In a realm that existed between the ticks of a clock, a place draped in absolute, suffocating silence, a conversation was taking place that would make even a God's skin crawl. This was the 'Gaps'—the white spaces between the pages of existence where entropy held its breath.
The Unknown Figure stood before a swirling pool of cosmic static, his silhouette cutting a hole in the very fabric of the abyss. He wore a mask that was a void in itself—no features, no eye-slits, just a smooth expanse of darkness that seemed to swallow the very light in the room. It was a face that refused to be remembered. Beside him, a servant—a mass of flickering, glitchy shadows that hissed like a broken television—knelt in terror, its form struggling to remain coherent under the Figure's oppressive presence.
"The power of Ruleus... it has already reached the level of a Demi-god," The Unknown Figure resonated. His voice didn't travel through the air, it vibrated directly into the soul, sounding like the grinding of tectonic plates beneath a dead ocean. "And yet, that boy Ichikawa... he somehow managed to suppress that output with only 1% of his power while that red ring remains on his finger. A sinkhole of divinity, masking the end of days."
The servant shivered, its pixelated hands clutching the obsidian floor. "My Lord, if they continue to grow... if the seal weakens further and the silver-haired one realizes his own totality—"
"They won't," The Unknown Figure interrupted, the shadows in the room coiling like vipers. "I am going to kill them. I will not just stop their hearts—I will erase their very concepts from everything. Past, present, and future. Every footprint they've left, every breath they've taken, every memory of their 'deadass' existence will be cauterized from the timeline. When I am through, no one will be able to defeat me, for there will be no memory that they ever existed to challenge me. They will be unwritten."
Back in the noisy, low-budget reality of the school cafeteria, the 'deadass' energy was at an all-time high. The air smelled of floor wax and questionable grease. Ruleus was currently engaged in a battle of attrition with a bowl of Level 4 Curry, trying to see if he could inhale the steam to 'save time on chewing' while simultaneously balancing a spoon on his chin.
"Ichikawa-kun!" Ruleus chirped, his silver hair a chaotic mess and his eyes wide with spice-induced mania. "I can feel the molecules of the potato vibrating against my soul! It's like a spicy choir is singing in my esophagus! This is the peak of human—"
Suddenly, Ruleus froze.
It wasn't a normal pause. It was as if someone had hit the 'Pause' button on his very existence. The spoon stayed halfway to his mouth, gravity momentarily losing its grip on a stray drop of sauce. The chaotic, warm aura that usually radiated from him like a space heater suddenly turned into a cold, sharp vacuum. The chatter of the surrounding students seemed to muffled, as if the room had been submerged in deep water.
Ichikawa, who was busy trying to wipe a mysterious purple stain off his sleeve—likely a gift from Ruleus's earlier 'Exploding Fudge' incident—looked up. His divine senses, even throttled down to 1% by the red ring, screamed at him in a language of pure alarm. The 'sinkhole' on his finger throbbed with a rhythmic, warning heat, the red gem glowing like a dying star.
"Ruleus?" Ichikawa asked, his eyes narrowing into golden, predatory slits. He could feel the reality around them thinning. "What is it? Did you finally find a vegetable in there? Or did you just lose another argument with your own spoon?"
Ruleus didn't blink. He didn't answer. For the first time in their entire partnership, the 'deadass' vacant stare was gone. His expression became terrifyingly serious—a face carved from cold marble. His silver hair seemed to shimmer with a metallic, lethal edge, casting a shadow over his eyes that made him look like a completely different person; a being that existed far above the petty constraints of a school lunchroom.
Something is off, Ruleus thought to himself, his mind suddenly processing the fabric of reality at a speed that Transcended the concept of 'thought.' He wasn't seeing the cafeteria anymore; he was seeing the binary code of the universe flickering. *Someone is touching the 'Before' and 'After.' Someone is trying to cut the thread of my story.*
"Hey, Disaster Partner," Ichikawa said, leaning forward. His hand hovered near his blazer, ready to rip the seal if the air vibrated any harder. "Talk to me. You're scaring the people at the next table. Even the lunch lady is starting to look nervous."
Ruleus slowly turned his head to look at Ichikawa. The intensity in his gaze was so heavy it felt like physical pressure, a weight that threatened to crush the wooden table between them. For a moment, Ichikawa saw a glimpse of the Demi-god beneath the silver hair—an entity that could delete a timeline with a sneeze.
But after a heartbeat, Ruleus let out a tiny, barely audible breath. The tension snapped.
