Okumura Syndicate Ending 1

Chapter 187: Trapped Within The Dreamscape

After getting whisked away by Vox's horrendous clouds, Sulena found herself on a dark, dingy path in the dead of night. She felt remnants of the webs on her hands grow heavier as rain fell upon her humanlike head. "Aster? Fleur? Are you there?", she shouted, but only the void spoke back. Her legs grew weaker as she became soaked in Earth's natural shower, she knew she needed to find sanctuary, and any kind of shelter would do.

To her luck, a candlelit building laid ahead of her. "Finally, somewhere to rest from this hellish environment...", she thought. However, as she walked, the house remained a few steps ahead of her, and the more she tried to catch up with it, the more raced along with her. The arachnid woman sighed, "Just like back in the mountains...", she commented. She attempted once more, no luck, but the house seemed so inviting, she felt a burning urge to keep going.

Sulena's calves creaked with tiredness, as if she'd been walking an entire day. "Need home...need sustenance...", she groaned. Eventually, she gave up, taking a seat on the damp and waterlogged ground. Shivering, she couldn't take her eyes off the building, but at this point it was a distant dream. Even her web couldn't grab it, although its effect remained. She was exhausted, and her eyes began to flutter slowly shut. Remembering her purpose, her head tightened with the pain, thinking of those she couldn't help. Was this what her life had led to? A fruitless chase? Her body and mind pounded her soul, but the journey raged on.

On the other side of the spectrum entirely, Shiva seemed rather pleased with himself when his consciousness returned to him. His surroundings were pure white, with nothing else in sight. "Yes! I finally got out of that damned place!", he cheered to himself. To him, this plain backdrop looked like a peaceful limbo between worlds, and if he were correct, surely Vox would be defeated, right? He began gloating in his mind, imagining what could've happened for such a decisive victory. That was, until he positioned his hands

"No portal? That's never happened before!", he said, trying again to no avail. "Well, if I'm stuck here, I may as well entertain myself.", he gloated. "Watching my mist isn't so bad, I should create some...", he decided, but that ability didn't work either. Shiva grew frantic, "Is that it? Am I stuck in this lobby of unlimited worlds with no powers to access them?!", he yelled out into emptiness. Nothing, not even an echo replied to him. For the first time, Shiva was bored.

It was the most boring feeling ever, it felt like he had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. The longer he waited, the more he began to think he would remain trapped in this endless white nothingness. After all, he had no powers, not . He was just a mortal who enjoyed playing pranks on people with his magic. However, the more his mind raced, the more he imagined that something was there, a speck of dark in an endless world of light. What that speck was he was unsure, but there was one fact he was certain about, and that was that whatever was behind him was waiting for him to step forward, to chase it.

He took a deep breath and focused his energy onto the darkness, attempting to call forth some sort of power, anything at all, that was powerful enough to bring him out of this nightmare. Gradually, the speck in the infinite whiteness began to grow. It was becoming clearer and clearer that Shiva wasn't hallucinating. As the chaotic fiend approached the object in his view, he realised it was far from the insignificant dot he thought it was, it had limbs, it was human.

"Demitris? What are you doing here?", gasped Shiva. "You don't really expect me to believe you're real?", asked Demitris bitterly. "Oh, believe me. I know the feeling...", replied Shiva in a sigh. Demitris was fit to coil into a ball, the mere sight of someone else filled him with shame. "This doesn't change a thing, and you know it", he muttered. Shiva scoffed as he confessed something he never thought he would, " As much as I hate taking sides, surely you could get out of here. They need you, Demitris! I just travel between worlds as I please, but you, you and everyone else have found community, a home."

Demitris screwed up his single eye at Shiva, trying tirelessly to trudge away from him. "Aren't you going to talk to me?", the man with two-toned hair beckoned as he followed the incubus relentlessly. This was the only thing he could do, nothing else was here, nothing better to appease his hunger for entertainment. Suddenly, the incubus ahead of him snapped, showing his full form once more. "I hurt them! Don't you understand?! I disappointed Rou's legacy!". Then, it all made sense.