiki. Yuso knows the name." Regashi spoke cryptically. 

Yuso's face contorted into confusion, remembering the old man who used to be the redhead's master. The memory of ending the vile man's life was still fresh in Yuso's head, but so were all of the moments that were created with him before that fateful day. 

"Enslaved a fresh adult, made him kill his family, made impurity out of innocence. I was there. Who do you think led those warriors to your group, Yuso?" The evil leader revealed, not a hint of emotion present in his tone. 

"What!?" Yuso barked, his voice strained. 

Regashi redirected his gaze to Tanjo, who balled his hands into fists at the sudden gaze. 

"And the death of our family." Regashi said, lowering his right hand. 

Tanjo's blue eyes narrowed at the mention of his family's death, silently urging the man to keep talking. Never before has the teenager been informed regarding the day his family was split apart and permanently ruined, except for the fact that Imawashiki was present on that horrific day, being the one who slaughtered Oritsu Ketsueki, who happened to unknowingly be the king's biological brother. The information almost felt… sacred—as if Tanjo should not know it all quite yet, or ever. 

"Imawashiki was not the only one to attack our family that night. Rogues—people without a purpose—helped bring an end to Furusato." Regashi added, his green eyes glued to Tanjo's blue ones. 

The brown-haired man reflected on the infamous day that the Ketsueki family met its end and all of the chaos that ensued in the village of Furusato. Regashi remembered the moment he first laid his eyes on Tanjo after being born, seeing the vastness within the baby moments before blood had been spilled. 

"So many people perished. Mothers, children, animals—royalty." Regashi continued speaking, revealing the atrocities that took place. 

The teenage boy gnashed his teeth together. "And where were you?"

Regashi's green eyes glinted, pausing for a moment. A shiver ran down Tanjo and Yuso's spine as the vacuum they stood in suddenly became immensely oppressive through cold temperature and a thick atmosphere. 

"Reveling in the sight of our dead parents. I had staged it, after all." Regashi declared, grinning malevolently. 

Yuso huffed, glaring at the monstrous man before him. "How does that answer the question!?"

With a slight crinkle of his eyes, Regashi gestured toward Tanjo. 

"Ask the genius, Yu-Yu."

With all eyes on him, Tanjo stood passively, his eyes blank as he stared at the surface of the moon silently. Although he stood on a celestial body with significantly less gravity weighing him down, the boy felt much heavier, as if every bit of mass in the universe was simultaneously attempting to compress him. The argument that Regashi implicitly responded with was notable, becoming lucid to the teenager. The realization, unfortunately, made sense. 

Throughout history, whether Regashi had been involved or not, people had acted on their own. The rogue warriors that annihilated his family and home village wanted to see the destruction of Furusato and its ruling family. Another thought struck Tanjo: the invasion of Buraun. The day that Kit, the small kitten that the boy rescued from the cruel outdoors, passed away because of a group of warriors attacking his place of residence. 

Regashi had been nothing more than a representation of how reality frequently worked, depicting the atrocities that individuals inflict on the innocent, the horrors in which life balances itself, and how the world will never change for the better or worse. Nature was the constant opponent of humanity and all living things on Earth.

'Are you saying that reality does not end the life of children?'

The words that Regashi uttered into existence back in Buraun replayed in the teenager's mind, haunting his conscience. 

"Tanjo!?" Yuso called out to the boy, his hand landing on Tanjo's shoulder. 

Tanjo lifted his head slightly, his blue eyes staring coldly into Regashi as he parted his lips to speak, "He answered my question. It was the most sufficient answer he could give me."

"And what was the answer's meaning!?" Yuso hollered, his Shirugeto eyes dilating. 

"It means," Regashi interrupted the moment between the partners, his voice deepening. "That everyone will be forced to abide by the same rules, ideas, and morals. Essentially, it's what Ryouiki failed to make of you, Yu-Yu. A perfect puppet."

Tanjo's voice rang in their ears once more as he said, "Through the use of the Kekkan no Sosei, right? Kill everyone and reanimate them into puppets?"

"Unkillable and stable puppets, Brother." Regashi replied gleefully.

*KRSHHH!*

Thick rifts formed between Tanjo's hands, his knees becoming angled as he assumed a fighting stance. Yuso swiftly retracted his right hand from the boy's shoulder and adopted his own positioning, followed by his Shirugeto swirling in his eye sockets rapidly. 

"In truth," Tanjo spoke lowly, narrowing his eyes. "His answer means that he's nothing but a psychopath."

Regashi chuckled. "A title that all the greats receive for their efforts."

Silence swallowed the area wholly, enabling the three individuals to stand pensively. Tanjo and Yuso's abilities were becoming more powerful with every passing second, but the divide between them and Regashi's uncanny powers never seemed to falter. It was like fighting the ether itself. 

The ether…

"Yuso!" Tanjo called out to his red-headed partner. "Your curse's realm! Put us all in it!"

