In Another World With The Zero Mortals Plan (Goku Black x Nino Nakano)

Chapter 12: A Boy Named Daniel/the One Who Would Determine the Outcome

I apologize for last weeks delay. A wise man once said "Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable," now, while we're getting into things, it is a good time to mention that we're getting to the end of this book. I'll post a short retrospective/reflection as a special chapter, and then talk more about what my plan with the second, and onward books. I'm glad so many people were so willing to read my writing. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, a writer is only a writer when they have an audience. Also, chapter 15, the final chapter, will be dropping on Thursday March 9th. I have plans for the weekend that directly interfere with me publishing the chapter, so this is a sort of forewarning.
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    "Black," I heard Daniel cough. "I was born from one conflict to another."
    "Bastard, tell me where you are! I can still save you," I shouted into the phone.
    "A kid with no life, undeserving of the one he was granted, torn between two worlds."
    'We focus ourselves on the past. Before this world, a young Daniel stands still, the world passing him by, not a shred of care cast towards him. Amongst this world, an entire frame of a society operating not giving him an ounce of a second.'
    "I was born in Branch-MMXIX, a "Utopia," meant to flush the weak and strong out. Naturally-," He paused for a moment to cough, his strength slowly fading with every passing second, "Naturally a kid born into poverty won't get far, and that's what happened with me." He exhaled, and inhaled for a little bit. "Capitalism at its finest, the weak don't deserve a choice, but the strong do. The weak deserve the right to serve the strong, and the strong have the means to use the weak." He stopped again. "I was weak, Branch-MMXIX was in the two-thousands of Branches, meaning we were less than an afterthought. Pure mouthwash." He stopped once more, hopping into a coughing fit, his breathing slowing and getting harder every inhale attempt. "I fought to push forward, I worked hard, I wanted so badly to be the best, but in MMXIX, we don't have the best. Our best was below average, and our prodigies didn't exist. And so even trying to work hard, I never could succeed. I pushed everything away, everyone, just to win, but society left me behind, because in Branch-MMXIX, you gotta succeed by working with others."
    'We soon turn to a young Daniel at home, alone, shaking, afraid of the life he lives.'
    "Parents were a joke, they didn't care about me," He maliciously said with spite, his weak voice still landing with pure hatred. "As you know, I was reincarnated to this world. In my old world, I had joined the militia. Turns out population count does matter in a Utopia, and so enforcers from Branch-I made their way slowly between the lesser Branches, killing every single person who lived in the poorer nations." He wheezed, his voice quivering with every breath, on the verge of death he still fought. "I fought, fought back hard, fought back for the world that turned its back on me, for the LIFE THAT I WANTED, FOR THE PEOPLE I HAD FORGOTTEN, but..." He said, his voice quivering in tears. "I WAS REJECTED BY THAT WORLD, I FOUGHT TILL I DIED, AND WAS JUST ANOTHER LACKLUSTER MEMORY IN EVERYONE'S MIND!" The line went quiet as he finished. He once again struggled to breath on the other end of the phone, "When I was reincarnated, I didn't remember much. But the thing I do remember was the question the figure asked me."
'We cut to a blank void, devoid of everything, a figure clad in black stood in front of a young adult Daniel.'
"What do you offer?" The figure asked firmly.
"Offer for what?" Daniel questioned the figure.
"A new world, a chance at the life YOU want." The figure bargained.
"I offer..."
'We phase back to Black his tears wet with something he doesn't know.'
"I GAVE HIM MY HUMANITY!" Daniel shouted on the other end, wet droplets echoing over the phone. "In exchange for a reincarnation, I gave him my human side, opting to fight to the top on my own." He continued, stopping yet again to take a break. "I was born into this world in exchange for my humanity, and immediately I was given the same life I had before. No parents, bottom of the pack, and my only saving grace was the strange powers I was given." His breathing cloaked my thoughts. "Instantly because of my powers, people like Jared seized on the opportunity to oppress and similarly stop my powers and the chaos in them. I was born into a world that didn't just step on me, but used me as some tool, or stopped me from being the "Daniel," I wanted to be." His words cutting deep, the wounds a knife wouldn't be able to inflict. "I gave up on all humankind, having no desire to be used, left unused, or reused." He finished.
