The Higher Realm was a place where Infinity was the baseline. It was a sprawling, non-dualistic totality that shouldn't have been capable of trembling. Yet, suddenly, the pillars of the House of Infinite Silence began to groan. A vibration started at the very core of the realm, a frequency so violent it threatened to shake the 'meaning' out of the air itself.
Ruleus, who had been mid-yawn, suddenly snapped his head toward the balcony. His vacant, 'deadass' expression vanished instantly. His silver eyes narrowed into sharp, lethal pinpricks.
"Ichikawa. Xyphira. Move. Now," Ruleus commanded, his voice devoid of its usual annoying cheer.
A rift, jagged and blacker than a dead star, tore open in the center of the garden. The mana pouring out of it was not just large; it was incomprehensible. It felt like a weight that surpassed the concept of mass.
Kyoki appeared in the room in a blur of divine light. For the first time in Ichikawa's life, he saw panic in her eyes. Her hands were trembling.
"He's here," she whispered, her voice cracking. "He's bypassed the Gaps. He's found the Narrative Anchor."
"Mom?" Ichikawa stood up, his hand immediately moving to the red ring. "I'll do it. I'll rip the seal. I'll erase him before he—"
"NO!" Kyoki screamed, her desperation echoing through the infinite halls. "You don't understand! You have to leave! All three of you! Go!"
Before Ichikawa could protest, Kyoki raised her hands. The air around the trio began to crystallize. She wasn't just opening a portal; she was weaving a Pocket Dimension—a space that existed Outside the Story. It was a void where the 'Author' could not see, a sanctuary hidden from the very laws of the cosmology.
"Mom, wait!" Ichikawa lunged toward her, but she shoved them with a blast of pure, white mana.
The trio tumbled backward into the shimmering white void. Ichikawa scrambled, his fingernails digging into the edge of the rift as it closed. Xyphira, sobbing hysterically, threw her arms around his waist, pinning him back as the world they knew vanished behind a veil of impenetrable glass.
They were trapped. The pocket dimension was a silent, white room with a single 'hole' in reality that acted as a window to the outside. Through it, they watched the nightmare unfold in high-definition silence.
The Unknown Figure stepped through the black rift. He didn't walk—he simply arrived. As he moved, the layers of the House of Infinite Silence didn't break—they melted, turning into a sludge of unwritten data.
Kyoki didn't hesitate. With a roar that shook the white room they were in, she lunged at him. Her power was a blinding, golden supernova. But the Figure moved with a speed that bypassed the concept of 'Action.'
He caught her by the throat mid-air.
With a sickening, silent impact, he slammed her head down into the 'Continent' of the Higher Realm. The shockwave was so massive it didn't just destroy the land—it erased the geography. The entire infinite continent shattered into a trillion pieces of floating obsidian. Even inside their pocket dimension, the trio was thrown against the walls by the sheer vibratory force of the collision.
It wasn't a fight. It was an execution. Kyoki struggled, her divine mana flaring in desperate, jagged bursts, but the Figure held her down like a beetle pinned to a board.
Kyoki lay in the center of the ruined void, coughing up blood that glowed with the light of dying stars. The Unknown Figure stood over her, his obsidian mask reflecting her agony.
"How pathetic," the Figure's voice vibrated through the window of the pocket dimension, reaching their ears like a death knell. "You spent eons hiding the boy. You even gave him the 'Ring of the Zero' to keep him docile. Tell me, Kyoki... does he know?"
Ichikawa froze, his blue eyes wide as he pressed his face against the glass of the dimension.
"Don't..." Kyoki wheezed, her hand reaching out weakly.
"He thinks it's a seal," the Figure chuckled, a sound like grinding stones. "He thinks he is a God holding back his 100% power. But the truth is so much more... miserable."
The Figure looked directly toward the 'hole' where the trio was watching.
"Ichikawa! Listen to the sound of your own lie! That ring isn't a seal! It is a siphon! You aren't 'Minoru Ichikawa, the God.' You were born a Zero—a hollow vessel with no power of your own. Your mother has been feeding you her life force through that ring every second of every day for seventeen years! You aren't suppressing 1% of your power... you are consuming 1% of hers!"