"It's nothing, Ichikawa-kun," Ruleus said, though his voice lacked its usual annoying, high-pitched cheer. It was steady, low, and hollow. "I just... I think the curry was so spicy I accidentally saw the end of time for a second. It was very bright. And it smelled like cinnamon. And maybe a little bit like ozone."
Ichikawa stared at him, his heart hammering against his ribs. He knew Ruleus was lying. You don't get that serious over a spicy potato unless your soul is sensing a Conceptual disaster. He could still feel the lingering chill of that masked gaze from the Void, a coldness that no amount of Level 4 Curry could burn away.
"Eat your food, idiot," Ichikawa muttered, though his hand remained clenched under the table, his thumb tracing the edge of the red ring. "We're leaving as soon as you're done. I don't like the way the air is vibrating. It feels like the universe is trying to reboot itself."
Ruleus nodded, but as he looked back down at his bowl, his expression remained grim, his eyes tracking a shadow that shouldn't have been there. He knew the Unknown Figure was watching. He knew the scissors were open. And he knew that the Serious Face was going to have to come out again very, very soon—and next time, it wouldn't be to look at a bowl of curry.
The school bell rang with a sound like a dying toaster, signaling the start of the final period. The heavy vibe from the cafeteria still lingered on the back of Ichikawa's neck, a cold needle of dread that wouldn't quite go away.
Ruleus was currently sitting in his chair backwards, trying to see if he could balance a stapler on his forehead while humming a song that sounded suspiciously like a funeral march.
"Ruleus, sit normally," Ichikawa hissed. "The air is already vibrating with existential doom. Don't add a 'clown at a wake' aesthetic to it."
"I'm mourning the curry, Ichikawa-kun," Ruleus whispered, his silver hair shimmering. "It's gone. Into the void. Like our hopes and dreams."
*SLIDE—THUD.*
The classroom door didn't just open; it was assaulted. Teacher Yoshiro burst into the room, his laboratory goggles still taped to his face. He didn't even make it three steps before his left foot decided to divorce his right foot. He performed a spectacular, mid-air pirouette before face-planting directly onto the wooden podium.
The class sat in dead silence. A single piece of chalk rolled off the desk and clicked onto the floor.
"I am... functional," Yoshiro muffled into the wood. He slowly stood up, a fresh bruise forming on his forehead exactly where the previous one had faded. He adjusted his goggles, which were now slightly crooked. "Forget the greeting! Forget the roll call! Today, we discuss the only thing that matters.
He turned to the chalkboard and began scribbling with a manic energy, the chalk snapping every three seconds.
"Listen well!" Yoshiro shouted, pointing a chalk-stained finger at the ceiling. "Most of you think the world is a simple map. A planet, a solar system, a galaxy. Lies! Mathematics is a playground for the weak! Our cosmology is not just infinite—it is Qualitatively Exhaustive."
Ichikawa leaned back, his eyes narrowing. He recognized this terminology. It was the language of the high-tier planes he had once sensed when he come into this world before his mother, Kyoki, had put the red ring on his finger.
"We live in a hierarchy of Infinite Transcendence," Yoshiro continued, his voice dropping into a hoarse whisper. "Imagine a world. Within that world, there are countless stories, each with its own reality. Now, imagine a layer above that which views that entire infinite multiverse as nothing more than a fictional book."
He drew a series of ascending circles.
[ "To reach the level of the truly Divine, one must transcend the very Concept of Dimensions. We are talking about layers of existence where the notions of 'Space,' 'Time,' and 'Causality' are not only absent—they are conceptually irrelevant. Each layer is an 'Aleph-level' jump over the one below, creating a hierarchy where the lower levels are effectively zero in the eyes of the higher."]
"Teacher," a student raised their hand, "is this going to be on the test?"
"THE TEST IS EXISTENCE ITSELF!" Yoshiro roared, spit hitting his goggles. "We are talking about a different Framework! A state where the duality of 'Existence' and 'Non-Existence' is surpassed. There are countless worlds within this structure, each with a count that cannot be measured by any mathematical cardinal or transfinite number. It is a 'Non-Dualistic Totality'—a void that contains everything yet is touched by nothing!"
Ichikawa looked at his red ring. The sinkhole was vibrating. He knew Yoshiro was right. This was the reality he had originated from—a place where he could erase a concept with a flick of his wrist.
He looked over at Ruleus.
Ruleus wasn't looking at the board. He had successfully balanced the stapler on his nose and was now trying to see if he could cross his eyes hard enough to make the stapler look like a twin.
