CHAPTER SIX: THE MAN WHO WATCHED GOD BLEED
(Point of View: Zero)
The future had no sound.
Only patterns.
That was the first truth he'd learned in the wake of the Rupture... not from prophecy, nor prayer, nor the divine whispers of saints, but from silence. From standing perfectly still, when the heavens screamed and the world fell, and watching what everyone else ran from.
From observation.
From truth.
Zero sat cross-legged in his sanctum, a hundred feet below Eden's shining streets. There were no windows here. No clocks. No shadows.
Only walls of black mirrored scripture, etched with an infinite lattice of verses that reflected his shape in countless subtle distortions... tall here, skeletal there, robed in wings in another.
He liked the silence.
It reminded him of the day Heaven itself tore open.
Above him, the Observers played their parts ...soldiers masquerading as gods, pawns who thought their power made them kings. They bickered. They burned. They dreamed.
Luther was doubting.
Mr. P was breaking, playing with time and pain like a boy with broken glass.
But Zero…
Zero watched.
That was his gift.
Not strength. Not magic.
Foresight.
He watched patterns... how they moved, how they cracked, how even chaos eventually revealed its rhythm.
And how every rhythm led to him.
He closed his eyes.
And let the memories come.
...
Twenty-Two Years Ago — The Cathedral at Reiken.
It was raining. Of course it was.
Akira Kagami.. not yet called Zero — stood at the altar, young and immaculate in his priest's robes, reading aloud from the Book of Ascension. His voice silenced the murmuring congregation, and his eyes... deep and calm , made sinners lower their heads in guilt.
Halfway through the homily, a sound broke through the hush.
Laughter.
From the back pew, a barefoot man in a patched coat leaned against the wall, grinning like the rain hadn't touched him.
After the service, Akira approached him.
"Something funny, Shinomiya?"
The man's grin widened.
"Yeah," he said. "That part where you said God made us in His image. That must mean He's scared, broken, and addicted to control."
Akira's jaw tightened.
"Blasphemy is easy when you've lost nothing."
"And faith," Shinomiya shot back, "is easy when you're paid to preach it."
They hated each other instantly.
And respected each other even more.
For months after, they debated in empty confessionals and quiet alleys.
Paku Shinomiya... the prodigy scientist who worshiped entropy and unknowing.
Akira Kagami... the Church's youngest miracle priest, who saw God as a shattered mirror everyone was trying to fix.
One night, in the ruins of an abandoned chapel, Paku said:
"You fear death. That's why you need God."
Akira's reply was quiet but sharp.
"And you fear meaning. That's why you run from Him."
Paku threw a bottle at the wall. It shattered.
So did their friendship.
They didn't speak again... not until the Rupture incident.
...
Present... Zero's Sanctum.
Zero opened his eyes.
The candle in front of him burned without smoke.
"Do you still think you're the hero, Paku?" he murmured. His voice was soft, but it carried.
"Do you think Luther will save you this time, from your guilt?"
He stood.
His robes trailed across the black floor, stitched through with thousands of verses of fallen scripture, each one etched in the language of angels that would flay a mortal's mind if spoken aloud.
He raised one hand to the mirrored wall.
And it opened, soundlessly, revealing the hidden chamber beyond.
A chamber of prophecy.
Every wall was covered in fractal glyphs of light, all repeating one thing in a thousand variations:
When the God-Child breathes, the world shall tremble.
When the Wingless Angel falls, the Tower shall burn.
When the Architect weeps, the Beast shall awaken.
He had seen these lines a thousand times before.
But lately… the endings kept changing.
And that terrified him.
He stood before the largest mirror.
It didn't reflect his body.
It reflected his potential.
In its surface he saw himself crowned in light, wings of bone and fire spread wide, the earth beneath his feet blackened, the other Observers kneeling, Luther burning. Mr. P... silent for once.
It was almost time.
...
The Day of the Rupture.
It wasn't supposed to happen like that.
The Church had found the divine child Elian... and prepared the ceremony to awaken him as humanity's messiah.
Akira ... not yet Zero.. had stood at the center of the ritual circle, reciting scripture as priests and scribes wove the incantations.
And then Shinomiya had arrived. A broken soul, a weeping man,like a wolf looking for its lost kin.
He'd hacked the divine anicent interface. Injected his own foreign code into the awakening protocol.
"To keep Elian safe," Paku claimed.
But it did more than that.
It tore Heaven open.
The sky screamed. Half the world was devoured by light. Oceans boiled. Akuma poured from the wound. Cities became graveyards in a instant.
And through it all, Akira stood still. Watching.
Watching as the child bled.
As the gods screamed.
And he whispered to himself:
"So… even gods can bleed."
That was the last moment he believed in salvation.
And the first moment he....
...
Present ... Zero's Sanctum.
He stood before the Source Spark.
It pulsed, barely caged, its alien light leaking through its containment field in faint streaks of gold and violet.
He whispered into it... not words, but commands written in the language only he understood.
"Luther is waking. Paku is fraying. The others are breaking."
The Spark flared in response, its light washing over his expressionless face.
"So let the pattern begin again."
Somewhere above, Eden's lights dimmed.
In his lab, Mr. P fumbled a test tube, and it shattered on the floor.
Rei Kagami stopped mid-step in the middle of a shadow and looked around, sensing something vast and unseen turning toward him.
And in his quarters, Luther opened his eyes and felt a pressure behind them... not pain. Not fear.
A gaze.
Watching. Measuring. Waiting.
In the tower's apex, Zero stood alone, staring at his own reflection in the mirror.
A man with no god.
No savior.
No fear.
Just a pattern.
And a plan.
"You can cry, Paku," he murmured to the silent room. His voice was quiet, almost kind.
"You can build your little monsters over and over. You can make gods out of your grief."
"But in the end… all roads lead to me."
He stepped back into the darkness, the mirror staying lit for a moment longer.
And in its reflection, he saw not himself.
Not as he was.
But as something else.
Something terrible.
Something divine.
Something inevitable.
...
END OF CHAPTER SIX