"Until I met you Black." At this point Daniel broke, a sad murmur ineligible from his mouth heard over the phone. "You were everything I never knew I needed. A friend, a mentor, a rival, a motivator, and most of all, a brother." Tears, that's what they were, falling from my face, pattering on the ground as a fresh rainfall. "Black yesterday, that was the best day of my life, you were everything to me. I don't know where you came from, but Black..." he stopped, taking a deep breath, that way he could actually talk to me. "THANK YOU FOR EXISTING! THANK YOU FOR BEING ALIVE! THANK YOU FOR BEING MY FRIEND, MY MENTOR, MY RIVAL, AND..." His voice went quiet. "Thank you for being my brother."
"DANIEL TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE!" I shouted into my phone, "I CAN STILL SAVE YOU YOU CRAZY BASTARD, JUST TELL ME!" My voice breaking into sadness.
I knew it deep down, Daniel was gone, I couldn't save him from his death. Whether he was alive right now or not, he was gone. My eyes welled up, tears breaking through, a strange babbling coming from my mouth.
"I see, so this is what it means to cry," I managed to squeak through.
    I need to kill him, to make Daniel's sacrifice worth it, I need to make Jared pay for Daniel's constant suffering, and I need to make him pay for the world's sake, for Nino's sake, and for everyone else he hurt.
    Breaking through the door to the roof, a heavy rain fell, and I could see Jared staring up to the sky on the edge of the building, wet droplets decorating his face.
    "Imagine this," Jared started to say, "You and me here, right now, fighting it out. And to think that just a month ago, you and I were classmates in a dodgeball game."
    "Enough of this Jared, I know your games, "Talk first, fight second," so let me tell you this, I have no interest in words, the only thing constant between us is actions."
    "Maybe, but you see, by conversing with me, you are enabling me to continue my conversation."
    "Alright Shakespeare, drop the act and let's fight."
    "I don't know, I feel as if it's best to just stay here and feel the rain."
    "I've got a schedule to fit y'know."
    "As do I, but you look at what I had before this month: Friends, Family, a home. And then you came around, and now I don't have all that much."
    "Bitch, you have no right to say you don't have anything, when you've taken everything from me too."
    "I had no reason to take lives, every single citizen of this city, every single person you cared about, and the city itself is safe."
    "Really? How?"
    "I created a world, and froze everything that happened today in that world, then simultaneously, I set that world in this world, and traded the city of that world for the city of this one. In essence, every single person, place, or thing is somewhere else right now, frozen in time."
    "Wow, quite strong words. But tell me, why did you cause the Nakano's suffering, why were they your piece?"
    "I didn't want to kill anyone. The bombs locked up to their individual prisons were inactive, fully unarmed and all the bombs in the nearby buildings couldn't do anything either."
    "Interesting, well then, do you want to finish our battle that started o so long ago?"
    "Y'know, I've made peace with my losses, let's do it."
    His hand was in my face, slamming me into the wet pavement of the helipad we stood on. The blow hurt like hell, but the pavement didn't even crack.
    "Like my trick? I call it "Destructively careful," quite the fun move to pull off."
    "Yeah yeah, gloat all you want, I'll kill you anyway."
    "You know, confidence isn't everything to a fight, right?"
    I raised my arms to guard, but in an instant, I was thrown back into the wall, bouncing off, not a scratch on the wall.
    "Another move of mine, "Friction Conduction," let me let you in on something. Being alive for millennia itself lets you hone all your skills."
    "Your lifespan means nothing to a god."
    "Who says I'm not one?"
    "I do." I dashed forward with the slicer, going for the jugular, Jared tore off his right arm, reached in, tore out his arm bone, and parried with it, sending me sliding to the edge of the helipad. I turned my head to look at him, only to see a sword where his bone was, and his left arm perfectly there.
    "You can't win, but you know that, don't you."
    "I'm not gonna give up here, cause Daniel gave his life for this cause, so I'm not gonna lose."
    "A war of attrition, but eventually, if you keep throwing yourself at a wall, you'll break."
    I sprinted forward, and went for a roundhouse kick. He grabbed my leg, and slammed me into the ground, no cracks in sight.
    "The same basic attacks, one after another, Black, you can't win against me as you are, your techniques won't do anything either."
