The world was red.

The sky was a bruised, weeping purple, but the ground, the black volcanic rock of the cursed shore, was slick with a crimson sheen that reflected the unnatural twilight. The air was thick with the metallic tang of blood and the cold, empty silence that follows a massacre. Kenjiro knelt in that silence, a lone, slender figure in a field of death, the last note of Lyrielle's heartbroken whisper, "I can't heal the dead," echoing in the hollow space where his own heart used to be.

He looked down at the two figures before him, the two pillars of his new life, now reduced to tragic monuments of a failed war. DragonSlayer lay still, his proud, arrogant face peaceful in death, a faint, bloody smile still gracing his lips. And beside him, Gluteus Maximus, his loyal, unwavering protector, was a perfect, heartbreaking statue of cold, grey stone, his final, encouraging thumbs-up an eternal testament to his belief in his Lily.

A sound, a raw, guttural noise of pure, soul-shattering grief, tore its way from Kenjiro's throat. It wasn't a scream. It was the sound of a world breaking. His world. He had failed them. His army, his friends, his hope—all of it was gone, washed away by a tide of living shadows.

The few remaining survivors of his grand crusade milled about like ghosts, their faces pale masks of shock and despair. Ryo, his magnificent ice-blue armor now splattered with blood and grime, stood staring out at the grey, churning sea, his shoulders slumped in a way Kenjiro had never seen before. Selene was on her knees, her hands pressed against the cold stone of the shore, her body wracked with silent, shuddering sobs. Even the ever-chaotic members of his backup teams were still, their usual manic energy extinguished, replaced by the grim, hollow-eyed stare of soldiers who had witnessed an atrocity.

And then, a sound, a slow, deliberate crunch of boots on the bloody gravel, cut through the collective grief.

A figure walked towards them, moving with a calm, unhurried gait that was an obscene violation of the sacred, sorrowful silence. It was the skull-masked necromancer. He walked past the remaining, trembling soldiers as if they were nothing more than scenery, his hidden gaze fixed solely on the kneeling, broken figure of Kenjiro.

"This is simply delicious, don't you think, dear Lily?" the necromancer's voice was a dry, rattling sound, a whisper of dead leaves and graveyard dust. He laughed, a soft, cruel sound that was somehow louder than any scream. He stopped a few feet from Bombom, looking down at him with the detached curiosity of a collector admiring a particularly interesting insect. "I was tasked to destroy everything you have," he continued, his voice a low, conversational monotone. "Your hope. Your friends. Your ridiculous, misplaced belief that you could actually make a difference." He gestured with a skeletal hand to the carnage around them. "The first step you took here... it was all my plan."

Kenjiro couldn't speak. He couldn't move. A rage so pure, so cold, so absolute it froze the very blood in his veins, locked his body in place. Every quest, every battle, every single, hard-won victory... it had all been a game, a carefully orchestrated series of events leading to this exact moment of absolute, crushing despair. It was all his fault.

"You are lucky you have one of the cosmic gods helping you," the necromancer mused, tilting his skull-mask to the side. "Or this world would have ended the moment the Eye awakened. But I don't think even he can do something against him."

Bombom's hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into his palms, the sharp, grounding pain the only thing keeping him from shattering completely. He wanted to lunge, to attack, to tear this monster limb from limb, but his body wouldn't obey. He was paralyzed by the sheer, overwhelming weight of the necromancer's revelation.

The necromancer seemed to sense the question burning in Kenjiro's mind, the one that was now screaming in the silent void where his hope had been. "When you die," he whispered, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hiss, "my real master will come. And we are taking you back to the world you are meant to be."

Kenjiro looked up, his red eyes blazing with a furious, desperate confusion that demanded an explanation.

"You are here by mere luck," the necromancer laughed, savoring the moment, the utter, absolute destruction of his opponent's entire reality. "You were supposed to be on another dimension. A piece, a pawn, in a much grander game. But I will not say more."

A porcelain-masked figure, the other necromancer, appeared at his master's side, a silent, flickering phantom. He held out a single, grotesque object: a black, leathery, and unmistakably broken wing. It was identical to the one that had corrupted Yuto, the one that had twisted a sad, misguided prince into the monstrous, time-devouring Tokigami.

The skull-masked necromancer took the wing, holding it up as if it were a holy relic. "You see that?" he asked, his voice full of a dark, reverent glee. "A broken wing. A sliver of a broken god." He laughed, a high, unhinged sound, and threw the wing into the air. The other mage began to chant, his hands weaving a complex, dark spell, his power focusing on the floating, grotesque artifact.

The wing began to pulse with a dark, malevolent light. It tore a hole in the fabric of reality, a swirling, violent vortex of pure, unadulterated darkness. And from that portal, a man stepped out.

