Simma's eye ignited a furious crimson, veins sprawling outward like dark rivers across the whites until they drowned in red. His canines lengthened into fangs; his other teeth sharpened, jagged and predatory, as though his mouth had been carved for blood.

His aura warped, coiling around him like a storm hungry to devour, his very presence becoming monstrous, parasitic, like a vampire thirsting for all that lived.

The surge of energy inside him was indescribable, and intoxicating. A torrent greater than anything he had felt in his lifetime. It was rage interwoven with unholy vitality, the very storm Zolomon had once warned him of, now feeding upon him, consuming him whole.

He lifted the blade, the very one he had driven through the chest of the blue-eyed apparition, and an evil smirk twisted across his face, cruel and void of remorse.

But then… darkness.

The bruised ground vanished. The shattered gate and the cleaved demon were gone. All that remained was a suffocating void. A silence so thick it pressed against the ears, a darkness so absolute it devoured even memory.

And yet Simma did not fear. That unreadable grin, that wicked mask absent of joy, love, or warmth, remained etched across his face. His soul was a vessel brimming only with torment, betrayal, rage, and the singular thirst for vengeance.

He tilted his head slowly to the right, his crimson gaze sliding left as if to catch movement over his shoulder.

But nothing. No one.

But then a light shone out mixed with a heavy growl one that sent Simma's hair flailing behind him due to the air that came from the mouth of the creature that had appeared right in front of him

The creature was shone through the darkness, as if clothed in flame.

Its wings, horned and vast, beat with a power that threatened to tear apart the emptiness itself. It landed heavily on four short, muscular limbs, scales glinting like forged bronze over its thick form.

Two horns curled upward from its head, bent as though scarred by ancient battles. Its eyes glowed the same furious red as Simma's own. A jagged spine of fiery spikes ran down its back, tapering into a whip-like tail aflame with menace.

Simma recognized it instantly.

The creature right in front of him was a dragon. Not just any dragon, but his within beast

The last time they had crossed paths had been in darkness too, though that encounter had been a trance orchestrated by Cinzel, the Cloner. Even then, the dragon had unleashed its flames upon him, nearly ending him, Luckily it was a mere trance.

And right now, here it was, standing face to face with its master, or so Simma thought, until it spoke a three-worded statement that made his evil smirk widen into a grin.

It said:

"Bow before me."

Those words nearly drew him into laughter. Him? Bow to his within beast? If only it knew the pride that came with the power he wielded now.

He stared at it eye to eye, not even flinching at its huge size.

"And why should I do that?" Simma said. "I mean, you are my beast."

His tone was soft, deceptively calm, yet carrying beneath it the storm of wrath within—a sea of thunder disguised as still water.

The dragon reared its head back and laughed, a sound that shook the void.

"Hahahahahaha… Fool. I may be in your dragon, but I am also within you. You have accepted me, and now I am your master. Your duty belongs to me. For I am the Umbrax."

The words clawed at Simma's mind, burrowing deep, and for a moment… a treacherous moment, he felt the urge to bend. To kneel.

The dragon's eyes blazed.

"BOW!"

Its roar carried the weight of worlds, its voice the very embodiment of depth and thunder. Simma twitched, knees sagging, head trembling downward as if invisible hands were pressing him to the void. Veins burst like cords along his neck. His heart seized, his eyes burned, every muscle strained under the suffocating will.

"Mmmphhhhm," he groaned, his eyes feeling heavy, his heart tightening.

"AHHHHH!" the Umbrax roared through the dragon.

"I… SAID… BOW!"

"No!" Simma snapped, through clenched teeth.

And in that instant, the weight shattered. The invisible grip broke. The crushing compulsion evaporated like smoke.

Simma's breath came hard, furious, but his eyes locked unyielding with the dragon's. And in those eyes; the beast flinched. Surprise flickered there. Fear. As though he had done what none before him could.

"No," Simma repeated, venom sharp on his tongue.

The dragon staggered backward, its wings flaring in disbelief. Its roar trembled, almost broken.

"H-how… how are you resisting…?" the dragon asked, its voice now like a shiver as it backed away yet again. It knew that Simma had not yet given in fully to him, for he had not yet bowed.

Simma's smirk returned, broader, darker. He crossed his arms behind his back, mirroring the serpentine poise of the red-eyed Suited Man, mocking in every gesture.

He replied to the dragon… or should he say, to the Umbrax entity:

"I now know who I am. And thanks to the evil me, it helped me join the last loosed thread in my head."

The dragon's eyes widened in disbelief.

"NO!" it roared. "That's not possible!"

Simma's grin widened. He was enjoying the moment very much; taunting the very thing that was taunting him not long ago.

"How… how did you?"

Simma cut in.

"You know, for an Umbrax that wants to turn me into a material for his own bidding, you're more of a fool than I expected."