    A super Saiyan 3 volley of slicer attacks didn't even land. The strange bone blade, and its sheath dispelled any threat from me.
    "Let me make things clear: it's cliche, but as I am now, this would be the approximation of 2% of my max strength. A max of 50 is what you can drive me to before you kill me, and the full 100 is for well, I won't bore you with history."
    "The threat against a divine being is nothing, a trivial benchmark for me to meet."
    "I know the kinks to your power, you don't know a single thing about me," He said, cutting his leg off, only for it to instantly regenerate. "So let me make things easy: I've done the math for your current form, what is it... super saiyan 3? In essence these power ups are just a tiny bump in strength. Your initial transformation was a multiplier of fifty, and it increased in increments of fifty from there. So, three times fifty is? Correct, one-hundred-and-fifty times power. So currently I am equivalent to 150 Blacks. Doing even more math, if 150 Blacks is equivalent to 2% of my max, then 1% must equal 75 Blacks. From there, we multiply that number by fifty, and we end up with 3750 Blacks. Your odds are done, and you've lost."
    "Let me show you something new: "Holy Light Grenade,"" I say, charging up a pink ball in my hands.
    "Wow! Wanna go another round of dodgeball?"
    I threw the ball, he kicked it back, I dived, and pitched the ball using the standard curveball format. It connected with him, blowing his entire body to little minced up pieces, but then, it all began to regenerate.
    "See? You gotta kill me over and over to kill me. I won't stay dead."
    I was about to make my next move, when through the clouds a giant ship burst out. Bigger than the ruins of the city, Jared quickly sprinted up to the nearby antenna, plucked the strange object sticking out, and clasped it to his back.
    "Ah, Eramis, how lovely to finally see you make a move," Jared said, a smirk appearing on his face.
    A strange inhuman voice echoed through the ship, "Hello, Jared... I hope you've come to accept our terms."
    "What? The terms of service for that "Enslavement of Humanity," rulebook you gave us? Yeah, I burned it."
    "That in it of itself is an act of war." The intercom voice said.
    "What can I say? War makes things more interesting." Jared vilely spat, the smirk never leaving his now confidence infused face.
    From the ship, thousands of the blue wolf-like creatures from the forest poured out. Sparing no time at all, Jared immediately began maniacally butchering them whole, mercilessly ending the lives of anything unlucky enough to take a lucky shot.
    "Fine, if you're just gonna send a barracks ship at me, I may as well not even try." Jared said, looking annoyed. He quickly sheathed his sword, and muttered a low "Sever." Instantly all the surrounding creatures, the ship, and even the few standing buildings, were cut into tiny pieces, falling on the land like another rain. "Black," Jared said, unnervingly. "Before we fight, I need to do something."
    I raced forward, hitting Jared in the eye with a sucker punch.
    "Or not," He said, looking annoyed. "Fine, fuck you too then, I guess we're doing this."
    He ran in circles, cycling me with his sword. Any time I'd attempt to strike, he'd slam my hand with the sheath, and then get in close with a mass of sword strikes.
    "All of this could have been avoided had you joined me. Hell, all of this could have been avoided if DANIEL actually did his job and joined me."
    "What?" I was annoyed that this monster would even use Daniel's name.
    "Daniel was the inheritor of the will of Fractos, I gave him an ultimatum, it's only natural that those with the ability for good accept good solutions. Sadly I guess my ultimatum wasn't a good solution for him. While unfortunate, he had his death coming."
    "Oh really, you're gonna kill my best friend, kidnap his girlfriend, tear apart an innocent boy's family, and force trauma on a girl who just wants to be normal, and you call yourself good?"
    "Absolutely yes, I'm making the choice for humanity as a whole, I am order, the one who regulates, and my job is stopping Chaos, the one who disrupts. You are an agent of Chaos, and therefore must be stopped regardless of the cost."
    "Daniel was born in this world, just another pawn."
    "Reality check: we all are. ALLISTAR MADE THIS WORLD SO HE COULD FARM US LIKE CATTLE, you really are slow aren't you."
    "Daniel wasn't a cow."
    "But he was a pawn."
    My hair sparked red. Utter contempt clouded my vision, the only thing in sight: killing Jared.
