Chapter 19

Chapter 19

15 KILOMETERS SOUTHEAST OF UBEDA, SPAIN
DECEMBER 24, 2048

[Ryu Mitsukai (Shadow) - 22 years old]
[Skylar Lawrence (Starry) - 26 years old]
[Tezuka Kejinto (Storm) - 22 years old]

Ever since Double God disappeared, the news spread all over the world faster than you can say ‘Fifth Universe.’

After Dark and Light Gods died, Double God disappeared, two Angels stopped coming to their rescue a thousand years ago, and the Fifth Universe was constantly threatened. Somehow, the Fifth Universe barely overcame every single threat. With the help of its own inhabitants, of course.

They thought that the Gods and Angels were really gone. They would probably never come back again.

Until Double God showed up, that is.

“...claimed that it was Double God who saved us all --” a female reporter stops talking when the television gets suddenly turned off.

“Ridiculous.” Tezuka scoffs and tosses the remote at the couch, as he gets up and stretches out his sore arm. “We’ve been doing fine without them, haven't we? The universe survived without them, didn’t it?”

“That’s not the case,” Knapp says. “The Fifth Universe is already fragile. It just… It got lucky because it has its own people who truly care. But it can die anytime now.”

“So why isn't Double God doing anything about it?” Ryu asks.

“He already is,” Knapp answers. “He is feeding his own dark and light energies to the universe, but that has greatly restricted his access to our world. He is trapped in the Heart of the Fifth Universe. He is trying to be… close enough that he can easily provide his energy for the Fifth Universe. After the Fall of the Moon… his time is running out. He’s getting more and more exhausted.”

“Peek-a-boo!” Logy uncovers his hazel eyes, making the nearly-2-year-old Ketsu laugh loudly, who interrupts the conversation.

“It’s amazing that he is Dark Angel,” Ryu mumbles, almost to himself. “It’s hard to believe that he is almost two years old…”

“Gods and Angels disappeared on us a thousand years ago…” Sky says thoughtfully. “What’s the story with their disappearances? Why did they leave the Fifth Universe suddenly?”

“Double God is… Well, who knows?” Knapp shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t really care. I am the Universe Warrior. I’m here to protect the Fifth Universe.”

“Then, why didn't you go on the past missions with us if you’re so powerful?” Tezuka crosses his arms in suspicion.

“Shut up!” Jade yells angrily. “It’s not his fault that he lost his power --”

“Jade!” Sky snaps at him.

“He lost his power? What did he mean?” Ryu asks.

“W-well…” Sky scratches the back of his head nervously. “I mean… we thought that you and Tezuka would be the next Breakers, but…”

“So, what is the problem?” Tezuka asks.

Sky shakes his head sadly. “S-sorry, I can’t tell you --”

“It’s ok,” Knapp says calmly, as he places his hand on Sky’s shoulder. “They have the right to know… they are part of the Dark Team now, right?”

He glances at the younger Mitsukai and Kejinto. “The reason why I left Earth in the first place was because the Fifth Universe asked me to gather my team so we could come back to fight back the Locker and to free Earth from the chains. However, Leon already knew that I’m here… somehow. As the Universe Warrior, I receive the power of the Fifth Universe. But now I can barely reach out to the universe because of the chains. That’s why I can’t use my power here at all. It’s called universe energy. It’s a power that only Universe Warriors use.”

“So, you were hoping that we were the next Breakers so that we can destroy the chains completely?” Tezuka asks. “So that you can use the power of the universe again?”

“Yes.” Knapp smiles nervously at him.

“You should’ve seen how he fights!” Sky exclaims in excitement. “He was quite amazing! He can kick Leon's ass!"

“Universe energy? What else haven’t you told us yet --” Ryu gets interrupted.

“5-U! I’ve recently discovered the location of Leon Alvarez!” Clear exclaims into the loudspeaker. “Hurry! Come to the bridge!”

~*~

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
JANUARY 1, 2049

After Clear informs them of Leon’s location which is in San Diego, California, the Dark Team immediately starts planning the possibly last mission. That is to defeat Leon at any cost.

The Fall of the Moon? They won’t have to worry about it at all. It won’t probably happen again for the next fifty years when it gets the closest to Earth.

Everyone, except Rosa and Akane, gets dropped off at the Point Loma by Clear who wishes them good luck.

They are wearing protective masks, which prevents radiation from getting into their lungs. The radioactive level is still high, even after 27 years since it got hit by a nuclear missile.

“We split up into two groups,” Knapp says. “Storm, Starry, and Shadow - you are in Myou Group. The rest is in the Hikari Group. Go!”

They quickly scatter out. The Hikari Group is heading north while the Myou Group is heading east.

