The Insurrection of the Inept Hero
Chapter 134: Omen II

"What's wrong, Nero? Did I startle you?" Omen said as he dropped his mask and stomped on it, breaking it into pieces.

"Wh-why do you look like me?" I questioned. Omen shook his head in disappointment.

"Come on, Nero, you should know who I am. I am you. Naoko Akujin. How could you not recognize who I am?" Omen said, extending his arms.

"No, you can't be me. You must've morphed your body to look exactly like mine."

"My my, I must've been wrong when I said you became smarter. You must've grown dumber instead." He said, approaching me.

"You can't deny the truth. You know I am you and you cannot deny it."

"Don't move!" I yelled, firing Piercing Red at him but he dodged. Luckily, he did stop.

"Explain exactly who you are! I want every detail and you are not moving until you tell me."

Omen and I locked eyes. His eyes were also purple and blue, just like mine. The energy he gave off was also similar to mine. The only difference was that felt more intoxicating and evil.

"Very well. I will explain. You see, Nero, I am you, from an alternate timeline."

"Pff, you expect me to believe such bullshit!?"

"I am not lying to you, Nero. What use is there to lie to my own counterpart?"

I shut my mouth as he continued to speak.

"You see, everything was going alright. Unlocked my Altima, gained Leviathan, etc. However, it all went downhill after the Frost Siege. You know what happened then."

"Risa died, is that right?"

Omen looked at me with a blank expression before nodding.

"So is that the reason you came to this timeline? To save her? If that's the case, you did a horrible job."

"Save her? No, that should've been your job but I knew you would've failed. My true goal was to actually recruit you, but I should've expected you to be stubborn."

He extended his hand and smiled, beckoning.

"Now then, I will ask you one more time Nero. Will you join me? Or not? Together, we could save Risa from her death. You know she did not deserve to die like that. Her life had a meaning, and it did not deserve to end in such a way."

"No." I declined though he said some very good points.

Omen's smile faded away and he glared at me.

"Why not? I'm offering you the choice to help me save Risa again. We can replace a way to revive your Risa. Is that not what you want?"

"No, I don't need to revive her. Maybe you don't understand, do you?" I asked him and he started to grit his teeth.

"Her promise. We were to forget about her when she died and move on. That is the promise that she made to me. She did that for you, didn't she?"

"Promise. What promise? I didn't even agree to such things. Why make a promise when you can't keep it?"

"No, YOU couldn't keep it. This is why you are doing this, right?"

"Yes, precisely."

"So then why can't you can just travel to another timeline to save her?"

"I did not obtain the ability to time travel to other timelines to save her. I traveled to other timelines to replace a spell to resurrect her!"

Omen vanished and appeared behind me, grabbing me by the neck.

"I tried to save her once, but whenever I did, time would freeze eternally. Turns out, interfering with events that fate has prearranged causes that timeline to completely break. I couldn't do anything after that, so I traveled to a new timeline. As I continued to learn the laws of time travel, I decided for an alternative route."

He turned me towards him and glared into my eyes. A trail of silver light poured from his eyes.

"I needed the ability to resurrect someone fully. I wanted to bring Risa back to life as a human. Though I could've done it with necromancy, I didn't want to bring back an emotionless corpse. I wanted the real Risa back!"

"So why couldn't you have done that in your timeline!?"

"Because I killed everyone out of rage!!" He yelled, "And the key to resurrection lies in my body! In other words, you!"

He gripped onto my chest where my heart was located.

"I've killed countless versions of myself in order to obtain this ability and none of them has given me that. I've pondered why but it turns out that only one out of every version of a certain individual has such an ability. I wondered… maybe it's because I killed them too early before they had the chance to fight back. You wanna know why I killed them?"

He smirked, waiting for me to ask why despite me already knowing the answer.

"Heh."

Krrsh!

"Gah!"