He was a nightmare of broken divinity. His hair was a chaotic mane of black, shot through with streaks of stark, dead white. His eyes were a solid, burning red, devoid of any pupil or iris. A single, magnificent black wing, its feathers like shards of obsidian, unfurled from his right shoulder, while from his left, only the stump of a broken, mangled wing remained. He wore simple, black clothing that seemed to drink the very light around him, and above his head, a broken, black halo flickered in and out of existence like a dying star. He floated there, a silent, terrible monument to a war lost in some distant, forgotten cosmos.

"This one will be your demise, Bombom," the necromancer cackled, his voice a triumphant shriek. "He is from another dimension. A world where he was divided by dawn... and the dark won." He opened another portal at his feet, this one filled with the writhing, grasping hands of a thousand skeletons. But the man with the broken halo didn't even glance at it. The skeletal hands recoiled as if burned, and the portal snapped shut.

The mysterious man turned his burning, red eyes on the two necromancers. And then, he smiled, a slow, cruel, and utterly terrifying expression. "Who dares to call me?" he asked, his voice a calm, melodic baritone that was a chilling echo of 03's. "Another world to destroy?" He let out a soft "tsk," and the shadows on the ground around the two necromancers rose up. They solidified into sharp, spectral claws, into silent, screaming mouths, and in a single, brutal, and utterly silent instant, they tore the two masked mages to pieces.

The new being crossed his arms, his gaze sweeping over the blood-soaked battlefield, a look of profound boredom on his handsome, terrifying face. Kenjiro stared, his mind reeling. The way he talked, the way he moved, that infuriating, condescending "tsk"... it was him. It was 03.

"H-hey, 03?" Kenjiro stammered, his voice a hoarse, trembling whisper. "A-are you okay?"

The mysterious man turned his burning gaze on him. "Who's 03?" he asked, a flicker of genuine confusion in his red eyes. "Are you talking to me?"

Bombom looked closer, and his blood ran cold. There was no glowing '03' tattooed on his arm. This wasn't his 03. This was something else. Something older. Something wrong.

The alternate 03 looked at him, his gaze sharp and analytical. "You're pretty strong," he commented, his voice a flat, unimpressed monotone. "And I can tell you're not from this world." His gaze shifted, his eyes unfocusing as he looked around, not at the carnage of the present, but at something else, at the faint, ghostly echoes of the battle that had just transpired. "So that's how I got here..." A slow, wicked, and utterly malicious smile spread across his face. He understood. And he was pleased.

He raised a hand, and the shadows that had been dormant since the massacre rose up once more. They descended upon the few, terrified survivors of Bombom's army, a silent, merciless tide of pure, destructive hunger.

"H-hey!" Bombom screamed, his grief momentarily forgotten, replaced by a surge of pure, desperate horror. "W-what are you doing?! STOP THIS!!"

The alternate 03 just laughed, a high, maniacal sound that was full of a pure, unadulterated joy. "Or what?" he taunted, his red eyes gleaming as he watched the slaughter. "I missed this. I destroy every place where I come from, but this... a new world to destroy." He laughed again, the sound echoing across the red shore as the last of Bombom's loyal followers were consumed by the darkness.

Kenjiro, fueled by a grief and a rage so profound it transcended fear, charged. He would not let this happen. He would not let his friends' sacrifice be for nothing. But before he could take two steps, the world around him froze. He was locked in place, a statue in a world of silent, screaming death. The alternate 03 was standing in front of him, that same condescending "tsk" on his lips.

"Tsk, tsk," he said, wagging a finger. "Naughty, naughty."

And then, something impossible happened. A brilliant, blinding white light erupted from the alternate 03's form. His burning red eyes flickered, replaced for a single, breathtaking second by two orbs of pure, sky blue. His broken, black wing shimmered, transforming into a magnificent, feathered wing of pure, white light. A gentle, sad smile touched his lips.

"If you want to stop us," he said, his voice a chorus of a thousand heartbroken whispers, "enter this portal." He lifted his hand, and the white wing unfurled, tearing a hole in reality, a swirling, golden vortex of pure, untainted light. "Go," the light being whispered, his voice full of a desperate, pleading urgency. "I don't have much strength left."

Bombom didn't hesitate. He didn't understand, but he knew, with a certainty that was as absolute as his grief, that this was his only chance. He gave a single, determined nod and launched himself into the portal.

The world dissolved into a sea of warm, golden light. And behind him, on the cold, red shore, the alternate 03's eyes flickered back to a burning, furious red. "Oh," the dark being whispered, a slow, angry growl in his voice as he looked at his now-useless white wing. "You got some willpower left. But not anymore..." He looked around, his red eyes scanning the now-empty battlefield, searching for the infuriatingly resilient Lily. "Where's he?"

He looked at the spot where the golden portal had been, and then he laughed, a low, confident sound. He understood. He sat down on the cold, blood-soaked ground, crossing his legs, a patient, predatory look on his face.

"Now I just wait..."

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