“Shadow, can you see Coronado?” Tezuka asks when they arrive at San Diego Bay. Immediately, Ryu’s eyes glow with white energy.

“It’s not too far. Less than a mile away from here,” He answers. “I can see a lot of firing weapons though.”

“There’s a war zone too? All the way here?” Sky sounds surprised. “Last time I heard the battle was in Los Angeles six months ago.”

“What do we do, Storm? Nobody is leading our mission anymore,” Ryu asks.

“We rush through the zone,” Tezuka says simply.

“What?! No!” Sky cries in panic, as he waves his hands in the air nervously. “No, no, no! What if we get killed accidentally?!”

“Not if I use rush and dark powers at the same time.” Tezuka beams an unusual grin on his face, as he creates a ball of black barrier around them. “Wouldn’t want to get our weapons wet swimming across the bay… right?”

“W-what do you mea --” Sky cannot finish his question when Tezuka suddenly moves the dark ball across the bay. Not only does it move, but it is fast.

Way too fast enough to make Sky fall over and gets stuck rotating and rotating constantly along the consistent moving ball.

“Oh shit! I forgot to place the plate under him!” Ryu realizes that he has forgotten to use his light energy to create a third plate for Sky. He and Tezuka are already standing on two.

“He’ll be fine.” Tezuka shrugs his shoulders. “It won’t be long before we get there.”

When they get to the land, Sky cannot help but collapse to his knees due to terrible dizziness. He complains, “You could have stopped!”

“They’re getting closer.” Ryu glances at the far distance where he can see, by using aguila energy, the no-man zone heading this way. “We have to move now.”

After two miles, they manage to avoid the war zone where soldiers from all over the world fight. They stumble upon an abandoned hotel, which is being used as a U.S. Navy base.

At least, it used to be the navy base. They can clearly see a lot of corpses around outside the old hotel.

“There’s a chance that Leon may be inside,” Sky says.

“Well, then… let’s go --” Tezuka is interrupted when the building suddenly gets blown up, sending a loud and powerful shockwave all over the area.

The three former soldiers cover their ears, screaming in pain. Their ears are ringing loudly after the shock wave passes. “W-what the hell just happened?” Ryu asks.

Leon steps out of thick and dark smoke with one of his fists bursting with bright white energy. His bursting energy fades away into nothingness. As usual, he puts his hands behind his own back. He gives them a small smirk, even though his gas mask is hiding it. “I didn’t expect that you’d find me so soon.”

“You bastard!” Tezuka yells at him. He has so much stuff to say to Colonel… No. He will never call him Colonel ever again. “You betrayed us! Why would you do that?! Is it because of our grandfathers?!”

“So, the Dark Team and Double God told you such stories about your grandfathers?” Leon scoffs. “This universe is doomed either way -- as long as the people still visit other planets and initiate wars… that’s why the universe is dying.”

“W-what do you mean?” Sky asks. He has never heard of new information like that before.

“Oh, I had lived more than Double God did!” Leon laughs lightly. “When he opened the paths between the planets… I didn’t think much of it. But my people… they didn’t have any purpose in their lives anymore. Without the souls to use to create chains, one by one, they died. My brother and I managed to survive. Gods and Angels were gone for the past thousand years. So, my brother and I started to lock the planets so we could survive a little longer... but…”

Angry white energy begins to surround his hand. “The Breakers came along! They killed my brother! And me? I ran away like a coward! Then… I felt it. This beautiful yet weak blue planet is the Heart of the Fifth Universe! You, out of all people, should know that we must stop the wars at any cost!”

“You’re wrong!” Tezuka snaps at him. “You’re doing this for revenge because of your brother! That makes me wonder… Why did Double God decide to open the paths knowing that it would kill your people? As we can see, your chain energy is killing Earth! You tried to pull the Moon for it to crash into this planet. Earth is dying! Did you seriously think that we weren’t going to do anything about it?”

“You are right. I underestimated you over and over again. But not this time!” Leon smacks his fist bursting with white lion energy onto the ground, which instantly turns into a new crater, causing the rest of the ground to shake violently.

“Eeps!” Sky cries, as he falls to the ground along with Ryu and Tezuka.

“I should’ve killed you the first time we met back then!” Leon quickly takes off into the sky, with light blue hawk energy surrounding his feet. Sudden thunderbolts spark across the dark clouds. “Die!”

Tezuka easily dodges from the lightning bolts; thanks to his rush energy. Sky and Ryu, on the other hand, are basically running for their lives.

“Quit it!” Ryu yells angrily, as he throws a light energy ball at Leon but the former Colonel easily dodges.

