Number 7

'How annoying...'

[Even if you refer to me as annoying... I can hear everything you think. Ah... but how fortunate for you that I'm not a very vengeful person. Or at least... not anymore.]

Victor could almost see the smirk on the face of the demon, who for whatever reason insisted on speaking with him.

[At any rate... you know nothing about those runes which I have given you. Do you not have a plan? Do you not care about the drawbacks? Ah - don't answer that. I already know.]

With a chuckle, the demonic woman hit the nail on the head.

[Even if there were drawbacks... you never intended on being the one to experience them.]

[You would experiment and experiment, throwing away as many subjects as necessary until you were able to successfully empower them with whatever strange and unique abilities are contained within those runes.]

As Victor walked over to the runes, he looked to Number One, waving for her to come over to him.

"Carry these.", he ordered.

"I understand....", the girl replied as she molded her hand into the form of a sack, which she quickly began to fill with the runes.

Crossing his arms and tapping his foot as he impatiently waited, the man looked up to the ceiling, though there was no response.

"Well?", he asked. "Are you not going to inform me about these runes, since you've gone as far as to provoke me?"

[Such a cheeky tone towards a being that could erase your existence in an instant. But fine. I'll tell you, since it will hasten things either way. I would rather not sit around and watch as nothing gets done.]

With a sigh, the being showed a strange sense of humanity.

[After all... it has been quite boring for the past couple of thousand years.]

"Enough of your ranting. Tell me then. What powers do these runes contain? Why do they each have a word on them? What do these words mean? How are the runes to be used? What powers do they grant? And most importantly... what limitations do they have?"

Spitting off question after question, Victor gazed upon the girl, who was diligently packing the runes one by one.

[So many questions. Let's see... well, as far as the powers they contain... Each rune holds a piece of my power. I suppose I should explain my own power first then.... hah... very well. But rather than explaining... I suppose it would be easier to show you.]

At that instant, Victor felt something.

A strange wind perhaps - one which should not have existed within this sealed off cavern - seemed to blow around him.

And then, with the blink of his eye, he was no longer in a cavern.

'Wha-'

Number One was no longer with him, for he had been transported somewhere else altogether.

He was in a land of fire.

"AGH!!!"

The soles of his feet burned as he looked down to realize that he was floating on a hardened piece of molten rock, floating about on this raft in a sea of lava.

"Wha... where am I!? Where is this!? What-"

[Silence.]

Then as soon as he opened his mouth, he felt it shut by a strange force which seemed to bind it closed.

[Is this hell... you may wonder.]

The man was forced to jump from one foot to another as the soles of his feet were smoldered in heat.

A volcanic mountain could be seen in the distance, spewing out lava as it added to the sea, and if the man were to look up he would realize that this entire world of flames was in an underground cavern.

However he was too occupied at the moment to do such a thing.

'AGH!!! My... my feet!!! They're being scalded!!'

[But that thought would be... incorrect. As a matter of fact... you have not been moved anywhere. Rather... the very space around you has been REDETERMINED.]

With a giggle, a wave of lava rose up as Victor was forced to watch, horrified as it crashed down upon him.

'Wait...'

'No...'

'Stop...'

However, right before this wave slammed on the man, the scenery changed.

Now he was in a kingdom.

Before him was a castle, and he was in the streets of a marketplace surrounded by people.

'Eh?'

Merchants sung songs as they advertised their products in a unique manner, and smiths hammered their wares after heating them in the fires.

Carriages carrying nobles led by horses made their way through the streets, and the peasants seemed to move out of the way on the approach of these nobles.

"Where... Did the flames go?"

"Hm? Hey buddy, you're lookin' quite spaced out there. You tired or something? Better get out of the way before you piss off the count."

"Eh?"

Victor could only look at the blacksmith who called out to him with a blank stare, completely unaware of this strange reality which he was forced to experience.

"What do you-"

"Out of the way, foolish peasant!!! How dare you stand in my path!? I'll have you reported to the guards, you know! You there! Grab this man and have him arrested for treason!"

