As Judge was having his fair share of ntal breakdowns — plural, because of course he never does anything just once (The poisoned wine was a great example) — Satan was simply standing there, watching like soone who forgot why they walked into the room. Except in his case, it wasn't forgetfulness. His brain had already waved a tiny white flag, packed its bags, and left the premises entirely.
Judge was pacing, muttering, dramatically clutching his head like a Victorian noblewoman about to act like she was fainting in order to get out of a marriage talk. anwhile, Satan looked like a crashed computer: blank expression, spirit spinning a rainbow wheel of doom, absolutely no thoughts, not even the courtesy of a buffering icon.
Judge had a ltdown.
Satan's brain had lted, then evaporated, and was now probably haunting the air vents. Totally different category. If Judge was a chaotic human error, Satan was a full system failure. One was overwheld. The other? Terminally underwheld, which was a mild way to put "Total Failure of system".
Honestly, if you asked them to compare their ltdowns, Judge would give you an emotional monologue, and Satan would just shrug — if he rembered how shoulders work.
For better or worse — and the universe was quietly placing all its bets on "worse" — Judge could now completely control Satan with the magical quill gifted to him by that cryptic witch.
You know, the one who'd been an annoyingly pleasing presence in his life: charming enough to keep around, mysterious enough to be a problem, and whimsical enough that you never knew whether she was giving you a blessing, a curse, or a coupon for emotional instability. She was like the third wish from a genie's lamp (European version).
But here lay the issue: Satan couldn't escape the current predicant, not even with Judge pulling the strings like a very confused puppeteer. If Judge had full control, Satan now had full uselessness.
The first problem? Their opponent.
Tenebris.
An existence so absurdly powerful that Judge and Satan together had about as much chance of beating him as a goldfish has of winning a fencing match... Maybe slightly better, but that is beyond the point.
The most important thing was the fact that Satan couldn't escape, and Judge couldn't help.
Sure, Judge could drag Satan's husk-like body into his studio dinsion — but he had no clue whether Tenebris could follow them inside. And Judge was absolutely not interested in discovering that particular scientific fact. He knew the odds, and the odds said: "No. Don't you dare. Put that ingenious idea down."
Then ca the second problem, which was equally horrifying but in the "plot twist no one asked for" category.
Judge found out Tenebris wasn't a sealer at all. Oh no. He was apparently the only living god left from the original twelve. Judge had a whole mont of emotional buffering — eyes wide, brain lagging, reality glitching — before he snapped back into focus because the narration was clearly preparing to shift into combat mode, and he refused to enter a battle scene with his jaw still figuratively on the floor.
So with cosmic doom approaching, and zero good ideas on the table, only one option remained. The questionable one. The "this will either solve everything or create a philosophical sinkhole" one.
Judge prepared the quill.
He decided to lend Satan the principle of nihility, which sounded impressive enough but ca with the small problem that he'd never actually tested it. It seed complete. Probably. Maybe. The only evidence he had was the hollow heart he'd accidentally made once — which remained a mystery, dically, magically, and emotionally.
But current Satan? Current Satan was in the perfect state for experintation. Half broken, mostly pliable, ntally on a permanent vacation, and most importantly — physically present. Truly an ideal specin.
And the more Judge thought about it, the more excited he got.
This was either going to save the day… or turn Satan into abstract art.
Either way, Judge was very invested in seeing what would happen.
Satan moved first. Moving with the grace of a fish trying to survive on land.
Tenebris was apparently so deep in whatever century-long flashback he'd fallen into that he forgot they were still in a battle. He blinked back to the present just in ti to watch Satan's first action like soone watching a toddler reach for a lit stove: alard, confused, and a little too late.
The move itself was simple. Since experints needed to be started as simple, harmless ones. Unless… you were, say, testing a minor software update that just happened to knock an entire airline offline for a day — totally routine maintenance, absolutely nothing to worry about.
Satan erased the chanical hand still attached to Percival's body.
No dramatic gesture. No sound. Not even the satisfaction of a clean disintegration. The hand just… stopped existing. One second, tal components, the next, a hole in reality shaped like soone had forgotten to finish the drawing.
A black gap, sharp-edged and absolutely wrong. It was black since light can't pass through, not that it needed explaining.
Then the universe — which had not approved this decision — lurched to fix it.
The surrounding ether rushed into the void with the frantic enthusiasm of coworkers cleaning up after soone broke sothing expensive. The hole compressed, folded, and refilled itself, until the absence was replaced entirely.
Air.Just normal air.Like the hand had never been there at all.
Judge's heart absolutely thrumd with excitent.
Because if Satan could casually delete smaller objects like that…
Then what on earth would happen when he tried erasing sothing bigger?
Tenebris finally snapped out of his reverie. His gaze hardened, the kind of cold clarity only ancient beings and disappointed mothers achieved. He recognized the principle instantly—not by sight, but by the feeling it left behind, that faint shudder in the structure of ether.
Nihility, he knew another user of this principle. Though more dangerous.
This was a principle Tenebris really didn't want to see in the hands of a confused man running on borrowed instructions.
And Satan — vacant expression, posture slack, totally mindless (literally) — had just used it like a kid testing scissors on a tablecloth.
Tenebris inhaled very slowly.
Judge grinned very nervously.
Satan just stood there... very there?
Anyway, he was already preparing to erase the next thing he vaguely interpreted as "relevant." Or Judge was, for the matter of fact.
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