    "Red now? Interesting, let's make this fun," Jared said, taking off his hoodie to reveal a blue T-shirt.
    I charged in, a red scythe in place of my slicer. Jared was on the defensive, this new power confounded him. Each strike I made, Jared considered and calculated a response. A strike from below was guarded by Jared's sword, a slash from the side was guarded by a blindspot L, and the blindspot attack was dodged by a near instant dodge back, nearly reaching the borders of light speed. Chaining the same three attacks together, my face very nearly impacted the pavement yet again.
    "Autosynchronus learning Black, you can thank my music talent for that. I can hear the frequency at which your blade is traveling, I learn how to stop it, and then the second use you make I counter." Jared attempted to reason, "Now, my turn..." Jared said, honing his blade on the ground. "Hollow Hellfire," He whispered.
    A blue sphere surrounded me. It began to close, burning hotter than the sun. But miraculously it did nothing against it.
    "Heat resistance huh... cool I guess." He muttered, boredly.
    "My resistance is increased along with my power in this form," I remarked, laughing.
    The sword was sheathed yet again, a blue light coursing out of the little bits that hadn't concealed the blade. A quick deep breath from Jared signaled another massive attack. I used my power to create a pink energy bubble around me. A 360 degree shield if you will.
    "Clean slice," He muttered, exhaling. Instantly, a slow moving line of blue touched the air. All the little dust particles circulating in the air began to be pulled into the cut, and my shield began to ripple against the suction.
    "BASTARD! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"
    "Just a little bit of a cut, turns out that even the tiniest cut can be a baby black hole given enough energy."
    "YOU TRYING TO KILL THE WHOLE CITY?"
    "I have a backup."
    It was now or never, a technique I had used in the past, and I could more than use it now.
    "Nice try, but the power of flight transcends gravity."
    "Some genius you are, you gave up your traction."
    The cut began to suck me in at an accelerated rate. I attempted to escape, but it was all for naught. I was pulled into the cut, and the pain of crushing encompassed my body. In an instant it was over, my body was bruised thanks to the crushing amount, but I was fine, or relatively so.
    "You can't win, you won't win, and as you are now, it's an impossible victory for you."
    "I still have to fight." I managed to speak.
    "Then let's fight again, but not now."
    "How does this benefit you?"
    "If you "kill," me, I'll regenerate, however during that time, my body is less focused on reforming, and more focused on storing as much power as possible."
    "I'd rather you let me kill you now."
    "No can do, I'm not gonna stand still and die, that'd betray what I stand for."
    "Then what do YOU want to do?"
    "Simple, you and I go to the far side of the moon, deal with the villain that made that point her home, and come back to earth. We'll finish everything in the Kriegbloom field."
    "That sounds too contrived."
    "I'm the savior of humanity, type Delta: Origin, I need to know that if I am to die, humanity will continue on."
    "It won't, not if I win."
    "Oh but it will Black, you of all people haven't realized it yet, but you've slowly become more human over time."
    "As if."
    "You saved 7 humans today, mourned the loss of Daniel, scorned me with hatred, and got angry at the destruction of the city and the subsequent lives lost in that destruction. You realize it now."
    His words cut deep, it made sense now, my humanity had sprouted up, and I didn't like that at all.
    "How do I stop it?"
    "You don't, you just keep living."
    "You bastard, what did you do to me?"
    "Nothing, your mind has just been exposed to the things you wanted to destroy. Daniel, Nino, Miku, everyone has molded your mind into the person that stands before me. You don't see the person you've become, but you will one day. Each person you kill will put guilt on your shoulders, and one day that guild will cause you immense suffering."
    "I'll worry about that when I kill you. You're the last thing that's stopping me from my goal."
    "Quite the contrary. I'm type Delta: Origin, that means that following the Greek alphabet, there are 23 others. But, if you manage to kill me, there will be another: type Epsilon: Chaos. And when she arrives... oh you'll understand what a fate worse than death means. Regardless of the fact, let's get on topic. Will you help me kill Eramis, that way you can get stronger and fight me on an even level?"
    "I guess there's no other option. Let's do it."
    "Perfect, well than Black..." Jared grasped my hand and shook, "welcome to my team, putting aside our differences, this is something we must finish and nip in the bud, just in case it bites us in the but in the future."