"Ichikawa-kun," Ruleus whispered, "if the cosmology is infinite and transcends the concept of dimensions... does that mean there's a world where the Level 4 Curry is free? And if so, how do we transcend this chair to get there?"
"Ruleus, the man is explaining that we are essentially fictional ants in a cosmic hierarchy that defies all logic," Ichikawa muttered. "Try to show a little 'deadass' respect."
"I am showing respect!" Ruleus chirped, the stapler falling off his nose and hitting the floor with a loud clack. "I'm respecting the fact that my brain is currently doing a 'Conceptual Excision' on everything he just said because it hurts my feelings."
Yoshiro slammed his hands on the podium, his goggles finally falling off. "And remember! In a cosmology this vast, someone—or something—could erase your entire 'Layer' without you ever knowing it happened. One moment you are eating curry... the next, the very Idea of you has been unwritten!"
Ichikawa and Ruleus shared a brief, silent look.
"Class dismissed!" Yoshiro shouted, before immediately tripping over his own chair and disappearing behind the desk.
"I think I'm going to go home and lie down," Ichikawa whispered. "In a 3D bed. With 3D pillows. Away from all of this."
"Can I come?" Ruleus asked. "I want to see if your pillows transcend the concept of 'Softness'."
"No."
The five years that followed at Ama-no-Gawa Academy were a blur of 'deadass' energy and escalating disaster.
Five Years Later...
The sun set on the final day at the Academy. Ichikawa stood at the gates, now seventeen years old. He had grown taller, his jawline sharper, his eyes holding the weary weight of a man who had spent half a decade babysitting a silver-haired anomaly. Despite the physical change, the red ring remained on his finger—the sinkhole his mother Kyoki had gifted him.
However, things were... different.
The 1% limit Ichikawa lived under was no longer the small spark it had been at age twelve. Through the constant strain of surviving Ruleus, his fractional power had expanded into something vast and terrifying. His 1% now felt like an ocean where it had once been a pond. He could feel the reality around him bowing just by his presence, a weight he had to manually suppress every second of the day.
"ICHIKAWA-KUN! WE'RE FREE! THE ACADEMY CAN NO LONGER CONTAIN OUR GREATNESS!"
A tall, lean figure with shimmering silver hair practically tackled Ichikawa from behind. Ruleus, also seventeen, had hit a growth spurt that made him look like a legendary hero from a high-budget epic. His silver aura was no longer a flicker—it was a constant, low-level distortion in the air that made the pavement beneath his feet slightly transparent.
Ichikawa's eyes narrowed as he felt the pressure coming off Ruleus. His power... it's not just growing, Ichikawa thought, a slight shiver running down his spine. It's extending. He's becoming an apex of the Absolute, and he still doesn't even know how to tie his own shoes correctly.
"Ruleus, let go," Ichikawa groaned, trying to pry the 'deadass' teenager off his back. "We're graduated. You're an adult. Act like your mental age isn't still in the single digits."
"Never!" Ruleus chirped, his silver eyes wide and unblinking. "Adults have to pay for their own curry, Ichikawa-kun! If I stay mentally twelve, I am technically a dependent of the universe! It's a loophole!"
Near the school entrance, a crowd had gathered. At the center was Teacher Yoshiro. He wasn't wearing his goggles for once. He was wearing a tuxedo that was surprisingly not on fire, standing next to a woman who looked incredibly patient—his new wife.
Yoshiro wasn't just smiling—he was weeping. Great, messy streams of tears were pouring down his face as he clutched a bouquet of flowers and his marriage certificate.
"I... I DID IT!" Yoshiro wailed, his voice echoing across the courtyard. "I AM NO LONGER A LONELY PAPER CRANE! I HAVE ACHIEVED THE ULTIMATE TRANSCENDENCE! DOMESTIC BLISS!"
He saw Ichikawa and Ruleus and waved frantically, accidentally tripping over his own tuxedo tails and falling face-first into the wedding cake. He came up covered in frosting, still sobbing with joy. "FAREWELL, MY PROBLEM CHILDREN! MAY YOUR LIVES BE LESS CONCUSSIVE THAN MINE!"
Ichikawa watched the scene, a small, tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. From a miserable past life to a graduation in a world that defied logic, he had survived.
"Come on, Ruleus," Ichikawa said, starting to walk toward the horizon. "We have the world to deal with." Then ichikawa thought, And I need to find a way to upgrade this ring before you accidentally punch a hole in the moon.
"Can we get curry first?" Ruleus asked, skipping alongside him. "Graduation curry tastes like victory!"
"Only if you pay."
"I forgot my wallet in the last dimension!"
"Of course you did."