A man with a curly mustache spoke from the inside of a carriage, peeking through the small window in the front as he ordered a nearby guard to move out.

'Huh?'

Victor turned to see the carriage behind him, and realized that he was blocking its path.

Yet this too happened in an instant.

Everything was moving too fast, so fast that he could not comprehend it.

And in the next moment he was surrounded.

"Will you come without resistance, or will you make us resort to force?", one guard shouted.

However before this guard had even finished his sentence, another attacked.

"Fool!! You should value your life more!! Do not blame us if you lose it this day!!"

At that instant, as if time had slowed, Victor witnessed the blade of the sword coming at him.

And then it stopped.

Right before hitting his skull, the blade froze in thin air.

And then, once again the scene changed.

Now he was inside something.

A gooey substance, yellow and completely engulfing his body.

'Where... am I this time?'

Victor felt himself losing a grip on reality.

'What is real?'

'What is fake?'

However such thoughts had no time to take their place - for in that instant he saw through the yellow liquid that surrounded him a number of beings approached him.

They were as large as humans, their figure fuzzy through the semi-transparent gel.

However Victor knew from their colors of black and yellow immediately what they were.

'No... stop...'

Then, they began to eat.

They ate away, tearing at the yellow cocoon of gelatin which engulfed the man with their massive mandibles, the number of the creatures multiplying by the second.

Three, four, five, seven, ten.

Eventually there were dozens, and the gelatin was reduced to nothing in moments.

And then, with his head fully exposed, Victor witnessed the creatures in their full form.

Wasps.

Enormous wasps.

"NOOO!!!!"

He shouted out, right as one opened its mandibles to bite off his head.

Yet this too caused a shift.

And now, looking around, Victor found himself - in a dimly lit room.

A red carpet made its way toward a throne, and this throne which was once empty... was now filled.

Filled by the figure of a demonic angel.

Half her body was pure and beautiful, the other half demonic and demented.

And right now, the woman sipped from a wine glass with a classiness unlike anything the man had ever witnessed.

[Ahh... how delicious. Now then... I suppose you are back, are you not, Victor?]

With a sinister smile, the woman thinned her eyes as she looked upon the man - as if he were her plaything.

[I suppose now it must be simple to understand. But even so... I will say it out loud. Each of those things you saw... were not mere visions. Nor were you teleported to some other dimension.]

[Just now... I shifted reality.]

[I redetermined the history of this world... and each of those scenarios were different forms of this particular location.]

With an almost playful giggle, the woman laughed even as she molded reality as she pleased.

[Quite convenient, isn't it?]

Taking another sip of her wine, she continued to swirl it about as she gazed deeply into the glass.

[However for each of those runes... they will not be as powerful as something like the ability to redetermine.... but rather... components which make up such a power.]

[For those who are compatible with those runes... they will be able to use the power which the word describes.]

[But do be careful, Doctor.]

[After all... if one is not compatible... or if one becomes too greedy and tries to obtain multiple powers... or if they are assigned a power which they are not compatible with… they will find themselves in a world of pain.]

[Therefore... you would do best not to randomly assign such powers.]

[However if you absolutely insist on such a thing... I suppose you could try to force the person to conform to the word itself.]

Then, turning the glass upside down, the woman chugged the rest of the crimson liquid.

Licking her lips, now reddened with the fluid, the woman lowered her tone as she took a tone that inspired terror throughout Victor’s very being.

[But I will leave that... to your experimentation.]

With these words, the demon disappeared.

Vanishing from thin air as if she had never existed in the first place, Victor was left with eyes wide, unable to even speak a single word.

'Is this... reality?'

The man wondered this as he looked to see that Number One had finished collecting the runes.

'Or is this just another one of her false worlds?'

Closing his eyes, the man smiled.

'No... that does not matter.'

'For even if this very world is a sham to her... that means she can control it with ease.'

