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One Piece - Here We Are

One Piece

Here We Are

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~ Chapter Log ~

Prologue

A Hero Tale {Complete}

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~ End Of Chapter 218 ~

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Yzeira scoffed at the positive remarks that Jenso belched one after the other. "I don't care about any of that." His head dropped for a moment. The drop before him was immeasurable. A plunge that would put an end to what he once thought to be unstoppable. "Fate brought us here. That's what the ignorant would say. Fate, destiny, predetermined events scripted by space-time... An irrational hypothesis, only brought on by the fool. But a hypothesis once thought insane can bring light to a world of possibilities." Yzeira looked up at the cloud line that quickly passed them as they began to plummet faster and faster towards the ocean. Gravity was beginning to take full effect.

"Jenso, we have to go!" Jeff urged. Bruce, Zios and Alvios began to move, hopping from rock to rock, and using their individual abilities to assure a safe landing. Yzeira turned back to Jenso with a subtle smile.

"I think... I'd like to see just how far fate can take me."

He turned away and let his body fall forwards, offering Jenso one last sluggish wave as he disappeared over the edge.

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Yzeira's eyes softened, glossed over, but filled with a profound resolution that remained separate from Jenso's whims. "I can be whatever I want," He mumbled, "had you not purged me of my power successfully, I would have killed you. Still now, I wonder what it is that I want." Yzeira turned around, creeping his toes over the ledge of crumbling stone. "Alexis may as well be dead, again. Her body remains nothing more than a carcass, her mind destroyed by the very essence that provided it life. Without my connection with the void, all returns to impossibility while I stand on the precipice of my failures."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Yzeira looked at Jenso again, staring at the man who had just spared his life, and even more, cleansed him of the void, something he thought impossible without killing the host. But what did he have to live for now? The weight of his sins was too much to bear. He slowly backed away from Jenso, inching his heel towards the edge of the tower.

"Even in victory you are naive..." His foot slipped again, but he didn't step away from the ledge. "After everything I've done, I don't deserve this. Not one bit."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Yzeira took another step back. His foot slipped, forced a chunk of rubble to fall from the ledge into the massive drop below. He re-balanced himself and looked behind him at the wide open ocean expanse that seemed to go on forever.

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Jeff's eyes widened. He opened his mouth to protest, but stopped himself as Jenso smiled, lowering his gauntlet and looking at Yzeira. "Yeah, ok. There's no fight left in him anyways," he quipped, dropping down to lift Jenso up, supporting him with his shoulder. "Good fight." Yzeira looked down at his hands in awe. Tears welled up in each corner of his eyes before streaming down his face. They melted away the tattoo that still remained smudged below his right eye, and he took another step back.

"This isn't right," he muttered, "I don't deserve this."

A Hero Tale {Complete}

Yzeira's surprise didn't fade. He took a step forward, but fell to his knees before Jenso as well, clasping his forehead as pangs of agony assaulted his senses one after another. He closed his eyes for a moment to think. As the tower re-entered the atmosphere, winds blew upwards, pushing him and Jenso back to their feet again, holding them upright with a gentle, yet sturdy breeze. Yzeira looked at Jenso through saddened eyes. A pain he had not felt in millennia. It was as if he'd awoken from a very long dream. A dream encased in ruby crystals and bathed in blood.

"What have I..." He took a step back, shakily maintaining his balance.

"Jenso!" Jeff yelled, flying over with what little energy he had. The man held his gauntlet up to Yzeira's head while all of his other friends stayed back.

A Hero Tale {Complete}

~ Chapter 218 ~

_Providence

Yzeira stood mere inches from the edge of his tower. After the flash of light, all became calm. The darkness of space slowly began to fade away as the tower of chaos, now in pieces, fell back towards the earth. Its dimensional coating began to fade away, and the rock that comprised it slowly faded to gray, turning into normal stone bricks. Yzeira's eyes looked around, taking in the surroundings one detail at a time. He saw it all, clearly. His vision was not stained by blood. It all looked as it should have. Then his eyes snapped on to Jenso.

"What... Did you do?"

A Hero Tale {Complete}

The beam did not part, but it could not pass through Jenso's body. Every shred of energy that Yzeira fired halted, attacking Jenso's soul down to its very core. But it did not harm him. Jenso's soul stood resolute, growing even more powerful than before. He rushed through the torrent of energy, accepting all of Yzeira's feelings as he leaped over the gap in the tower that separated them. Yzeira narrowed his eyes and his smile disappeared. He looked confused. He didn't know what was happening. That ignorance made him falter. He took a step back.

"H...How?"

Another step back.

"I'm striking you straight to the core!"

Another.

"My energy.. It's.. My.."

Jenso's figure appeared in front of him as he ceased his beam. Yzeira looked up at him, eyes wide. He didn't know what was going on. All of his power, all of his intelligence, all of his determination. When pitted against Jenso, he should have won. And in truth, he did. Jenso's soul could not take the full brunt of his energy. As he sacrificed it to the brunt force of Yzeira's attack, his powers rapidly dwindled. But that was his plan. That was what he needed to do to end it all. Jenso accepted it, understood the pain with every step that he took towards his goal. Every Millennia of torturous agony that Yzeira had gone through, it seeped into his body like a poison, and with his last step, and final thrust, he aimed to purge the wickedness from the man's mind with the last of his power.

"Prov..idence?" Yzeira whispered as light surged through his body and engulfed the entirety of his tower. He felt it burn him from head to toe. He couldn't react... No, he could have. But then and there, a silhouette of his family assailed in in a flash flood of healing memories. Jenso's power finally reached down to the pits of his soul, and within seconds, the red in his hair began to fade. It faded to orange, then to purple. His eyes began to gain a clarity that hadn't been present before. Crimson streams of void were ripped from his soul one after the other. When his hair and eyes finally reached full clarity, he stood there with a pristine crystalline blue gaze, silent, and un-moving as Jenso stood before him, battered and bruised, his power robbed of him by his own hand, or rather, granted to Yzeira in one final act of kindness.

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~ End Of Chapter 217 ~