The revelation hit Ichikawa like a physical blow. He looked down at the red ring. It wasn't a weight. It was a straw. He was a parasite living on his mother's divinity.
"NO!" Ichikawa screamed, his blue eyes turning into a frantic, jagged azure. He began to claw at the floor of the pocket dimension, his fingers bleeding as he tried to tear through the fabric. "MOM! LET ME OUT! I'LL GIVE IT BACK! LET ME OUT!"
He slammed his shoulders against the walls, but Kyoki had made the dimension too well. It was stronger than Hyperspace, stronger than Superspace, stronger than the Subspace between worlds. It was an Absolute Seal.
Outside, the Unknown Figure reached down and gripped Kyoki's neck again, lifting her off the ground. She looked at the window one last time. Her sapphire eyes—so much like Ichikawa's—softened. Her lips moved, though the sound was faint.
"Live, ichikawa. Don't... be a Zero. Be... yourself."
"Ichikawa... you did your best... I'm proud of you... Live for—"
The Unknown Figure's hand tightened. CRACK.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he didn't kill her—he erased her. Kyoki's body didn't fall. It dissolved into a shower of white static, her very concept being scrubbed from the Higher Realm until even the memory of her scent began to fade.
Ichikawa collapsed. He didn't cry. He didn't shout. He simply sat in the white void, his blue eyes hollow, as the red ring on his finger turned a cold, lifeless grey.
Beside him, Xyphira was curled into a ball, sobbing so hard her wings were shaking. Ruleus stood in the corner, his head bowed, his hands clenched into fists so tight they were drawing blood.
The white void of the pocket dimension was not a place—it was a vacuum of meaning. There was no wind, no scent of jasmine, no warmth of the sun—only the sterile, oppressive silence that follows a world-ending scream.
Ichikawa was on his knees, his forehead pressed against the floor that felt like cold, unyielding glass. His fingernails—once manicured by the idle life of a student—were jagged and weeping crimson. He was clawing at the surface of the dimension, trying to dig through the 'Non-Existence' that his mother had crafted to keep him safe.
"WHY?!"
The word tore out of his throat, jagged and raw. It wasn't the roar of a God; it was the sob of a boy who had been lied to twice.
"WHY CAN'T I JUST LIVE A NORMAL LIFE?! WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE THIS?!"
He slammed his fist into the floor, the shockwave rattling his own bones since there was no reality left to absorb the impact. He thought of his first life—the grey, miserable offices, the lonely nights, the feeling of being a background character in someone else's success. He had been reincarnated, given a second chance, a Higher Realm,' a mother who loved him, and a power he thought was his own.
And it was all a joke. A cosmic prank.
"I'm a parasite..." he whispered, his voice cracking as a fresh wave of agony hit him. "I wasn't holding back 99%... I was just eating her. I was eating her life every single day."
Xyphira scrambled to her feet. Her pristine white wings were ruffled, several feathers torn from her frantic tumble into the void. She rushed toward him, her sapphire eyes—now bloodshot and streaming with tears—fixed on his bleeding hands.
"Ichikawa! Stop! Please!" she cried, reaching out to grab his wrists. "You're hurting yourself! The dimension... it won't break! Mother Kyoki made it to hold you! Please, My Lord—"
"GET OFF ME!"
Ichikawa shoved her. It was a rough, violent movement born of pure, unrefined self-hatred. Xyphira, caught off guard by the sheer coldness in his eyes, was sent sprawling backward across the white floor. She let out a small, pained gasp, her wing catching against the ground, but Ichikawa didn't even look at her. He went back to the floor, digging his bloodied fingers into the 'nothingness,: his breath coming in ragged, hitching gasps.
A few feet away, Ruleus was standing perfectly still.
The boy who usually treated the collapse of universes as a minor inconvenience looked like a statue of salt. His silver hair, usually sparking with chaotic energy, hung limp over his face. He was staring at the spot where the 'Hole' to the outside world had been—the spot where he had just watched a woman die because he was too slow to react.
He began to tremble. It wasn't the 'vibration' he usually joked about. It was the shaking of a prideful being who had finally met a wall he couldn't 'glitch' through.
"Useless..." Ruleus muttered through clenched teeth. His voice was a low, terrifying growl that Ichikawa had never heard before. "I'm a fucking, useless piece of shit."