At that moment, the man was overcome by an intense gluttony - grinning deviously as his eyes thinned in delight.

'Which means if I am able to control her powers... then even this world will become something that is easily overtaken.'

----

[The Present Time]

[Just after Sylvia and Marcus had parted ways]

As Marcus and Isabella returned to the Department store, the girl looked up to her master with an inquisitive expression.

"What... should I do?", she asked quietly - testing how he would respond to her willingness to take action.

The man seemed to bring his hand to his chin, not turning towards the girl as he stroked it in thought, then glancing around him with his eyes, he nodded.

"What else?"

Bending to the ground, the man touched it with his hand, which soon split apart into a plethora of tentacles.

The tentacles dug into the floor, piercing straight through it as they entered the ground within an instant, wrapping an entire network below them as they tunneled outwards.

"I don't know exactly how she knew that such a person was an enemy... but I will trust Sylvia's judgment. And if that man is indeed an enemy... then there is only one thing that we can do."

With a smile, the man closed his eyes as the tentacles continued to expand their reach, feeding him the layout of the space around him.

"We gather information... so that we may defeat whatever enemy has appeared."

----

'Mass cannot be created nor destroyed.'

'Energy cannot be created nor destroyed.'

Marcus felt it.

His tentacles spread throughout the underground, digging through the dirt as they stretched, becoming thinner and thinner as their reach increased.

The vibrations of the soil caused by movement above, the differences in pressure created by the existence of buildings, he felt it all.

'However while mass and energy cannot be created nor destroyed, they can be converted from one form to another. To put it simply... they can be redefined.'

Marcus grinned, sensing two particular vibrations.

The first - a cluster of vibrations, great and small.

So many he could never hope to differentiate between them, much less predict what was causing such vibrations.

And the second - separate from these two.

Much quieter, yet distinctly different.

'Yet even such rules of the universe... Perhaps they too can be broken. After all...'

Locking onto his target, a devilish smirk overcame Marcus as he stood up, retracting the tentacles which he had used to gain such information.

His arm soon returned to normal, as if it had never been in such a monstrous state in the first place.

'There is no longer any certainty in this world anymore. And even these fundamental laws... are nothing more than flimsy in the face of this chaos.'

Stepping forward, Marcus waved for the girl at his side to follow him, which she did without complaint or question.

'Perhaps those rules too... I will one day be able to redefine.'

Making his way through the aisles of the department store, Marcus eventually came across an elevator.

Glaring at a pin pad which required a password in order to activate, the man merely chuckled as if such a thing was nothing more than a petty annoyance.

Holding out his hand, the man grasped the pinpad, at which he closed his eyes.

He could feel electric signals spreading around him as he redefined the very essence of the object he touched, opening his eyes as he uncovered his hand.

'But for now... we will focus on one goal.'

And as he took his hand away from the pad, as if a magic trick had been performed... an elevator button now replaced it.

Pressing the button, a dinging sound quickly resounded from the elevator, to which the man entered with elegance.

Fixing his tie like a businessman heading towards the penthouse of a skyscraper, the man confidently pressed the button which would take him to the highest floor.

The girl quickly scampered into the elevator along with the man, clinging to him as she watched carefully, studying his every action so as to understand the man known as her master.

For if she were to serve him, she must first understand him.

His personality, his methods, his goals - and everything else about him.

From the slightest motions to the grandest schemes.

'And my only goal... which has been gifted to me by the woman who is currently risking her life to allow me to form a plan... is to defeat whatever enemy has appeared... using any method possible.'

At that moment, the man could not contain his smile.

The elevator doors closed, and the machine which should not have been in working function took this man upwards.

Ding.

One by one, they passed floor after floor as they rose, the elevator making a sound with each rise in elevation.

Ding.

And with each rising floor, so too did the confidence which the man held rise.

'How simple it is to defeat an opponent... when I do not have to concern myself with my own standing. Truly... having nothing to lose is a wonderful thing.'