Yuso nodded and focused on the magic streaming into his eyes, starting the rotation sequence that summoned the Shirugeto's extension universe. The redhead clasped his hands together in one rapid motion, unleashing a whirlwind of red magic that engulfed Regashi Ketsueki and encapsulated his surroundings. The moon and the space around it gradually transformed from the ordinary black abyss that comprised their cosmos to a crimson realm with an unlimited number of cosmic pentagrams that floated around the Shirugeto's private domicile.

"You manipulate this realm, right? Use it to suppress his abilities!" Tanjo stated, floating next to the youngest Takuetsu. 

Regashi blinked as he noticed the space around him beginning to warp, encasing his frame in an invisible barrier. Delicately, the brown-haired man brushed his fingers against the transparent walls, watching as his flesh was rejected from going any further. The Shirugeto was forcing Regashi to submit to the realm's principles. 

"Oh?" Regashi mumbled, raising a brow. 

*SHINK! SHINK! SHINK!*

Without warning, numerous red chains emerged from the invisible walls that restrained Regashi, impaling him in various locations across his body.

"Hold him there!" Tanjo shouted, a plan forming in his head. 

*BRRM! BRRM! BRRM!

A multitude of green clones escaped from Tanjo's body through the use of his green magic's aura printing abilities, with the Disruption of Reality clinging to each of their frames. The clones' wings flapped mightily as they surrounded Regashi in a matter of a second, grabbing hold of the blue rifts accompanying their birth and slinging it at the brown-haired man held down by Yuso's chains. 

"Haha!"

With a sinister laugh, Regashi grew a plethora of arms that extended from his body. His eyes shimmered brightly as he was suddenly capable of reaching beyond the invisible prison that restrained him and halted each of the blue rifts heading his way. 

*KRSHH!*

Two rifts quickly shot through the brown-haired man's shoulders, seizing his body securely. 

"Make this individual vulnerable to every attack!" Tanjo commanded his Disruption of Reality from afar, holding the rifts that were lodged in his opponent's shoulders. 

Another laugh reverberated in Regashi's throat as his arms shot further out of his body, bringing out clones that took the brunt of the incoming rifts from Tanjo's green clones. 

"Tanjo!" Yuso abruptly yelled, making the boy turn around. 

One of Regashi's clones managed to appear behind the teenager, punching him in the nose and purging the blue rifts that penetrated the original Regashi's shoulders. 

"Begone!" Yuso commanded, aiming his hand at the clone and snapping his fingers.

*SQUISH!*

The space around the clone forcefully compressed it into nothingness, completely erasing it from the Shirugeto's extension universe. The redhead was still acclimating to the unlimited power granted to him by being in the crimson-red realm, but he had no time to squander time by figuring out what all of his abilities were. 

"Whatever you just did to the clone, do it to the real Regashi!" Tanjo advised, rubbing his nose. 

Upon looking back at the original Regashi, it was visible that each of Tanjo's green clones had been promptly exterminated by Regashi's own. The remaining clones of Regashi surged toward Tanjo and Yuso, forcing them to engage in hand-to-hand combat that immediately overwhelmed the two of them. 

Urgently, Yuso let his Aura Sense flare as he snapped his fingers—*SQUISH! SQUISH! SQUISH!*—and compressed each of Regashi's clones into nothing. Unfortunately, the original Regashi remained, smirking at the redhead from afar. 

"Do it!" Tanjo howled, straining his voice. 

Yuso heaved as he snapped his fingers again, his sights set on the original Regashi. After a few moments of waiting, nothing occurred. The redhead snapped again, and again, and again. Both Tanjo and Yuso noticed that the space around Regashi would become warped in response to the snapping, but the brown-haired man was unaffected in the end. 

"You thought I couldn't elevate myself beyond the constraints of your little silly universe? There is no reality that I can't bend." Regashi asserted boldly, a look of lunacy yielding behind his green eyes. 

Tanjo and Yuso looked at each other briefly, realizing that the Shirugeto's extension universe was utterly useless in their fight against Regashi. No matter what strategies they employed or how they arranged the world around them, Regashi would always be the only one on top, standing in the rubble of Tanjo and Yuso's failed attacks. 

A faint exhale could be heard from Tanjo. 

"Yuso… Even if we manage to improve our abilities enough to deal damage, he wouldn't simply let us win..." 

The redhead clenched his jaw, looking at their brown-haired opponent in the distance. 

"...So we must put everything we have into one last attempt. I keep going back on my word about needing to sacrifice everything to win, but we truly have no other options, Yuso." Tanjo rambled, his blue eyes fixed on the redhead. 

Yuso clenched his fists for the umpteenth time, acknowledging the gravity of their situation. 

"If reality is his crutch, then we have to go beyond even that."

XXX

Thank you for reading this chapter! As I've delved further into this fight, I debated several moments that I have either wished to include or exclude, and I've arrived at the right destination. The story will obviously end in the same manner that I've always planned, but the ride there will experience alterations—albeit, they will be seamless, don't worry. Stay tuned for more!

Have a Great Day!

Peace - Cr1itcalz_