He squeezed his eyes shut, hot tears finally spilling over and tracing paths through the dust on his cheeks. "I'm the 'Absolute Glitch.' I'm the one who transcends the story. And I just... I just stood there. I let her do it. I let her push us in here like we were children."
Ruleus let out a sharp, choked-off sob of frustration. He slammed his feet into the floor, but unlike Ichikawa's rage, Ruleus's anger was quiet and hollow. He wasn't screaming at the universe—he was mourning the fact that for the first time in his life, he felt small.
The 'Hole' in the reality—the window they had been watching through—finally flickered and snapped shut. The view of the ruined Higher Realm was gone. The Unknown Figure was gone. Kyoki was gone.
A sound echoed then, vibrating through the very walls of the pocket dimension. It wasn't a voice through a speaker—it was a conceptual transmission from the Unknown Figure, leaking through the gaps Kyoki had tried to seal.
"Don't be in such a hurry to die, Little Siphon," the Figure's voice resonated, dripping with a cold, jagged mirth. "The story needs a transition. Grieve. Rot in your mother's final gift. I will come for the three of you when the silence has finished breaking you."
Ichikawa's head snapped up. His blue eyes weren't glowing anymore—they were burning with a dark, necrotic azure. He let out a roar that seemed to vibrate the entire pocket dimension.
"YOU BASTARD! I'LL RIP YOUR THROAT OUT WITH MY BARE HANDS! I'LL UNWRITE EVERY ATOM OF YOUR EXISTENCE! DO YOU HEAR ME?! I'LL KILL YOU!"
He slammed his bloodied palms down onto the floor, the sound echoing endlessly in the white void. But the Figure didn't respond. The connection was severed.
Minutes passed. Or perhaps hours. In a place outside of time, there was no way to tell.
Ichikawa had stopped screaming. He was slumped over, his chest heaving, his fingers leaving dark, smeary stains on the white floor. The grey ring on his finger felt cold—not the cold of ice, but the cold of a corpse. He felt empty. Without Kyoki's mana feeding the siphon, he could feel his own strength fading. He was becoming the 'Zero' again. A miserable, powerless god trapped in a divine cage.
Xyphira crawled toward him again. She moved slowly, her movements hesitant, as if she expected him to strike her. Her face was a mask of grief and apology.
"Ichikawa..." she whispered.
Ichikawa didn't move. "I told you to stay away from me, Xyphira. I'm a parasite. I'm the reason she's dead. If I wasn't so 'useless,' as Ruleus says, she wouldn't have had to feed me. She wouldn't have been weak enough for him to catch."
"That's not true," Xyphira sobbed, moving closer.
"Go away," Ichikawa growled, his voice flat.
He tried to shove her back again as she reached for him, his hand hitting her shoulder with a dull thud. But this time, Xyphira didn't fall. She didn't let him push her away. She lunged forward, her massive, soft wings wrapping around him like a cocoon, and pulled his head against her chest.
"I'm sorry!" she wailed, her voice breaking into a thousand pieces. "I'm sorry I was useless! I'm sorry I couldn't protect her! I'm sorry I'm just a 'loot-drop' with no memories! But please... don't be alone! Ichikawa, please!"
Ichikawa struggled for a moment, his hands weakly pushing against her, but he didn't have the energy left to be cruel. The adrenaline was gone, replaced by a crushing, soul-deep exhaustion. He felt the warmth of her body, the frantic beating of her new heart—the heart he had given her—and the dampness of her tears soaking into his hair.
He stopped fighting. His hands fell to his sides, his fingers twitching against the silk of his pajamas. He leaned into her, his face buried in the crook of her neck, and finally, the first real tear escaped his blue eyes.
"It hurts, Xyphira," he whispered, so quietly that only she could hear. "It hurts."
In the corner of the void, Ruleus sat down, hugging his knees to his chest. He didn't look at them. He just stared into the white nothingness, his silver eyes reflecting a world that no longer had a punchline.
The silence of the white void was suffocating, but for Ruleus, it was a different kind of pressure. He sat on the floor, his silver hair casting a jagged shadow against the infinite white. He began to replay his memories—every time he had tried to sense Ichikawa back at the Academy.
