Surviving the Death Hunt

Within the pool of blood, a gate materialized. What lay beyond it was harder to place, dark and hollow, the kind of emptiness that didn’t feel like absence so much as a place where something else entirely began. The void, maybe. Or something worse.

Something peered through the gate first, just a glimpse, a creature scanning its surroundings with the unhurried curiosity of a child playing hide and seek. Its appearance was malicious in every visible detail.

And yet there was something underneath that, something that moved like innocence and looked like wonder. The mismatch was the most disturbing part.

The creature was pale, the kind of white that belonged to marble, cold and deliberate. Its figure was sharp, muscles defined like something sculpted rather than born.

Golden vein-like patterns traced across its body, and above its head floated a halo that wasn’t quite a halo, more sigil than sacred, more mark than crown. The pitch-black eyes gave nothing away.

Its facial features were sealed beneath what appeared to be skin-like bandages. Those two details alone honored the malice of its arrival.

This was the forgotten god, the Gate God.

Its origin was unknown, that much was certain. What history had managed to record was that it had appeared three times across human existence. The first was over 170 years ago.

A child whose parents had been slaughtered by a Scarlet Kin sat in the pool of their blood and prayed, not to any god, not to any name, just to the universe itself, asking for anything, anyone, willing to answer.

A mirror sat in the blood, covered in it. The Gate God came through and moved through the space brick by brick until it found the Scarlet Kin. Killed it.

Then returned to the child and sat beside them through the rest of the night until the sun rose and pulled itself back through the mirror.

It had been summoned twice more since that first night. Blood each time, but different circumstances, no consistent thread anyone had ever managed to pull. The working theory was that no one truly knew how to summon it.

That it simply came when it came. V’s alliance had just proved that theory wrong, and what that meant for everything else hadn’t finished sinking in yet.

Scar sneered despite himself. Joel was dead, not the way he’d wanted, not by his hand, but dead was dead, and he wasn’t going to pretend that didn’t satisfy him.

The problem was everything else. The Gate God’s presence had him frozen in place, and no amount of wanting to move was changing that. Running wasn’t on the table.

The Gate God emerged fully and immediately began looking around, with that same childlike confusion from before, eyes moving as if searching for something specific. Or someone.

His heart skipped. He ran the logic anyway. Gate God was summoned through Joel’s blood, Joel’s last wish was his death, the math was simple enough. Did that mean the forgotten god would kill him?

No, that couldn’t be it.

The creature had seen him the moment it emerged, but did nothing... no amount of doubts was going to change what that meant. It was after something else.

The Highest One had used Joel as a medium. That much was obvious now. Joel had let revenge blind him to the point of being someone else’s tool. Unfortunate.

Then, suddenly, everything moved at once. His cousin Amber and her friend Valentine had positioned themselves in front of the humans, shielding them while the Akumas tore into each other across the arena.

A few broke off and headed toward the human side and stopped. The Supreme Council had a barrier up. Of course they did. Whatever chaos broke loose, keeping the humans alive was non-negotiable.

"Wait. Why are the students fighting each other? Don’t tell me... some of them are on V’s side?"

Of everyone in the arena, he was the closest to the Gate God, which made his situation the most dire by a considerable margin. And yet he stood there, frozen, unable to fight the fear down long enough to do something as simple as run.

Then, suddenly...

Kong dropped from the stands onto the field, sixth-ranked Moon Killer, and his presence shifted something in the air, enough to loosen the Gate God’s grip on everything around it.

Scar felt the freedom before he understood it. He moved to run. Didn’t make it. V’s supporters were already there, Amell at the head of them.

Before the standoff could find its shape, Julien came down from the stands and landed beside him. Exactly on time.

"Seriously? I already helped Purple escape, and you’re still here? Do you want to die or something?"

Julien wasted no time. The scolding came fast, and Scar stood there and took it, offering apologies he meant, but that clearly wasn’t landing. Julien had more to say. He was going to say all of it.

Running wasn’t on the table anymore. They had to go through them. Julien had already picked Amell, which left Scar with two opponents and no say in the matter.

Behind them, the Gate God had seemingly lost interest in Kong entirely, which said something about the creature, and none of it was reassuring. Kong, wielding Rebel Immortal, wasn’t taking the dismissal quietly. His pride didn’t work that way. It never had.

"Emotional State, Second Form, DOPPELGANGER!"

Kong yelled. Then there were two of him. Same golden hair, same clothes, same everything. Both looked less human than before.