Glancing down at the girl however, the man wondered something to himself.

'However.... I do wonder.... Do I still have something to lose?'

Breathing in slowly, the elevator made one last ding as the doors opened - at which the man stepped in front of the girl, not looking back.

Then, with a smile that desired to take control of everything in this world, the man stopped himself from laughing as he pressed on, entering the darkened halls which were laid out before him.

'No... we have only to gain.'

----

"How pathetic."

Sitting in a room, surrounded by an immeasurable number of televisions which showed security feed from every nook and cranny of this department store and its premises, sat a man.

His head shaved completely, he was hunched up as he held both of his legs in his chair as his eyes consumed the screen before him, a decrepit smile covering his expression.

"Just what was that woman thinking?", he uttered while he laughed, victorious in tone yet confused as if he could never possibly comprehend the subject of his question.

For on the screen in front of him, there she was.

Dead.

In the center of a group of zombies, the woman was consumed as she was surrounded, and they continued to feast on her flesh even after she had died.

At some point they stopped and lost interest, yet the man could do nothing more than leer as he watched.

'She knew well that this was a trap... an inescapable place... yet she was guided here so easily.... hahaha... and yet she claimed that I too will be defeated? Or rather... that this was all part of her plan?'

With a scoff, the man brushed off the sentiment.

'Ludicrous.'

Standing up from his chair, the man sneered as he gazed around him, taking in the view of the numerous security cameras.

Some showed the devastated scene of a parking lot, now devoid of the undead.

Others showed the inside of the department store, emptied as well.

'Although… This is quite the setback. The zombies being killed are one thing, but nobody would want to enter a place which looks as if some horrible event occurred outside it. There are no other places that I can maintain this level of control over... therefore I suppose I will have to find a way to restore the conditions to before... restore... restore, eh?'

As the man thought, he shook his head in denial as he closed his eyes.

'No... no... working with others is unacceptable. Wait... wait just a moment.'

Widening his eyes, the man came to a strange realization.

Looking around, he realized the process of his own thoughts just now.

'Restore?'

'Why... Did I think of such an ability?'

'I... am the only one with these abilities, no?'

'Just myself... and those two whom I need to eliminate.'

'That... should be correct, shouldn't it?'

Something was off.

The knowledge which the man had conflicted with his own intuition, which held no base.

'Why then... did I immediately think of the existence of such an ability?'

Shaking it off, the man began to pace in the room as he refocused his thoughts.

'No... there should be no others... but regardless, I need to destroy both of them. Which leaves the man. The woman is dead, and that leaves the man. Hah... she certainly tried to go out with a bang. Going as far as to claim that this was all part of her plan.'

With a chuckle, the man returned his eyes to the screen, laying them on the dead body of the woman.

'But what sort of plan involves your own death?'

A bluff.

This was the conclusion that the man came to.

The words of the woman before her death must have been nothing more than a bluff.

Perhaps she had lost her mind as she realized her life was over, and that her situation was beyond hopeless.

'When people give in to despair... when the situation is completely desolate of any form of hope... they lose themselves.'

'And this woman was no different.'

These were the lies that the man deceived himself to believe.

'Yet even so....'

The man could not forget the gaze in her eyes.

A gaze which was not terrified.

Not a pained gaze, or a suffering one - but rather a horrible gaze.

A gaze completely and utterly filled with condescendence.

As if she was victorious.

'Why... did she glare at me with such eyes?'

'Why did she truly believe in her mind that she was the one who had achieved victory?'

'It was the moment after I explained my ability to her... at that moment... something about her changed.'

Considering this, the man known as redirect began to wonder.

What could possibly have been the goal of that woman?

Even if she had sensed his malicious intentions, even if somehow she had a plan which involved her own death - was slaughtering him something worth giving her life for?

'In order to lure more employees here to my store... I must be the only one in this world with this type of ability. For the existence of another will serve as nothing more than a threat.'

'I alone must be the only one with such power in this world.'

