From that day onward, Arima certainly changed but never strayed from his original plan. He had many ways in fact to reach his goal. He decided to go through the most effective path but also the bloodiest.

His decision wasn’t really fueled by his personal rage. The main factor that influenced this outcome was when he was told by Haze that his body had been altered somehow.

The two stones that had found themselves stuck to his heart allowed him to use Eion energy for his benefit. But he couldn't produce that energy by himself. He needed a direct intake of Eion before his body could be strengthened to incredible levels.

The boost only lasted for a few hours before stopping and leaving him tired. But that was more than enough and Arima relied on it to speed up the process of his ‘Empire’s creation.

Since he had gained the ability to basically become a true superhuman, he started going around the world to gather people and eliminate others. He would kill or destroy any obstacle and the world slowly began to hear about him.

The army was the first to learn about him since he was originally a soldier and was easily recognized. They contacted him and ordered him to let himself be captured.

But it was when Arima had turned twenty, and they were too late. What they got instead of a white flag was the death of multiple generals and other high-ranking officers.

What Arima did afterward was ground-breaking. He threatened the whole government with FEBs that he had hidden at strategic places and gained control of the country in a few months with staggering ease. Of course, there was resistance and protests. What more could you expect from humans?

A civil war almost broke out but Arima resolved the problem with a drastic method. After diffusing a warning to evacuate, he detonated one of the FEBs in the middle of a populated city.

The only people that remained in the city were the ones that didn't agree with his forceful way of commanding the country and thought that his threat was a bluff. In the end, they all died in the explosion. After that incident, no one ever tried to openly go against Arima's rule again.

Many people would question this course of events if read on a history book. But it was how things unfolded. Arima had supremacy in terms of firepower and could essentially destroy the entire continent were someone to force him. But that wasn't all of it. Arima himself was borderline a monster. He would go alone in a city filled with angry people and assassinate the leader in a day without even being spotted.

Arima also had prepared a lot before setting his plan in motion. He used his mercenaries to spread his influence across the entire planet and had connections with nearly everything. Especially with underground societies.

Arima said so himself; "When you control the bad people, the ones calling themselves good can't do anything on their own."

And that's precisely what happened. Arima regulated every kind of weapon distribution and prohibited it to be in the hands of civilians. Not even for hunters and police officers. Arima thought that the latter were poorly supervised anyway.

He dismantled what everyone called the police and replaced it with groups of trained soldiers who would carry through their jobs of maintaining security with great efficiency. On top of that, none of them wore a uniform or something of the sort. Their complete lack of distinctive features permitted them to catch many unsuspecting criminals.

Arima couldn't delete the laws; he wasn't stupid enough to think that he could come up with a new political system on his own and then impose it on everyone. But he still had to change it since it was obviously flawed and inefficient. Particularly the justice department.

Everything went quickly and slowly at the same time. Arima quickly took over the country but his control over it; he built it slowly and progressively.

For years, he continued to control the people with threats and military power. But during that period, Arima never did something unfair, he made changes that saved many lives and improved the ones of others.

It was a dictatorship, but the complaints were gradually buried over the course of time after the citizens realized that their lives were improving. Though, every time they thought about how Arima had taken power years ago, they would still not hesitate to say it was cruel and evil.

But now, even if it went against their values, they could only admit that Arima had created a better life for everyone. And within those ten years, Arima took advantage of his monopoly over FEBs to threaten other countries.

Most of them surrendered when they understood that if they did not resist, only their political systems would be changed while the lives of the people would only improve. Nobody wanted to see nukes raining on them after all.

In Arima’s opinion, the main issue in history was that people focused too much on democracy. They deemed it to be the best system when they compared it to the times where kings could abuse their power.

But what they failed to realize was that by dividing power, the loopholes would always be exploited, and nothing will ever get better because of the different opinions. People think that it's better when people talk about their different points of view and then reach a conclusion.

But that way, nothing will ever change. Additionally, because it was always the most influential person that would get the last word and gain the right to apply the 'brilliant' idea he came up with, the system could only become more complicated and flawed.

Arima changed all of this. Although everyone hated him for what he had done at first, now they could only say that he was a talented ruler.

When he turned thirty-five, he had basically been recognized as the main leader of half of the world. During that time, Arima also did something that he never thought he would do anymore.

One day, he heard about a seam of sapphire that had been discovered near his headquarters.

That day, for some reason, he got the idea of forging a weapon with that material. At the time, it was possible to modify sapphire's composition to make it suitable for forging. But no one would ever do that since it would reduce the value of the precious stone. But Arima did it. He literally was a sort of Emperor; he could do that at least for his own pleasure.

Since his most proficient technique was kendo, he forged a katana for a month straight and named it Karma. Since that day, he would always bring it to the battlefield.

Arima continued his 'conquest' of the world in the following years. But something unexpected happened one day. He was on a mission alone in China. He was targeting one of the biggest figures of the country who was rallying a group to rebel.

But when he reached his destination, the place had been vacated and a beeping sounded all around him. His eyes widened. His expression remained unchanged for a few seconds before he looked at the sky with a smirk on his face. That day, he laughed for the first time in twenty-five years.