I gasped as Omen plunged his hand into my chest, grabbing ahold onto my heart. I tried to fight back but he was too powerful. Even shifting into my Altima form couldn't get him to let go. I amassed mana into my fist and with all my power, I slammed my fist into his head.

Hitting him was like walking into a pole. He didn't even flinch but cackled as he ripped my heart out.

Letting go of me, I was forced out of my Altima and fell towards the ground. Meanwhile, Omen was inspecting the heart he held in his hand.

"The ability should lie here once I kill you. That was only a tease. Before I kill you, I want to see what surprises you have to offer me. After all, you are the first out of all the alternate versions of me that I let live up to this moment."

Omen crushed my heart and poured the blood into his mouth before throwing it away.

"Now then, come at me with full intent to kill." Omen said to me.

I got up. I could feel the centipedes inside me create a new heart inside me by using themselves as the material. The hole in my chest eventually closed up.

I shifted back into my Altima form and charged forward. I struck him across the face with another full-power punch but he didn't even flinch.

I stepped back and performed Twisted Chaos Dance. Omen smirked as he started to perform strange movements, managing to evade my Twisted Chaos Dance.

I staggered in surprise. No one should be able to evade Twisted Chaos Dance, even me!

"What's wrong?" Omen said, appearing in front of me, "Is that all?"

I grit my teeth as I equipped Osiris. Accumulating every ounce of my power into my fist, I went for his face again.

"GRIM HYDRA FIST!!" I yelled as my fist got closer to his face. Then, right when I was about to hit him, I was sent flying back with my lower jaw and the right side of my chest disconnected from my body.

My mind tried to process what had just occurred as Omen stood there with my arm in his bloodied hand.

"Hmm, maybe I should've let you hit me. I think I was bullying you way too much." He chuckled, tossing my arm away before approaching me.

Centipedes started to emerge from my body and regenerate my body. Omen stood and watched curiously.

"Now now, this is interesting. I've never seen regeneration like this before. Is this the immortality you earned from sacrificing Vozahlaas?"

I didn't answer him for two reasons. One, my mouth hadn't fully regenerated yet and two, even if I answered, he would have already known the answer.

"Maybe I should've accepted. Guess killing Yukie and Sephirot was a bad idea but at least I got the ability to time travel as a result."

My eyes widened to those words. He what?

"Yeah. I killed Yukie and Sephirot," He said, pointing to his chest, "You never knew you could do that?"

"B-but why?" I asked as my jaw had regenerated.

"Oh, it seems when I had been consumed by wrath, my body's limit exceed my own comprehension and my strength overflowed. You see, I became nearly 5 times stronger after that. Consuming Sephirot granted me even more power and now, look at me."

Omen closed his eyes and took a deep breath, flaunting his power. His aura materialized and the grass surrounding us began to dry up.

"I am the personification of death itself. Time bends to my will and there is absolutely no one that can stop me. That includes the former Enigma that once held second place in the hierarchy."

Omen cackled while I took in the words he said.

So he killed a former Enigma that once held second place? This is not good. I am heavily underprepared for this. If only I can replace a window to escape.

Once my body had fully healed, I stood up and quickly turned to flee. However, Omen didn't let me and teleported in front of me, slamming me towards the ground.

"You're not going anywhere."

He stared at me and smirked.

"Screw the Twilight Queen's words. I'll just kill you now. If you don't happen to have what I need, I can always just travel to another timeline. You should've just accepted my offer and you could've lived. I can't believe I would be disappointed in myself."

He faced his palm at me and smirked as he circulated energy to the end of his palm. The air began to distort as he was about to deliver his blow.

Bling!

Suddenly, Omen was engulfed by a pillar of divine energy. Dark energy would then suddenly be mixed into the pillar.

Then a figure appeared in front of me and snatched me away, taking me far away from the pillar which would increase in size, causing more destruction before lightning wrapped the pillar, creating a giant explosion.

"Are you alright, Nero?"

I looked up at the figure who saved me and it turned out to be Ravyn.

"Ravyn?"

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