'And any others who hold it... will need to die.'

This alone, the man knew with certainty.

Yet where had the man gone?

At first he was in the Department store, yet the bald man had been distracted.

'At the time I was watching the woman die, I was focusing on the warehouse... I was so concerned with defeating her that I wasn't paying attention to the store... and I no longer see those other two on any of the cameras. Did they make a run for it while I was distracted?'

Glancing from camera to camera, the man grimaced as he realized that his prey had been allowed to escape.

'Was this your goal, woman?'

He wanted to spit, however he did not do so.

'You wanted to distract me to buy time so that the others could get away?'

'You sensed somehow that you would not be able to defeat me on my home turf... therefore you decided instead to allow your allies to escape so that they could plot against me?'

The man found himself at a crossroad.

Should he chase after them, taking control of an army of zombies as he traveled, using them to shield himself from any attacks, or should he instead curl up inside his store, waiting for them to return only to ambush them at that time?

'I am no fool.'

Coming to a decision, the man clenched his teeth, accepting his small defeat.

'I will not allow myself to be subject to such a risk as traveling outside. Even with an army of zombies... if my enemy is another ability user, then I will not take any chances. I will wait for them to return... and prepare for that time.'

As much as it irritated him, the man admitted that the woman had gotten the best of him, at least in this insignificant aspect.

'Yet to give your life only to delay their inevitable death... well, I suppose if they were to leave this place and never return that would be one thing... but if that were truly the case then it would also mean that I would be able to do my work... without any hindrances.'

Nodding, the man smiled as he came to this conclusion.

'If that were the case, then letting those people go would not be such a terrible thing. After all... even if there were other ability users... the only reason they would be troublesome would be if they wished to hinder my efforts. Those who have a delusional sense of justice. Although... I suppose killing the woman without first trying to negotiate... well, perhaps that has sparked their anger... yet even so... I couldn't have just given up the opportunity to eliminate her.'

With a decrepit smile, the man chuckled to himself from inside that camera filled room.

'For if you have the advantage... you should use it before you no longer hold it.'

'And if those who could become a threat can be eliminated with ease... then why bother trying to negotiate?'

Even if negotiation was possible, the man came to the conclusion that eliminating her was the correct answer.

If her allies were the type to feel angered at her death, and were to return for revenge, then he would easily be able to take care of them.

And in doing so, he guaranteed that they WOULD return.

And in the off chance that they were completely heartless, able to cut off their comrade without a second thought... then they would never return here again.

And that would be acceptable.

They would no longer pose any problem to him and his activities, and it would be as if they never existed in the first place.

This was the logic the man used as he ordered the death of Sylvia, orchestrating it with his very hands.

However what this man did not realize was that such an action would unleash a monster.

A monster known as justification for murder.

[Heh... what a fool, that one is.]

Watching from above, Clarice could do nothing more than snicker as she took some popcorn in her demonic hand, crunching it with enjoyment.

[He doesn't realize it... but in killing Sylvia without reason... he's painted a target on himself.]

[Ah... haha... how troublesome. But now how will Marcus react?]

[How did Coran react when that legionnaire tried to slaughter one of the children he took in?]

With two sets of laughter, the angel and the demon watched.

One with a voice delightful to the ears, and the other sinister and wicked.

Yet both... overwhelming with power.

[That is right... of course... how could I forget.]

Wiping a tear from her eye, the angelic side of the woman let out a nostalgic smile.

[He slaughtered them all.]

At that moment, a voice was heard.

A voice from beyond the door of the security room which the man sat within.

"Now then... I suppose it's time to finish off this movement. I'll have to thank her for working so hard to provide me with this information. After all... a trade of Kings is not typically allowed. However in this case... I suppose we'll have to create an exception. But even so... I suppose she would be the queen? How fortunate then. After all... we only had to sacrifice our Queen to take out the enemy's only functioning piece. Because even if you are a king…”

Death had arrived.

“The only thing you control are pawns."

----