"That's how it ends? Treason? So, one of them finally escaped our radars, huh?" Arima snorted and put a lollipop in his mouth. Any of his brothers in arms knew that he always had one with him. Sometimes, they even wondered where it came from.

Arima drew Karma and planted it in the ground at his feet.

"Seriously, it took too long… At least, I set the foundation. Haze and Jin will finish this… I couldn't find out what happened in the end,” he muttered and the explosion reverberated right after.

***

"Aah, look at what you’ve done. Now you're dead."

Arima heard a voice awfully familiar and opened his eyes. He looked around and scowled. The horizon was darkness itself. The sky was blacker than the night and the ground was damp with a reddish liquid that looked like blood and water mixed together.

"How're you doing, Arimane?"

Arima slowly stood up and frowned as he stared at the ‘entity’ in front of him. There was one man there. A man whom he had ironically forgotten the appearance over the years.

It was himself. As if he was staring at a twisted mirror, his reflection was standing there, smiling at him.

"…What are you?"

The reflection grinned and pointed at Arima. "I'm you," he paused and shrugged. "That would be the classic answer. But it's a boring one, so I'll change it. I'm your judge. I'm here to make you pass the Life Judgment. But, since you died in a circuit-less world, I, unfortunately, don’t have enough resources to initiate it."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't mind, you will forget this anyway," the reflection replied. "I certainly don’t have enough energy to begin the Judgment, but ‘reviving’ you is doable. That's what I'll do. I can only do it once. So, by some miracle, please go to another world and die one more time there, okay?"

"What? Wait! I never said I wanted to live!" Arima didn't understand what was happening but if this copy was telling the truth, he was about to come back to life somehow. That's not what he wanted.

Since the day Tieria and Scatha had died, he constantly lived a life of blood and destruction. Not because he wanted to die, but merely because he wanted to accomplish that stupid goal of his. It was his own way to honor his comrades that died in battle. He wished for death, but never sought it. But now that he had it, he had absolutely no desire to come back.

"You can't," the reflection immediately stopped him with a stoic expression. "You're a Death Hunter. I'm sorry; you cannot escape it. No matter what," he declared and snapped his fingers. The place around them crumbled and Arima shouted one more time in vain.

“We’ll meet again.”

***

Arima’s eyes snapped open. He gasped and slowly took in his surroundings. Everything was burned and destroyed by the explosion but he himself was perfectly fine.

"What… happened?" He couldn't understand and his expression sunk. "What is this? Are you kidding me? I wanted death but didn't want to offer myself to it. And this is what I get? An inexplicable phenomenon where I survive against my will…?" He groaned and stood up. He glanced at his right and noticed that there wasn’t any scratch on Karma.

He reached for the sword’s hilt then felt something cold fall on his cheek. He looked up to see the sky covered by gray clouds. He blinked and before he knew it, a downpour was already happening.

Arima was drenched by the water after a few seconds. But he stayed there, immobile. He closed his eyes and stood still as if he wanted to remain there forever.

It took two hours for the rain to stop and Arima didn’t move once. When the sun finally returned, he opened his eyes. They were different. They had preserved their sharpness but the hints of madness and rage it held before had disappeared.

"Fine…I'll continue," Arima murmured and sheathed his weapon before walking away.

***

When he returned to Aurora, Haze and Jin rushed to see him. They learned while he was away that someone had betrayed them and leaked his location. They imagined the worst but what they saw shattered their expectations.

Arima wasn’t only just fine, he had changed. Neither of them knew what happened but both of them perceived how peaceful he appeared.

Jin snorted. "Welcome back, Arima"

Arima smiled and nodded. "Jin, Moria, it’s time to proceed to the last phase. Let’s go," he said and headed toward the laboratories.

Jin and Haze looked at each other and nodded. They followed Arima for their last work. Decades ago, he had launched a secret project and assigned it to a small team at first.

That team's job was simple on paper; find a way to contaminate Eion energy and destroy it like a virus. It had been theorized in the past that Eion energy acted like a living being and that a disturbance could potentially be transmitted from one source to another. After years of research, they managed to do it.

The use of that virus would be Arima's last order.

In the following years, every country in the world abruptly saw their Eion energy vanish and only Arima's Empire was left owning it. They had greatly strengthened their control over the world in one single move. And two years later, a public announcement was made.

Arimane Blade stepped out of the leader's role and left everything to his subordinates. After that day, he was never seen again. People talked a lot about that, they wondered what had happened to him. They would say that he died, became scared of the power, or even took a break and continued his life incognito.

After Arima went missing, the ‘Empire’ he had created continued to work even better since the populace had lost sight of their target of hate. People were constantly insulting Arima’s rule because he was considered a murderer by many. But with him gone, the citizens discarded their pitiful pride and wholeheartedly accepted Aurora’s new leader, Haze. The former leader had become a scapegoat for almost everything bad that Aurora had committed

Thus, Arima had reached his goal. Wars had been effectively routed. There was only a single rule for the entire planet now and the only battles you’d see would be between Semita Finis, who had taken the role of the police, and daily criminals.

***

When the reminiscence finally ended, the Time Garden recovered its normal atmosphere and Lilis only kept one thing in her head as she dashed through the exit, ‘He already died once!’