He dodged? Tezuka blinks in surprise. Doesn’t he have a reflect energy that can deflect any attacks? Unless…!

“Shadow! Keep using your light power to attack him!” He shouts. He quickly throws energy balls made of dark power at Leon. Ryu quickly joins him.

Leon growls lightly, as he keeps dodging from the orbs of light and darkness. As soon as he sees the opening when Tezuka and Ryu take a quick break, he charges at them suddenly.

“Oscu --” Tezuka gets punched hard in the face, crashing into the ground. He swears that his jaw is broken, but it works just fine when he yells, “You son of a bitch!”

“What?!” Leon asks in surprise. “You’re not dead? Ah yes…” He chuckles softly. “It’s because of Double God, isn’t it?”

Your lives are in my hands.

“H-he used lion energy,” Sky stammers. “Tezuka could have gotten killed just from that punch!”

“Hikyou-sama,” Ryu says softly. He smiles briefly, as he closes his eyes. He is feeling something very warm, as if there is a presence nearby. “He is with us right now.”

You just need to follow your hearts.

“It doesn’t matter how many times Double God saved you! There are no more Breakers!” Leon laughs loudly. “All of them are dead. Earth is dying as we are speaking at this moment! Even if you defeat me… the chains will always stand! There is nobody who can break my chains at all, not even Double God! What can you do against my five powers?!”

For the last millions of years, I’ve seen people with just one power defeating others with multiple powers.

Ryu opens his glowing eyes, as he reaches out his hand as if he is aiming. His hand begins to emit a bright white aura. “Light Shoot!” 

“Dark Rush!” Tezuka does the same thing as Ryu does. An orb of either light and darkness comes out of their open palms, being shot flying toward Leon.

Leon quickly rushes off through the sky, evading the universe’s strongest attacks completely. He laughs loudly. “Too bad! I can always dodge…” He stops when he looks behind himself only to realize that two orbs are following him. “What?! Nooooooo!”

Even though he quickly puts up a reflect barrier, the orbs still go through and hit him directly, blowing him away. Only things that come out of it are dark smokes.

“You did it!” Sky exclaims in excitement, as he jogs toward Tezuka and Ryu. “You kicked ass!”

Tezuka gives him an unusual smile, which almost startles Sky. Ryu sighs in exhaustion, as he takes a seat on the ground.

“Only if we can figure out how to get rid of the chains up there…” Ryu mumbles, looking up at the cloudy sky.

“You are the grandsons of the Breakers, right? You can break them!” Sky exclaims.

“But we don’t know how to.” Tezuka shrugs his shoulders. “We can figure it out once we meet up with the rest of the Dark Team.”

“I will call them,” Ryu says, as he turns on the communication link. “5-U…”

His words just go through Sky’s ears. The blonde-haired healer is staring at the cloudy sky almost intensely. For some reason, he is feeling something ominously. Is it because of the chains that are still killing Earth? Or is it something else? Is Jikan back already?

“I think we need to go now,” He says suddenly.

“Why?” Ryu blinks in surprise. 

“I-I…” Sky says nervously. “I think we shouldn’t stay here any longer.”

Tezuka scoffs at him. “What now? The war zone is over there. It’s not like we can go anywhere now.”

Sky does not open his mouth this time. Instead, he looks away from Tezuka and Ryu nervously. Maybe they are right. He is panicking for no reason. Leon is dead, right?

No. Sky spots unusual amount of lightning bolts sparking around the dark clouds. They are getting closer and closer until the point when it gets way too close for Sky’s liking.

“Oh no!” Sky cries and runs toward Tezuka and Ryu who are speaking to each other.

“What?” Ryu asks, almost annoyed.

Sky jumps toward Ryu and Tezuka suddenly. Immediately, one of the lightning bolts crashes him right in the back, making him scream so loud.

They stare at him in both confusion and disbelief until they hear a familiar loud laughter.

“Leon!” Tezuka shouts angrily.

“Skylar!” Ryu cries after he snaps out of the shock he was in. He has never felt this helpless before until he is watching Sky screaming nonstop in pain.

“That’s enough!” Tezuka yells as he throws a black spear bursting with dark energy at Leon.

The leader of Big Five does not have time to deflect or avoid Tezuka’s unexpected attack, so he manages to dodge it but it still cuts his left shoulder. He quickly grabs his wounded shoulder, hissing in both pain and anger.

As in the result, the lightning attack stops. Almost going into unconsciousness, Sky almost collapses to the ground, but Ryu catches him before he does. Ryu quickly creates a white barrier, protecting himself and Sky from any attacks from outside.

Sky whimpers in pain, as he weakly places his hand on his own chest, healing himself. He sighs lightly in relief as the pain is starting to go away.

