Tenshiki Ōtsutsuki dissolved into motes of light and vanished completely. The suffocating chill of the cosmos faded with him, as though it had never torn through the sky.
Shinichi stood where he was and scratched his signature mop of naturally curly silver hair with some effort. He let out a long yawn, even squeezing a few undignified tears from the corners of his eyes, as though someone had forcibly woken him from a deep sleep.
"Finally... all done. Time to clock out."
He stretched luxuriously, every bone in his body cracking like machinery that had gone too long without oil.
He shook out his hands, as though the battle that had nearly punched through the planet had really been nothing more than a little exercise to loosen his stiff muscles.
Yet the faint but unmistakable mark between his brows, along with the spatial coordinates now lodged in his mind-perfectly clear, yet so distant that he could barely summon the energy to think about them-silently reminded him that the trouble from this "unexpected business trip" probably wasn't over quite so easily.
"Takama-ga-hara..."
Shinichi smacked his lips and instinctively rummaged through the pockets of his loungewear for a while, only to come up empty. Only then did he ruefully remember that he'd left in such a hurry he hadn't brought even one of the lollipops he usually used to stave off boredom.
He would have loved to simply walk away and pretend none of this had happened.
But the "generous parting gift" that Tenshiki Ōtsutsuki had forced on him before dying was decidedly more trouble than he wanted to handle.
"Something about 'letting those stagnant gods witness a true variable'... he made me sound like some ambassador for universal peace who moonlights as a professional shit-stirrer. What the hell was that about?"