Chapter Text
You feel the Void scream as you place down the next card. You hear Tenma scream too.
"A-a Reverse card? Then, Shuu, you're--!"
"Don't worry, Tenma," you interrupt, tone soothing. "Reverse can't affect me."
You look back at him. He seems unconvinced, as if he can see the reddening aura around you, as if he can hear Void shrieking in your ear. However, Void keeps its distance, refusing to get too close; it is hissing horrible things designed to make your existence as painful as possible. But it can't touch you.
You know, and it knows, that you'd swallow it up quicker than it could swallow you.
Instead it sneers at you with Hakuryuu's face, taunts you with Hakuryuu's voice. It's pathetic, you think - pathetic to ever try to truly control him.
"Isn't it strange? I, unable to be Reversed, wielding part of your power," you smile as you turn back to the fight, as insincere as you can manage. "And yet you can't penetrate his heart enough to curse him with a Reverse card. He's fighting, even now. He's too bright for you."
It screams again, in your head, and then physically with Hakuryuu's mouth. Surprised cries from behind you remind you once more of Tenma and his group's presence. You can feel the heat of anger radiating from Tsurugi, like he's ashamed that Hakuryuu fell to where he had been only days before. He wishes this was his fight, you realise. But the risk would be too high for him.
"I will activate Amon Reverse's Limit Break," you continue. Void's promises turn from violent to placating, offering power and freedom. "I lock Dimension Creeper. Amon gains 12000 power, and an extra critical."
Void's voice turns to cries from Hakuryuu's throat as its power is drained by your own Vanguard. "With Devil Child's boost, Amon Reverse attacks Maelstrom."
You know it has no response, and all its threats return as it feels itself pulled away from its weak hold on Hakuryuu's body. You can feel the others rush forward to keep Hakuryuu from falling as the middling world holding their battle fades.
Instead, Void surrounds you, half-spitting, half-pleading. You feel like laughing as you reach out to touch it and it recoils as if it was burned.
"You won't take this world as long as they're here," you say, less a warning than it is a fact. "And they're here for as long as I am, so you can try all you like."