A storm of might and power bulldozed its way right towards me. A genuine display of utter might and raw power had just made its way from the depths of hell. With their overwhelming intensity, they loomed over me.
Ardere Astrea is a grace candidate who truly embodied the idea of wild untamed power. His hair was violent red which was wild and frigid, slightly unkempt but that made sense with the power they held. Random streaks of white appeared within his hair, I assumed it was an aesthetic choice but it came from stress. He had piercing beautiful blue eyes with yellow pupils.
His body was riddled with various scars underneath his extremely tattered clothing. He wore several strips of fabric wrapped over his torso which flailed freely in the wind. As far as pants went they were white baggy pants which were tied to his waist by more tattered fabric that flailed freely in the wind. He had gold cuffs on his wrist and throat. Along with several gold piercings on his ear and lower lip.
He had large tattoos traveling all over his body, all pitch black which contrasted with his porcelain white skin. His very image was quite interesting to take in but Xander was thinking otherwise. Another word I could describe him as.. was badass.
He stared down Xander with his overwhelming stature, standing tall at 7 feet. A crazed smile crept over his face before he let out a piercing scream in Xanders face.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH AHHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Man.. I'M GLAD THERE ARE MORE GRACES BESIDES ME ENTERING!"
I covered my ears on impulse after the blaring scream. Xander just flinched a bit as it caught him off guard.
I looked at Xander who seemed to be extremely concerned and worried. From the look of things, he didn't seem to anticipate him being here today. I just walked to the side a bit given how things were going. I figured my best bet would be to leave them to kiss each other and work things out on their own.
Around that same moment, Xander would find it in himself to speak.
"Look Ardere.. I've got some business to handle. Go and beat up some other proctor. You're the last thing on my list of priorities at the mom-"
"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT THE FUCK UP. YOU'RE NOT GONNA TELL ME WHAT TO DO. I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU."
Ardere at this moment had completely zipped Xander up with just the volume and gravity of his being. He made a threat that everyone within the vicinity could feel, there's no doubt that Ardere meant every word that came out of his mouth.
I'd back up a little bit out of fear, at this point I was fairly far away from him where I could probably react to whatever he'd throw at me. It was as I took just a few more steps back did Ardere started sniffing around again. The smile on his face got a bit wider as he looked in my direction. I instinctively flinched when he made his attention drawn towards me. It was like a gazelle standing near a lion, I could physically feel that I was just prey to him.
Right as I took one more step he'd pivot his fist towards his chest before swinging it outwards to his side. At that moment I caught a glimpse of the bang. It was almost as if he shattered the space behind him with his fist. It was like he used his bang to completely demolish the space behind him which as a result of the reaction propelled him right towards me.
perfectly despite going at a velocity neither Xander and I could track, he stopped just inches before me and smiled.
The same way he loomed over Xander initially, he did the same to me. Not a word was spoken the entire time, we had started gauging each other in silence. Feeling out our graces if that made any sense. It was like a form of echolocation, our powers bouncing back and forth to each other. We'd both gain some sort of understanding for each other's capabilities.
"Strange, so strange.. How is that you're emitting a big bang but.. it's invisible." Uttered Ardere as he was now finished feeling out whatever power I had left.
I was a bit confused and let out a "Huh?- What the heck are you talking about."
"So you see, I'm capable of seeing the BANG within each person. It's the impact they're guaranteed to make within serenity. This includes their world, the realms, beremy, and even null space. But seeing a big bang means they're either extremely dangerous to everything or extremely influential to prosperity. Given the thousands of millennia I've existed, I've only seen a handful of big bangs. Dragon god Ryuzu easily being.. the worst of them all. Never before though, have I seen an invisible big bang." Ardere rambled this still maintaining the same gravity within his voice. It was at the end he'd point towards my chest where he said the supposed bang was.
As he pointed a smile crept across his face, the very concept of all of this excited him.
"SINCE YOU'RE SO INTERESTING.., you've gained my respect. I'm the bang grace, Ardere Astra." He'd stand there with a smile on his face almost implying that he was waiting for me to give my own introduction. I stood there a bit confused before catching on.
"Oh uh.. I'm the Divergent Grace, Ariella.. There's a title to my name but I've forgotten it. It's nice to meet you Ardere, I hope we get to meet again in the ring sometime." I'd scratch my head slightly after giving my name, I'd try to recall the title that deity gave me before sending me to Yuzuriana. But out of formality, I'd treat to meet Ardere in the middle by opening the opportunity to a fight later on.
"Huhhhh.. Divergent grace? Never heard of you before. I remember there being a Diverged Grace, but Divergent?.. Damn, must've been natural selection." Ardere said this with a sigh while shaking his head. I just looked at him kinda confused.
"What are you going on about..?" I had to ask them given my confusion at the situation.
