If you notice any errors, please feel free to give me constructive feedback. English is not my first language, so if you notice any mistakes, please mention them in the comment section at the end of the chapter. I do not own Overlord. All property rights belong to their respective creators. Let's begin the story!
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Chapter-28
Múspellsheim,
Yggdrasil,
Earth – January of Year 2138,
Overlord Verse;
3 Months Before the End of Yggdrasil,
Agartha;
The Eternal Flying Garden of Utopia – Avalon:
Kai sat reclined on the obsidian throne perched atop the highest balcony of his castle in Agartha, inside his guild base. His gaze was fixed on Deicide, his pet that now flew around his castle. His pet was bigger than his whole floor in its true form. Yet, now in its shorter form, it was as big as windmills.
But Kai's mind wasn't on the dragon either.
His attention had been focused on the audio feed he received from a phone call, though his console. The caller had been Shouko.
"Ryuga," she muttered, her voice carrying the coldness, "I understand that you and your brother don't see eye to eye. But to not visit him even once after he's been admitted? And not even informing him about your wedding?"
Kai watched the feed in silence, fingers drumming on the gilded armrest of his throne. As he listened on the call, as Shouko confronted Ryuga, his brother in his office.
"He wouldn't have come even if I invited him," Ryuga shot back, voice dry, carrying that same arrogance Kai himself sometimes exuded. "Besides, we're strangers. Have been for years now."
"That's your justification?" Shouko's eyes narrowed, her voice sharp, "You've given up on him because of some childish grudge?"
"It's not a grudge," Ryuga countered, smirking bitterly. "It's realism. Kai lives in his own world and always has. Do you think, I don't see his all-knowing smirk, the way he looks down on us. To someone as great as him, we aren't even worth his time. With his obsession to some game." He muttered.
Shouko stayed quiet for a breath, but her fingers tightened around the helm of her dress.
"It's not obsession," she finally said, voice softer but far colder. "It's resignation. He accepted his fate long before any of us did."
"Exactly," Ryuga sneered, leaning back into his chair. "That's why I didn't tell him about the wedding. He's already written us off. He treats life like a formality. Moreover, for someone as mighty as him, why does he need us."
Kai exhaled hearing his brother's replies, he didn't think the enmity ran so deep.
After being hospitalised, he had spent all his time in Yggdrasil, just wishing to not die before Yggdrasil. With him bound, unable to operate anything, rather than lying on a bed, staring at the hospital ceiling, he had escaped to Yggdrasil. With his wish to operate everything within the game, he had paid Kayaba and his team, handsomely for replicating items that function as his computer, console, mobile and tablet inside the game. Though, they remained oblivious to what use could those items provide inside a dying game.
His lips curled slightly at his situation. It was only a matter of time, before he would unleash himself upon the New World.
His gaze shifted from the screen to Deicide – the massive eastern dragon circling the castle sky.
He couldn't help but feel excitement for the future, after the end of Yggdrasil.
As, his mind wandered back to the conversation he had with Shouko, after she witnessed a scar on his back after waking up. Their relationship making some progress, as Kai fought with himself on the implications of their relationship. And he had to admit, 'She really did drag me around a lot after the incident. Pulling me along everywhere, cutting our game time, by nearly half.' He mused, with a rare smile, amid the chaotic turn his life took.
It was in one of those days, that he had shared with her about the dream, he had, hiding the Yggdrasil and Overlord part from her, excluding his reincarnation. The dream, where he found himself stranded on a suspended bridge, between two mountain peaks, with abyss sprawling below.
Though, he hadn't shared all the details of the dream, just the part where he woke up with injuries from the dream, but that they would heal after a while.
As for the dream, he was happy with the progress he had made, as he could see the end of the bridge, albeit the damaged structure of the bridge barely holding on. As, he walked the rest of the route, with end in sight, he had hope.
But to witness her crestfallen look, while ha laid on a hospital bed, he shared the information about the New World, though he had remained indirect while, sharing his information. Unable to look at that dishevelled figure of hers, he shared the information of New World, playing it off as dream.
He remembered how she hadn't given it much thought at the time, but paired with that weird dream, she did ponder about it. Added with the dream, he narrated about the New World, he had witnessed in his dream before the launch of Yggdrasil. When he was even unaware of its existence.
A dream, that he narrated to her, where he had dreamt of a giant majestic dragon casting an unknown magic that summoned unknown items from a giant tree, that was on the verge of death. The Giant tree withered as the items and structures flew off through the tear in space. All of them arriving in an unknown world, inhabited by various races, ruled by dragons.
The structures he saw in the New World, beings and magic he had witnessed in that dream.
He described to her about the magic and the items he witnessed in the dream, present in Yggdrasil. The players he found in Yggdrasil – who had appeared in his dream. There were too many similarities, explaining her the reason why he had stopped them from barging in on the guild raid on Ainz Ooal Gown by Union of Eight Guilds.