His Inheritance was picky and chose who it wanted to be its wielder just like Dain’s but Scar didn’t know Kong could make a copy of himself at just the Emotional Sate.

Kong and his doppelganger moved together without a word between them and hit the Gate God at once. The creature blocked. Just blocked, no counterattack.

Yet the shockwaves from Kong’s strikes were enough to fracture the ground and bring parts of the arena down, and the collapse was already bleeding into the academy grounds. The Gate God hadn’t thrown a single offensive strike. The destruction was entirely Kong’s doing.

Then, Kong’s actions put an end to all of it. Scar found himself under rubble, alive and not particularly thrilled about it, at least being buried had kept him out of everything else.

He would have stayed. The ground had other plans. It began to rumble, then shake, hard enough that remaining still meant getting buried properly. He had no choice but to move.

He got clear of the rubble, and the first thing he saw was the hole torn into the arena like something had punched through from below.

And hovering directly above it was a young man with grey hair, arms bound in a straitjacket and then left him floating over a void.

He didn’t need to think about it. That was V. V’s eyes moved across the arena without urgency, taking everything in. He was calm, relaxed, like he’d arrived somewhere he’d been before. Though confusion still lingered in his eyes.

For someone who killed for his beliefs, he wore it well. He looked trustworthy. Approachable. The kind of person parents held up to their children as a standard worth reaching.

Soon, reinforcements had flooded in from every corner: Royal Knights, Moon Killers, the Kugo Clan’s Four Wings, the Zheng Clan’s Trinity, and names and factions that on any other day would have demanded his attention.

Scar had reached his limit, and everything beyond V had stopped mattering.

He watched the Gate God pull away from Kong and settle beside V, and the pieces clicked into place. The summoning, Joel. None of it had been about destruction. The Gate God was there to protect V. That was the whole point.

"So what now? Julien’s still fighting Amell. He’ll probably be fine... but V won’t let anyone here escape. Not if he spots me."

He exhaled deeply.

"Tsk. This isn’t my fight. I should’ve left when I had the chance. What an idiot I am."

He stood still for a moment and let himself take it in... the fighting, the evacuation, the controlled chaos of it all.

Kong had the Gate God occupied, and even with the arena reduced to rubble and parts of the academy following it, Kong was holding his own. That was more than he’d expected a few minutes ago.

The Gate God was keeping everyone off V for now, and nobody had made a move, not yet. But the Moon Killers were positioned and patient, watching for the moment.

The Trinity and Four Wings hadn’t committed either, just lurking snd fighting a few bugs. There was a plan forming somewhere in all of it. Scar just wasn’t part of it. There wasn’t much he could do.

"This can’t have been the Supreme Academy’s plan. Were they expecting V to massacre everyone here? Because he isn’t. He’s just hovering there, staring... Maybe years of imprisonment dulled his senses."

He shrugged.

"Ah, well. I think I have to fly out of here."

He took a moment to look himself over. Bruised and filthy, with some of his joints sitting at angles they shouldn’t have been, courtesy of whatever had come down on him in the collapse.

With a heavy sigh, he spoke:

"Emotional State, Second Form, Decaying Wings."

Soon, dark flames conjured into wings spreading behind him. The wounds sealed themselves. The distorted joints were corrected. His body returned to normal as though the last hour hadn’t happened to it at all.

ROAR!

A roar cut through everything, and his heart skipped before he could stop it. He turned toward the sound and found the Gate God already looking back, staring intensely, with unmistakable anger. Not at the chaos around it. At him specifically.

He was confused, but his mind didn’t get the chance to work through it. The Gate God closed the distance before the thought finished forming, standing over him now, staring down with eyes that didn’t need hands to kill someone.

It didn’t act. Just stared. That was somehow worse. Scar’s heart was pounding hard enough that breathing had become a separate problem.

It didn’t add up. The Gate God was here to protect V, that was its purpose, and that was why it had been summoned.

He was the first thing it had seen when it came through the gate, and it had dismissed him entirely. So why now? Why was it staring at him like he’d crossed a line he didn’t know existed? Why did it look so angry?

Scar grimaced.

"Wait... does it... does it hate my Inheritance too?"

The moment the words left his mouth, pain detonated through his jaw, and his body was in the air before the sound had finished leaving him. The floor came up fast, and he bounced off it hard.

He tried to speak through it. The attempt told him everything. His jaw was completely shattered.

’Wait... am I going to die?’