Well… that was one hell of an entrance.
Another thing off my bucket list.
The impact of the transition still lingered as we all landed on scattered fragments of floating stone, each suspended in the vast nothingness of the Distortion World.
Around us, the sky twisted like a broken mirror, rivers of light flowing in reverse, and landmasses hung upside down in defiance of all logic.
Irina and the others looked around in stunned disbelief, their eyes wide as if the ground beneath their feet had been pulled away along with reality itself... which it did in a way...
Xenovia, though, was different.
Her grip on her sword tightened, and her expression hardened into something sharper than steel.
The arrogant sneer she had worn before was gone.
Instead, there was resolve—a realization that whatever I was, I wasn't going to be an easy opponent.
Too bad for her.
I'm still the weakest one here.
Her real opponent isn't me.
It's my girl—Giratina.
…Though, speaking of her, where the hell is she?
I glanced left.
Nothing.
Looked right.
Still nothing.
Above?
Below?
All I saw was more broken terrain, more shattered sky.
"??"
Seriously, where is she?
As I turned in confusion, the atmosphere around us suddenly shifted.
The air grew heavier—no, it wasn't just air.
It was existence itself pressing down, crushing.
Everyone froze.
Their bodies stiffened, their faces drained of color, their instincts screaming louder than their minds could process.
They looked like prey that had just realized the predator was already in the room.
"??"
Well… yeah, it's probably Giratina.
But what could make them this terrified?
I turned around.
And finally understood.
"…Oh."
She wasn't absent.
She wasn't hiding.
I hadn't noticed her because she was simply too massive for my mind to grasp at once.
Stretching above me was an endless wall of black scales, veined with aqua, studded with jagged gold spikes.
The sheer scope of her body vanished into the horizon like she was woven into the fabric of this world itself.
From their vantage point, maybe they could see her serpentine frame, her wings of shadow splitting the sky—but from mine, it was like staring at a living continent.
As big as a mountain?
A country?
A planet?
I couldn't tell.
All I knew was that everything I saw was her.
Damn.
I really had gotten myself a monster of a legendary Pokémon.
And this… this was her holding back.
The only reason she'd ever managed to appear in my world before was because she had suppressed herself, compressing that impossible form into something I could comprehend.
But here?
In her domain?
There was no need for restraint.
The endless expanse shifted.
The abyss groaned as her colossal body moved, and then a shadow even darker than the void itself swallowed us whole.
A head—large enough to eclipse mountains—descended from above, lowering until those cold, luminous blue eyes fixed directly on us.
Twin stars of light burning in an ocean of darkness.
The pressure of her gaze alone was suffocating.
It wasn't bloodlust—it was existence.
A power so absolute it made Xenovia's holy sword tremble in her hands.
The magical barriers Rias and Sona had conjured flickered as if threatening to collapse just from proximity.
Even Irina staggered, clutching at her chest like her heart was about to give out.
And me?
I grinned.
"So cool…"
I whispered, unable to hold it back.
Her radiant eyes.
Her overwhelming presence.
Her monstrous majesty that shook even this twisted world.
This—this was exactly what I had always wanted to see.
Xenovia and the others looked like they could barely stand, their legs trembling under Giratina's sheer presence.
Even the bravest of them seemed frozen in place, too terrified to breathe properly.
Sigh…
If this were a real enemy, that kind of fear would've been perfect.
But right now?
This was supposed to be a spar.
And most of the people here were allies, not foes.
I scolded her sharply in my mind.
'You idiot! What's the point of scaring them like this?! This is just a spar, and most of them are my friends!'
Her voice flowed into my thoughts, deep yet strangely apologetic.
'Forgive me, Master… I forgot to change my form.'
The towering, continent-sized silhouette shifted.
Darkness pulled inward, her immense frame shrinking at an alarming rate until, in just a few moments, the overwhelming titan was gone—replaced by a smaller, much more manageable version of Giratina.
Well… "manageable" might not be the right word.
She was still terrifying in her own right, but compared to that colossal form, her smaller state almost felt… cute.
Chibi Giratina might not have the same planet-crushing gravitas, but I couldn't deny she had her own charm.
I turned my attention back to Xenovia, who was still pale but had managed to steady her breathing.
"Now then," I said, cracking a smirk.
"Get ready, Xenovia. Let's start the match."
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but I continued anyway.
"By the way, I'm a summoner. And she—" I gestured to the looming dragon at my side, "—is my summon, Giratina."
I let the words hang in the air before adding, just to twist the knife:
"I hope you're ready."
She was still trembling, though I caught the sight of her biting down hard on her lower lip, forcing herself to still her body.
A strange, radiant glow flared around her sword—holy power, raw and unfiltered, blazing so bright it felt like the air itself vibrated with it.
"Fine then," she declared, her voice taut with either determination… or fear. "I will not hold back!"
And then—she vanished.
The air cracked as an explosion went off at my side.
Shockwaves rippled outward, tearing chunks of the floating platform apart.
I couldn't even track her movements with my eyes.
Not that I needed to.
The storms of destruction around me were proof enough that Giratina was intercepting her every strike.
Each attack that should have torn me apart was being deflected before it could even touch me.
She wasn't aiming for Giratina.
She was trying to kill me.
Another detonation roared as she reappeared, panting heavily, on a nearby fragment of land.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her expression twisted in disbelief and exhaustion.
Her voice broke out, half frustration, half desperation:
"How… How is my Excalibur Destruction not doing damage?! How is this possible?!"
…Wait.
Did she just say Excalibur?
I blinked.
So she's one of those people.
Great.
A holy knight and a chuuni.
Suppressing a laugh, I slipped my hand beneath my shirt, fingers closing around the crystal necklace resting against my chest.
Slowly, deliberately, I pulled it out into the open, letting its glow catch the distorted light of this world.
My lips curled into a grin—sharp, merciless, and dripping with sadism.
"Xenovia…" I said, my voice low but carrying across the abyss.
"Get ready. Because now—"
The crystal pulsed with ominous energy as Giratina stirred behind me.
"—It's my turn."
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