Section 19 Node 4 Super Recollection Quest (2/3)

...Kar...na... Karna...!

Yes, it's me. Though I have changed a little since we last met.

This power is incredible. To think this is still only a fragment of Shiva and Vishnu's strength.

I...see... Hehehe, now I see! So you have...also come closer...to becoming a perfect god!

Good. That is how it should be. If you mean to stand in my way, that is exactly how it should be!

...? What a strange thing to say.

What...?

Neither of us is at all close to being a perfect god. That could not be clearer.

Would a perfect god be so fixated on my name, as you have been thus far?

That can only mean one thing... Your humanity is showing through.

...!!!

You are very much still human deep down inside, Arjuna. That is why we can do battle like this.

I, for one, am grateful that neither of us are gods. We are both warriors. Nothing more.

Karna...you bastard!

Mmm, how very surprising! I never thought the Hero of Benefaction could cut so deep with but a few words!

In that case, allow me the honor of stopping up this god's ears, so as to shield them from these wicked words!

God! God! God of this land! If you feel as though you are still lacking...

If you sense that what you have may still not be enough, then rest assured that I am here to ease your concerns!

Behold...a benefaction from the one true god!

Behold these stairs that link us to the skies! This texture that transforms everything into its rightful form!

This Lostbelt may be yet another frail bastion for humanity, but its way of life is completely unique!

In place of a future that expands ever outward, it has elected a future that narrows infinitely inward!

Indeed, that is the one good thing about this Lostbelt! It will reach its end goal quicker that way.

Turn, turn, turn! Every time the cycle turns, more is shaved off! Now, its destruction reaches a fever pitch!

The roots of cosmic fantasy have descended upon us, and the Tree of Ideology has died! Hear me, foundation of a new world, and bloom!

Your name is Tree of Emptiness Spiral! You are the many finite boundaries that surround this planet!

Th-the Tree of Emptiness...!

It's opening up even further! And not only that...!

What is this!?

This change in color... It seems to be like what we saw in China, only taken even further...?

I don't know what this new black color means, but I believe the tree's structure remains identical to the one in China.

That is to say, the Tree of Emptiness contained its own pocket dimension. Now, the Tree has opened up, exposing the galaxy inside.

There's no time to analyze it further, and as of yet, no telling what it means.

All I can say for certain at this point...is that a tremendous amount of magical energy is flowing from it and into Arjuna!

(Orochi. Sombrero. Mayall. And now, Spiral. As I suspected, they're all names of different galaxies.)

(They must be weapons of invasion from other celestial bodies. But why invade like this?)

(With that much sheer magical energy, they could just as easily incinerate the Earth's surface, as Goetia did.)

(So why would our enemies go out of their way to model the trees after galaxies? Are they truly weapons of invasion?)

Ahh... Haha, hahaha, hahahahaha!

I feel just as powerful now as I did when I first absorbed the gods. No, even more so...!

It doesn't matter how much power you take in from elsewhere, Arjuna. This changes nothing.

...Oh, right. I have been told that I have a tendency to say too little rather than too much, so let me be abundantly clear about this.

If the dark Krishna inside you truly has become who you are now...

...then you yourself have become something you saw as defective, and you just haven't realized it yet.

Though, honestly, I never saw you as defective at all.

So let me ask you: What are your own deficiencies? What is your own evil?

Have you ever looked at yourself, and admitted that you might also have faults?

The Arjuna I know was no god, but he knew the value of taking a good, long look at himself.

Looking... Yes... Like the way you're looking at me now.

Stop that, Karna... Don't look at me...like that...

That's it. That was exactly the last piece we needed. Karna put it into place without even trying.

A god is most vulnerable when they begin to question their own infallibility!

You're doing it again... Your eyes are trying to make me see something inside myself!

That is...a sin. It is evil. I must pass judgment on you...with my own hands!

Karnaaa!!!

The only thing I see now is the fact that you can no longer ignore my spear.

Now that you have abandoned that irksome detachment, I finally have the chance I've been waiting for.

It doesn't matter if you're a god. I will keep trying to surpass you, just as I always have!

Arjunaaa!!!

He... He did it, Master! Arjuna has been fatally wounded!

...How?

I should have completely outclassed you! Even if you do have Shiva and Vishnu's power now, I have the power of every god!

Not only do I too have Shiva and Vishnu, I also have Agni, Indra, Brahma, Soma... All of them...!

You're still searching for a reason? You truly are a thickheaded man.

Very well then, I'll tell you why you lost... Though I'll admit, I too only realized this while we were fighting.

It is because you lack something crucial. Something that I possess, and you do not.

What...? That...that can't be. I possess every Divinity in the

What you lack...is that.

？！

...!

That's right. Companions. To put it another way...a god is only a god if there are people who recognize them as such.

A god cannot be a god if they are all alone.

You grew dependent on power from beyond this world in the Tree of Emptiness, and wholly abandoned its people.

You may have become a nigh omnipotent god thanks to that power, able to create and destroy entirely by yourself...

...but such a god is no god at all.

You must have known that yourself, even if you didn't realize it.

What...?

This Spirit Core informed me all about the last Lōkapāla, a fusion of god and man, more balanced than any other.

Then...you're saying his was the strength of a god in tune with people?

It sounds like you know whom I mean.

Now that you understand, all that remains to say is this:

While I did not do so using solely my own strength... I won this time, Arjuna.

G-ghhh... Karna...!

This failure is...unacceptable... I've never been...so humiliated...

...Humiliated...?

...

...

Heh... Hehehe...

This frustration at my defeat is the sort of defective, useless, and unnecessary evil I sought to eliminate.

Haha! So what is it doing inside of me!?

Now I see. I was never a complete being to begin with... Of course not. I am too flawed to be a perfect god...

I only sought perfection, greedily, to my own detriment... To the point I no longer realized I was doing so.

You are right, Karna... It was the dark, greedy Krishna inside me...

The one who consumed even the gods, and tolerated no evil whatsoever... That is who I...

...Now I understand why I lost. My blade of destruction could not be turned on myself.

No matter how many yuga cycles passed, my obsession with you...my evil...would always remain.

It was that obsession that drove me to become a perfect god beyond what was necessary.

So the god I becamethe final god, born of evil, who tried to guide his people toward a proper world...

...still harbored a dreadful evil within his soul.

I probably should have tried to destroy that first, before I turned my focus to the world...

...

Now, that evil I failed to destroy has become my own destruction... So foolish of me...

All I know is, a being like you could only have come about in a world like this.

You're one of this Lostbelt's victims, something that could only exist in the Pruning Theoretical Phenomenon.

I don't need your pity.

Pity? I don't pity you. I was just thinking what a great shame this is.

The Arjuna I truly aim to defeat is an ordinary man. He was never given the role of a god, final or otherwise.

But incomplete as he was, he never stopped seeking completion. I think that is who you were meant to be.

The world is no different. Once it is truly "complete," there is nowhere left for it to go.

And having nowhere left to go...strikes me as woefully incomplete.

Ha... So it's a paradox. I believed I was complete, all while failing to notice the ways in which I was not.

What's more, believing myself complete was itself the seed of further deficiency.

Now I see. I was a walking paradox, right from the beginning.

I couldn't even be the man... you wanted me to be...