Teaser: They meet the ultimate shounen villain whose arc was too long, too expensive, and too complicated to ever be animated so now he's stuck ruling over a battlefield that never ends, waiting for a hero who never comes, and Mira isn't even a protagonist.
The mountain was fake.
So was the sky.
But the pressure in the air?
That was real.
They climbed toward the "Final Arena," a broken floating stage surrounded by dead plotlines. Half-rendered explosions floated in place. Sword trails hung mid-air. Screams echoed on loop.
"This place gives me flashbacks," Rion muttered. "Chapter 197. My writer tried to make me fight a guy with twelve forms and tragic backstory. The arc got canceled halfway."
Yuto nearly tripped on a severed anime arm.
"Are we sure we want to meet this guy?" he asked.
"No," Mira said. "But if we don't, this zone keeps looping forever."
---
At the top, he waited.
Tall. Silver-haired. Eyes closed.
Black coat flapping, even though there was no wind engine left.
Twelve swords floated around him. Each from a different anime style. One even pixelated.
He opened his eyes.
"Ah. The reject."
Mira blinked. "You know me?"
He smiled. "Everyone in limbo knows the one who broke the flow. Mira Elen, the unchosen villainess."
Yuto whispered, "Who is this guy?"
Rion answered, "Shuugo Vermillion. Final boss of the 'Twelve Trials of Blood Saga.'"
Mira: "That sounds exhausting."
Shuugo: "It was."
---
He stepped forward.
"I was designed to be undefeatable. Complex. Philosophical. I had twelve themes. Each tied to one sword."
He raised the first blade. "This one represents betrayal."
Second. "This one is vengeance."
Third. "This one… probably angst. The writer gave up labeling halfway."
Mira: "So why are you still here?"
Shuugo stared at the sky. "No one ever made it to me. The series got rebooted three times. My arc was deemed too long. Too expensive."
He looked at her.
"I just want one final fight. Then I'll vanish."
---
System prompt:
> "FINAL BOSS CHALLENGE AVAILABLE."
> "WARNING: NOT RECOMMENDED FOR SIDE CHARACTERS."
Mira rolled her eyes. "Too bad. I'm not a side character."
Rion: "We could just... glitch him, right?"
"No," Mira said. "Let him have his ending."
She stepped into the circle.
Shuugo grinned. "Then come, broken thing. Let's finish someone's story."
---
They clashed.
Sparks. Light. Music that tried to play but kept skipping.
He slashed with metaphors. Mira dodged with sarcasm.
"You have no arc!" he shouted.
"I have a pen!" she yelled back, swinging her patch tag like a whip.
Each blade shattered. Each theme cracked. Betrayal? She laughed at it. Vengeance? She skipped it. Angst? She deleted the folder.
---
At the last swing, she ducked under his most dramatic monologue and slapped a rewritten tag on his chest.
(Everything stopped.)
Shuugo gasped. "What… what did you write?"
Mira whispered: "Your arc ends with peace."
He blinked. Then smiled.
"For the first time… I don't have to monologue anymore."
He disintegrated like pixels. Twelve swords dropped quietly. The arena faded into morning light.
System update:
> "FINAL BOSS: RESOLVED."
> "ZONE CLEARED."
---
Yuto fell to the ground. "I am NEVER watching anime again."
Rion: "Don't worry. It was all filler anyway."
Mira looked at the empty space where Shuugo vanished.
"Next genre?"
---
(Next: They enter the Glitch Zone—a dimension filled with characters who were *never completed*, living half-lives with missing memories… and one of them used to be Mira's older sister.)