For he had witnessed the guild base of Ainz Ooal Gown in the New World, before Yggdrasil and how he was able to confirm their existence, while, playing Yggdrasil.
All of it had sounded too farfetched to her, yet she was hopeful of such an opportunity in this dystopian world. Shouko had witnessed a wound – A cut disappear of his back. And yet she found it all hard to believe.
He sighed softly, eyes on the spiraling Deicide.
Shouko's voice continued from the console, her tone softening after the long argument.
"Ryuga, he had many flaws, but not loving his family isn't one. He cared for his loved ones."
Kai's lips twitched, barely a smile. Unable to understand, why she loved him or fought for him? Her love too much for him to bear, he doubted if whether he deserved it.
******
The conversation between Shouko and Ryuga had reached its boiling point.
"You don't even try, Ryuga," she muttered, crossing her arms. "You just ran away from him."
Her words weren't soft. Shouko had always spoken directly – when the she didn't care for the other person. But her patience, stretched thin by his evasions, finally snapped.
"You think staying away is love? You think cutting him off is compassion?"
Ryuga's fingers twitched. His eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a thin line. But for once, the usual smirk wasn't there. Instead, something else cracked through the facade.
With a sudden motion, Ryuga's fist slammed his desk, unable to take it anny longer, startling Shouko. While, Kai got worried by his action.
Tears streaked down his face. His breathing grew ragged, uneven.
"What the hell do you know about it, Shouko?" His voice cracked with grief, laced with rage. His reaction, confounded Shouko, as she remained silent.
Ryuga's shoulders shook, his lips twisting into a bitter smile as the tears kept falling.
"You could never understand," Ryuga muttered, choking on the words. His voice cracked again, but this time he didn't stop himself. "You don't know what it was like for me. For me, he wasn't just a brother. He was my idol and my inspiration." Shouko's eyes widened slightly. Her lips parted, but no words came out.
Ryuga continued, his gaze hollow, looking somewhere beyond the present. Somewhere deep in memory.
"He was much more than an idol, a perfect being. A genius and the prodigy of Kurenai. He could do everything. Everything." His fists clenched over the table, knuckles white. "There was nothing he couldn't do. He was my pride, Shouko."
His lips trembled as he whispered, "I was proud just to be his brother."
Shouko sat frozen, her usual sharp rebuttals lost.
Kai, on his end, closed his eyes.
"So, when that perfect being decided to tear down his own shrine, what do you think that did to me?" Ryuga's voice grew quieter now, but the bitterness stayed. "The Wall of Fame, that we kept in our house—dedicated to him. Photos, trophies, medals, all his achievements. He destoyed them all in rage. I idealised him, I wished to be a fraction of what he was…"
Kai's mind conjured the image instantly. His own hands smashing the glass of the display. Shards littering the ground, golden medals stained with his own blood after he'd punched through the frame.
"I watched him destroy the shrine like a madman," Ryuga whispered, voice cracking again. "And to me, back then, my whole world came crashing down."
Shouko lowered her gaze, her throat tightening.
"You can defend it all you want," Ryuga continued, "say no one's at fault. But to me? To the boy who grew up idolizing him?" He swallowed, his voice trembling. "It was like watching my God fall. I wore his achievements as a batch, proud to be his brother. Everywhere you go, in school or parties…. Everyone spoke about my brother."
The silence that followed was heavy. It was definitely, not something neither he nor what Shouko had expected. He was honoured that his brother thought, so highly of him. To be idealised by his brother, and him not seething with jealousy upon comparison drawn between brothers…. "I am happy that he idolises me, but isn't it bit too much… devotion?" Kai wondered, hoping to at least rectify before this before the end of Yggdrasil.
"I respect my brother…." Ryuga muttered, softer now, eyes misty and distant. "I love him as my brother. But what can I do, Shouko? The world's unkind."
Even though, Shouko was stunned into silence.
But Ryuga wasn't done.
"Do you think I don't know?" His lips curled into a bitter smile, his tears still fresh. "Do you think I don't know that he transferred all his assets to me?"
Shouko looked up, eyes widening slightly. Her throat tightened, but she said nothing.
"All of it," Ryuga continued. "His company shares. His properties. Everything tied to him and the companies that he started as his side projects."
He chuckled softly, the sound devoid of humor.
"He left a house and some stocks for Kanami. For loyalty, I guess. But the rest?" He let out a breath, voice breaking again. "He wrote it all in my name, as if he has given up on life."
This was the first time he'd heard Ryuga speak his mind, and it had been quite shocking to him.
"Families are quite complicated…. And I still can't understand, how Ryuga came to treat me as a god?" Kai muttered, sighing at his fate.
******
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**The End**
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