"Well, whenever the root for a grace continues to lose candidates without any form of longevity. Meaning... The Diverged root constantly had a high death rate for its candidates and eventually decided to evolve via Natural Selection. It turned into the Divergent by chance. Grace candidates should naturally be able to live for a long time but if they're dying fast consistently then the grace itself either dies off or evolves." Despite his appearance and initial personality, Ardere explained this with a smile. I could see his shark-like teeth throughout the entirety of his explanation.
Out of curiosity, I called upon my manual as I noticed something each time I opened it. It popped in my hand where I scrolled to the first three pages, it would show me the past /current users. In bold letters it said Sumire, Ariella. To an extent I was confused. Why was it showing my past self/name? I didn't even know how to call it before meeting Xander. I guess it just marked down whoever had the grace. Honestly, it's bothering me but I can't do anything about it.
Ardere would've just pat my head with his obscenely tough hands before attempting to leave just as fast as he arrived.
"WELL, THAT'S ENOUGH CHIT-CHAT FOR NOW AHAHAH.. I look forward to seeing you in the tournament divergent grace, our clash will rival the Great Dragon war." He'd wave before using the same super boom from earlier to disappear.
I'd just look in awe as I still couldn't make out any movement before or after the boom. Xander was just distraught by the whole situation. I didn't know why and simply thought of it as another strange encounter.
"That makes three graces I've met so far.. Abstract, Scale, and.. Bang. You're all a bit more weird than the last." I said this openly to Xander as he was just letting out a long sigh. He had a panicked yet composed look on his face. He walked over to me getting ready to go on a rant. I was open given how I actually enjoyed talking to Ardere.
"Okay so.. You're familiar with big bangs right?.."
I looked at Xander in reprise since this was common knowledge for me. But this was knowledge based on background information from Earth. I wanted to question it but what he wanted seemed urgent.
"Yeah.. Why do you ask."
He sighed before going further.
"While you may understand the concept of the Big Bang occurring spontaneously, it's not precisely the case. For your universe and many others, he's your all-father. Since you don't originate from a supporting realm like Yuzuriana or the others, that's natural. However, he's also responsible for the birth of 99.5% of every known universe. By far, he's one of the oldest existing grace candidates, paradoxically younger than Solomon, but that's beside the point. We've had a large number of callings when it was time for a new link, but he's never met the qualifications even once due to his overly drastic impact on the cosmos and general tomfoolery."
I looked at him blankly, a bit lost at the information that had just befallen me. While I still don't fully grasp the weight of the situation, I understood enough to where I was standing right next to an avengers level threat waiting to burst.
"Wait a minute. What the hell is he doing here then??!!.."
Xander had a puzzled look on his face wondering the same thing.
"I'm not sure Ari.. I just hope he doesn't use the bathroom here, we'd all be doomed."
It didn't register to me immediately but then I chuckled when he said that.
"It's not like he's gonna blow the place up from one bad skewer."
Xander just sighed after I said that. He seemed even more distressed now that the thought crossed his mind.
"Honestly it's worse.., a little snippet for you to know is that he's on a hard diet of whatever food is easy to digest and stool softeners. The last time he pushed too hard on the toilet a supporting realm was immensely damaged by a universe banged right in the middle of it. We were informed he went on a happy hour spree at some random restaurant serving loaded burritos. If a burrito did that to him then I can only pray he doesn't eat anything here."
I shuddered at the thought. Chills ran down my spine as I tried to process the whole situation at hand. He can't go a day without using laxatives or else the very fabric of whatever place he's in could collapse cause he had something bad the day before. I looked at Xander but he still seemed distressed for some reason.
"I just don't know how things are gonna look if you do end up fighting him. Last time I fought him he had several new moves on top of Nova Banging me into a different timeline. Took me a good couple of days just to figure out a way back to that moment he Nova banged me."
The more Xander talked about how terrible this guy has been it continued to elude me how in the hell he's been allowed to return.
"What do you mean the last time..?"
Xander would've proceeded to explain how whenever he's expected to arrive at the tournament, they hire a grace candidate to make sure nothing gets out of hand. Four tournaments back Xander was hired.
"When they hired me I knew what I was getting into, but it didn't change the fact he grows explosively during fights. The damage he caused was reduced thankfully because of me, I had to scale him to a fraction of an atom to make sure he didn't do anything drastic. Yet.. without fail, he managed to bang himself back to full size. I'm not entirely sure of the logic of it but.. he calmed down and said he didn't wanna go back."
I just listened with a faint look of horror since I doubted I'd be able to get him to a point like that. Maybe if I had my Chordatta and magic I'd be able to do something about him but that wasn't the case here. What I was dealing with here was a world of truly terrifying monsters, were all grace candidates this terrifying?
"So.. what's the game plan if we do encounter him Xander?"
I had to ask bluntly since I was at a loss here. Though when I asked this Xander just took a deep breath before looking at me with a solemn thousand-yard stare.
"Jump him and hope we survive. If you fight him in the tournament, then fight him like your life depends on it since it does."
"Understood.."
Xander put his hands on his hips before starting to walk again.
"Well.. let's get a few more platinum stars and call it a day. We're not getting anywhere by worrying about something like this."