I remember, Ruleus thought, his eyes trembling. The first time I tried to read his mana, it was like staring into an ocean that had no shore. It was an infinite, non-dualistic abyss that inverted my very sense of direction.
He had assumed it was Ichikawa's 100% power leaking through. But now, with the Unknown Figure's words echoing in the void, the math finally clicked. The red ring hadn't been a seal—it was a directional relay too. Every time Ruleus had reached out to sense Ichikawa, the ring had reflected his senses directly back to Kyoki. He hadn't been measuring a student—he had been measuring the Matriarch of the Higher Realm.
Ruleus reached out one more time, his hand trembling as he tried to sense the person sitting five feet away from him. He closed his eyes, searching for that familiar, oceanic weight.
He found nothing.
Not a spark. Not a flicker. Not even the "static" of a normal human. Ichikawa was an **Absolute Zero**.
> Conceptual State: (Ichikawa) = 0
> The siphon is empty. The host is void.
Ichikawa, still pinned beneath Xyphira's wings, felt the grey, cold ring on his finger like a brand of shame. He looked at the piece of metal—the gift that had defined his Godhood—and let out a choked, gutteral snarl.
"LIAR!"
With a frantic, desperate motion, he slammed his fist into the floor of the pocket dimension. CRACK.
The grey ring shattered into a dozen lifeless shards of leaden glass. Ichikawa stared at his bare hand. He felt the same. He felt small. He felt like the miserable office worker who had died in another life.
"Lord Ichikawa... please," Xyphira whispered, her voice a fragile melody amidst the wreckage of his soul. She pulled him closer, her massive blossoms pressing against him as she buried her face in his neck. "Do not do this. I am here. You're my everything. If you die, I will die. If you are a Zero, then I am a Zero with you. We are one story!"
Ruleus stood up. His movements were shaky, his knees buckling, but there was a new, terrifying light in his eyes. He looked at the spot where the 'window' to the outside had been.
He thought of Kyoki. She hadn't just been 'Ichikawa's Mom' to him. She was the woman who had tolerated his 'deadass' nonsense for five years. She was the one who had made him snacks when he 'glitched' into their kitchen. She was the closest thing to a mother a cosmic anomaly like him could ever have. And Ichikawa? Ichikawa was his brother.
Something inside Ruleus—the Red Line of his sanity—finally snapped.
A dark, chaotic aura began to bleed out of Ruleus's pores. It wasn't silver anymore. It was a void-black static that hissed as it ate the white light of the dimension.
"Ruleus?"
Ruleus threw his head back. A dark scream—a sound that sounded like a thousand dimensions being torn at once—erupted from his throat. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!"
Xyphira's instincts flared. She didn't hesitate. she threw her divine wings around Ichikawa, wrapping him in a cocoon of snowy feathers to shield him from the violent pressure coming off Ruleus. The pocket dimension began to moan, the walls rippling like liquid under the stress of Ruleus's unhinged mana.
Ichikawa, seeing Ruleus losing his mind, felt a spark of something that wasn't Kyoki's mana. It was Rage. Pure, vengeful rage. He grabbed Xyphira's arms, pulling himself upright within her cocoon, his eyes locking onto the shattering ceiling.
In a voice that merged into a singular, world-shaking roar, both Ichikawa and Ruleus screamed in unison:
"I WILL NOT... LET THIS SLIDE!"
The pocket dimension—the Absolute Sanctuary Kyoki had created—could not contain the combined emotional surge of a grieving.
The white walls didn't just break, they atomized.
The void shattered like a glass sphere hit by a hammer. The trio was suddenly ejected from the "Outside of the Story" and plummeted back into the reality of the Higher Realm.
They didn't land in the House of Infinite Silence. They fell through the clouds of a broken sky, tumbling toward a massive, shimmering landscape below—a Crystal Continent that glowed with an eerie, prismatic light.
"XYPHIRA!" Ichikawa shouted as the wind whipped past his face.
"I HAVE YOU!"
Xyphira snapped her wings open, catching the air with a violent WHOOMPH. She dived through the sky, her arms wrapping around Ichikawa's waist as she stabilized their descent. Ruleus hit the ground first, his dark aura creating a massive crater in the crystal surface, sending shards of rainbow-colored glass flying into the air.