The King of Heroes: Null/Virtue

The Crimson End

"Bit of a strange time to go on a tour... by myself," Izuku said as Deborah, one of the Xsis representatives he met at the Tower of Gods, led him through an admittedly gorgeous marble hall.

She had appeared outside his villa early in the morning and asked for him alone.

Her large hat and gothic clothes hid much of her, but as she turned, Izuku spied something in her eyes that made his brain think - "spider."

"You seem such an intelligent young man, I don't want to insult you, but do you know the origin of our Indomitable Night's Festival?"

"The origin of your island nation's Barrier. That's about all I know," He lied.

"It's the origin of the nation," She corrected. "At the time, we were but an Ivory colony, the misfits and the marked, sent to dig up precious resources." The marble halls depicted her words in real time. Chiseled sculptures of the events in profound detail that surpassed the Masters of Roman sculpting by what seemed like hundreds of years. With colors so vivid and bright that they appeared to be more like 3-D modeled representations of the past brought to life. The most primitive "hologram" continued to prove its place in the world.

"The treatment they endured, alongside the slaves of the time, was harsh enough to inspire the obvious." The next sculpture was a mass of faces tearing away at an Ivory King with their teeth, and ripping out his throat.

"The atrocities Xsis created in their uprising were... plentiful." Several more displays depicted horrible scenes with disturbing gore and brutality.

"And that's where the Barrier idea came from."

Deborah nodded. "As a new nation, disgusted by ourselves, we decided to never partake in violence again."

"You speak like you were there for it," Izuku commented, knowing precisely what she was leading up to. They stopped in the middle of the marble story.

"Ah... the pleasantries are less your style, I suppose," Deborah cleared her throat.

Edgeshot suddenly appeared beside her. "The Remembrance Hall is secure, my lady."

Deborah nodded. "I'm afraid this is quite the desperate plea," She said, waving off Edgeshot, who had secretly been with them the entire time. Him and his team were apparently sanctioned to guard Deborah today, for something pretty serious.

"Do you know the reason why the Barrier around our island is so strong?"

Izuku licked his lips and debated internally for a second. "No."

"I figured not, it's meant to be a state secret after all." Deborah moved on. "The sorcerer who formed our island's Barrier, Hekiji Tengai, saw our weaknesses. In the absence of a cause, we were a small and militarily weak nation. We could resist our colonizers, but on the world stage, we'd never make it. So, in order to give us time to prepare, he used his own Soul as the power source of the Barrier. He killed himself in order to spare the islands. We still don't know the exact methods by which he turned his Soul into a Barrier, but he did it."

"And now it's failing," Izuku said confidently.

Deborah nodded solemnly. "We didn't know it had a time limit. We thought it would last forever, but..."

"The Soul has a limited capacity under most circumstances," Izuku completed. "Tengai might not have realized that the sacrifice of his physical body wouldn't let it last forever."

"7 years ago, we noticed the first drop in Lumina potency in the Barrier. Which is why we were open to changing our vote in favor of neutrality with the Infestation Zone." Deborah, for the first time since Izuku had met her, looked uneasy. "We suddenly had to cope with the understanding that we could not be pacifists forever."