Elimination Exit

[Gildarts]

Faces faded, smells faded, everything around him faded with the sense of touch he had lost. The sound of his rapid heart had stopped beating when his chest erupted with the burning plunge formed by a liquid beam of light.

He had entered a place neither light nor dark, yet still felt a great sense of gravity hovering on his shoulders. So this is where the fallen slumber... The wordless man could see no tangible body, nor wield his own fist before him. All that remained was gone and he could only wait as the solitude, strung with time, passed only with his relapsing memories.

His allies of his past life were sure to live on, carrying the legends of his generation down to their children, and creating new stories to tell to their grandchildren.

Flashes of memories came to his mind, all the smiles he had shared, both in the Omniverse and his home realm. Fairy tail and Ambrosia, as well as the many faces he had encountered along the way. Those who had stood by him with endurance and never faltering loyalty, were the same who gave his pride purpose.

The wizard always had faith in his heart, yet sometimes hope and willpower alone weren't enough to win a battle to the death. He realized, I wasn't strong enough.

And in the darkness, the fallen man had no one to lean on.


Gildarts heard the question strumming in his subconscious, "Have you any regrets?"

What an easy answer, and yet, before he could move his slowed mind to project the words, the haze of dawn rushed into his eyes.

And then, the scent of fresh sheets softly met his nose. The powerful grip of his organic hand met with the first thing closest to him and the compound was immediately crushed by his mighty touch. The room shook as his crash magic went berserk and a splice began to rupture between the walls that stood only to box him in.

Gildarts wasn't fully convinced of his revival and looked around the sterile hopsital room as the fresh dust settled. It was much like the one he had awoken in Coruscant, yet this one, in his conscious presence, became a thrashed room that resembled much less than a trash heap.

A nurse peaked around the corner, fearful of disaster or her own imminent doom, as the intimidating male turned to find the menacing burns on his back had healed. "I thought I was dead." He uttered, life became surreal as he held the flesh of his own fist.

"Contestants come here afterwards, you are a Prime, and a strong one at that. How'd you manage to break an entire room?"

Gildarts enjoyed the small compliment, or rather, he took it as a complement before his eyes fell back on his silver arm. "Why is it that I do not have both my arms back?"

The nurse gathered her flustered self with enough courage to answer his question, "It is perhaps that you are only truthly yourself with the scars that you have bear."

Gildarts tilted his head as he analyzed the steel of his palm. It had once been covered in blood, but had they all survived? Or was it just him who Omni had revived?

His eyes remained on the shining glint of gray seeing only the scarlet stains that could never be removed. Those he had killed because the game had told him to, all held dear the same things he had.

Honor, friendship, triumph, and defeat.

With a new life came a new man however cliché comebacks seemed, he would create a new legacy as his goals reformed into what they had once been. He had not managed to escape the Omniverse even in death, it was time to pick up where he had left off before his arrival here.

Meeting the Abyss, battling to the death, his experience had given him a new purpose, one to add onto his previous priority. His motivation had never faltered, and the same remained in his reason: Them.

He had but two goals.

Become stronger, and remember the fallen.