“Sky! Are you ok?” Tezuka quickly kneels next to Ryu and Sky after running. “Double fucking God! You could have gotten yourself killed!!”

“I-I’m sorry,” Sky chuckles weakly. “You’re the only ones who can defeat him… The only thing I can do is to heal people.”

“Don’t say that! You helped us plenty of times!” Surprisingly, it is Tezuka who says that. “You saved our lives countless times! We can defeat him together!”

Ryu grins widely at his partners… No, not partners. They are his best friends.

“Yes, sir!” Ryu and Sky exclaim at the same time.

“You’re really getting on my nerves!” Leon growls lightly, as he lifts himself up into the air, with his hawk energy sending breezes all over the field. “I should’ve killed all of you… and S.W.S. the moment Sergeant Kyota introduced you. Of course, I underestimated you because you weren’t touched by Double God back then.”

“You knew that it was us all along?” Sky asks in surprise.

“Oh, you figured it out just now?” Leon scoffs, as he puts up one of his fists with tiny lightning bolts sparking around. “Yes. It’s because of Jikan who found me 27 years ago…. A year before the Nuclear War started! She told me the history -- her own history, which has not been created yet. I told her that I’m going to help her to change the future… Her own future… was truly terrible.”

“Where… where did she come from?” Ryu hesitantly asks.

“68 years in the future!” Leon laughs loudly. “She said that the entire New York City was destroyed -- said there was a huge attack from the alien spaceships! Turns out that Planet Volesmash still has a grudge against Earth… even in the future!”

“W-what the hell is going on?” Tezuka asks almost shakily. “Didn’t we win against them three decades ago? Didn’t they agree to stop attacking us as long as we established our trading agreement?”

“We will figure it out after this fight,” Sky says calmly, which is unusual for Ryu and Tezuka. “We need to stop him first!”

“I need you guys to distract him.” Using aguila energy in his dark eyes, Ryu makes a quick scan of the whole area, trying to find some kind of a hidden spot. “He is the Locker who lived longer than Double God did. Even our godly powers won’t win against him.”

“What is the plan?” Tezuka asks quietly.

“I’ll place the light energy into the bullet, but as you can see, Leon can easily dodge bullets. That’s when you guys need to distract him from me… make sure he focuses on you guys. It’s our only chance!”

“What are you whispering about? Have you forgotten about me?” Leon laughs loudly, He suddenly jumps high into the air -- literally going through clouds.

“W-what the hell?!” Sky cries.

“Run! He is going to do something destructive!” Tezuka yells worriedly, noticing that Leon’s fist is bursting brightly with so much white energy.

The trio tries to run as far as possible, Tezuka being the furthest; thanks to his rush energy. Ryu quickly puts up white barrier with light energy trying to protect himself. He does the same thing to Sky, but it is quite difficult for him to keep up with Sky who runs like hell.

As Leon’s fist finally connects to the ground, it instantly turns into a new large crater the size of a baseball field.  Shockwaves all over the area send a lot of debris - small and big rocks, including sharp ones, flying fast.

After realizing that Ryu’s white barrier disappears into air due to light energy running out, Sky is trying to brace his face and chest with his own arms, as he quickly turns around, cringing at quick pain from his back due to flying debris hitting him.

“Sky!” Tezuka yells in worry. He quickly creates a dark barrier around Sky. He sighs in relief but that does not last any longer. An 5-inch long sharp rock has pierced through his left side below his ribs. “Ugh!” He whimpers in pain and pulls it out quickly, grabbing his bleeding side.

“Oh no!” Sky cries, rushing toward Tezuka who struggles not to collapse but he does anyway. “Don’t get up yet!” He quickly places his hand on Tezuka’s wounded area, healing it as fast as possible. He winces at more debris hitting his back painfully, but he does not care at all.

“F-forget me.” Tezuka hisses in pain, as he watches Leon heading for them this way. Leon is holding a sharp metal piece of a pole, which looks like it is coming from a metal fence or gate. “Hurry, run! I am fine!”

Ryu has been running all the way toward Tezuka and Sky, but he realizes that he will not make it in time to protect both of them. He quickly takes out his pistol and aims it at Leon, silently hoping that he has not been spotted yet.

He fires his weapon, but Leon quickly puts up his barrier to deflect away the bullets. 

“You die!” Leon yells angrily, as he thrusts the metal forward, aiming for Tezuka’s chest, but Sky suddenly gets in the way, throwing himself in front of Tezuka. Sharp metal pierces through Sky’s chest effortlessly.

Tezuka widens his blue eyes in shock when Sky’s blood splashes on him.

“SKY, NO!” Ryu cries.