Those words hit the dragon as it reared angrily, but still, it didn't move Simma, he just continued.

"First, the Yiriana's Bow." Simma's voice was low, yet it carried like a drumbeat through the void.

"I did not want to believe it then. But how could I, a boy with no knowledge of the weapon, wield it with such perfection? How could I bend it as though it had always belonged to me …" His lips curled into a sharper grin, one that gleamed like a blade catching firelight.

He looked at the dragon, which stared back as though it realized the obvious too. Its molten eyes widened almost imperceptibly, as if some ancient truth had slipped its scales.

"Yes," he continued. "you notice it too, right?"

"It is not possible…unless I had already mastered it before. Unless I was not merely Simma. Unless… the suited guy isn't just a nightmare hunter. He is me… my reincarnation … I am the suited guy."

The dragon backed away further this time, as though what it had been dreading was about to come to pass.

"You see…" Simma's voice deepened, carrying a cruel clarity.

"I pieced it together only now. When the red-eyed suited man….no, the red-eyed me… stood before me, telling me that my potentials were locked away, my memories shackled, and that I was left to rot at the mercy of the Singrith… that was the moment the veil lifted. That was when it all made sense."

He stepped forward, his shadow seeming to stretch unnaturally, as if the darkness itself bent in acknowledgment of his words.

"like we all know…No reincarnation should happen when the host's mind is alive… otherwise, it would be chaos, since the host's mind and the reincarnated's mind would be at war… Instead, the host should be dead or its mind inactive to make the reincarnation smooth."

Then he spat the word like poison

"But since they wanted me locked away, they changed the natural order. They interrupted my reincarnation…. chaining me into a child… the baby, Simma. And because that infant's mind was fragile, it could house my soul, my will. A cage made of soft flesh."

His teeth bared in contempt.

"But they knew it would not last. They feared what would come if that child's mind matured and rose against mine… Tsk… of course baby Simma would still grow, his mind maturing along the process. So they buried me. They locked away my memories, my power, my Azrax…. all sealed inside the boy… so as to avoid our mind and soul clashing together in one body"

He shook his head in disbelieve.

"That was why Simma kept having disturbing nightmares, about me…. Naming me the suited guy… He didn't know I was in him all this while as a reincarnated.. well... I was always part of him. You can't just lock a great Omega down. What were they thinking?"

Simma turned his full glare upon the dragon now, his eyes like twin coals in a furnace.

"And then, at the Realm of the Transmigrated," he went on, his tone like scripture,

"my ancestor told me my presence there was no accident. That only the cursed can pass through the Door of Nethris.."

His voice rose, a tremor of power beneath it.

"And it struck me like thunder, it made more sense. I linked it with an event, for I had seen the suited guy. In fact, let me phrase it better…I had seen myself. Drawn on the 100 Sylian notes. Yes I can recall vividly. Sarah was there with me, it was the day they gave me a room in the citadel."

The memory lit his face with grim satisfaction.

"And when I asked Sarah, she explained it to me: that it was an honour given to a once great Omega who had reduced the impact of the Bloodbath… right there it was.. I had found out who I truly am…yes. There I knew who I was. For I wasn't just Simma. I am that great Omega… drawn across the face of that money…. Zelihuth O'Connor."

The dragon burst into laughter, its voice rumbling like an earthquake splitting the ground. Its scaly frame shook as it mocked him, as though it had regained its moment, and spoke:

"You claim you are the great Omega that reduced the Bloodbath and cast me, the Umbrax, into a mirrored dimensional prison… because you saw the suited guy or should I say yourself who looks exactly like Zelihuth O'Connor on a money note? How stupid and delusional you are."

The dragon knew Simma was right, but it wanted to confuse him; to make him see no sense in the truth he was saying, and rather bow.

Simma, however, only smiled wider, shaking his head slowly

"You don't get it, do you? Fine, let me break it down for you in a way you'll understand."

He spread his hands, his posture regal now, like a judge sentencing fate itself.

"Like I said earlier, my ancestor sought redemption, and he didn't get it until he had reincarnated into different hosts. At last, he fixed the wrong he had created and broke his curse."

He leaned forward, voice sharpening.

"This is applied to me. I believe I have reincarnated many times, and in all those reincarnations I knew who I was. I also knew I was cursed and had to fix my sins in order to be redeemed… well if not, then why will my ancestor say that me being at the realm of the transmigrated wasn't a mere coincidence.. if not that I was cursed as well… and had to seek redemption."

"That said, I am very ancient, as old as the wound itself. But due to the fact, like you said, my memories were locked away… so also my potentials…. I didn't know who I was in this latest reincarnation…"

He spread his arms as if to embrace the darkness, his voice ringing with the weight of thunder.

"At least… Not until now."

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