Just checked and it seems i forgot to put this on auto upload.
Anyway the poll is overwhelmingly against DanDaDan....so guess its gone.
I'm disappointed though so many people haven't hewrd of arguably the best new gen after Hell's paradise.
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They stood in the middle of a very normal, very sunny park in the heart of Tokyo.
Cherry blossoms lazily drifted down from the trees, a pleasant breeze rolling by like it had been waiting for their arrival.
Parents lounged on benches, watching their children run around, while street vendors nearby sold crepes and soft serve ice cream.
Ophis stood beside him, her usual gothic attire now looking almost comically out of place in the cheerful, bustling park — and yet, because of her appearance, the kids seemed to treat her like one of their own.
Some even waved at her like she was part of their playgroup.
Leo sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Right. Listen carefully," Leo began, brushing off a falling cherry blossom from his shoulder, slipping into his lecture mode.
"You wanted to understand why your so-called followers betray you, right? It's not just power for power's sake... It's greed, Ophis.....Greed disguised as loyalty..... They're manipulating you to further their own ambitions."
Ophis blinked, clearly processing, her gaze distant yet focused.
"They said they would help me return to silence," she replied softly, almost like an NPC.
Leo shook his head slowly. "Yeah, they said that.....But in truth? They're just parasites feeding off your name.....Greed blinds them, their promises are hollow."
Before he could continue, Ophis's attention drifted sideways.
She raised her pale hand and pointed at a child nearby — a small boy with messy hair, blissfully enjoying a swirl of vanilla ice cream.
His face lit up with every bite, completely unaware he was about to become a target of eldritch scrutiny.
"Look," Ophis said, narrowing her eyes with the focus of an apex predator, "that child is consuming an inferior imitation of ice cream."
The boy froze mid-lick, sensing the intensity of her gaze.
His eyes met hers — and seeing only cold judgment from someone he assumed was a fellow child, his lip quivered.
"You shouldn't eat that," Ophis added flatly, like issuing a divine decree. "Chocolate is the true path."
"W-weird kid!" the boy yelped, clutching his cone protectively as he bolted toward his mother.
Leo just stared, mouth slightly open.
He watched the kid vanish into the crowd, then slowly turned to Ophis like she'd personally insulted the foundation of his soul.
"Excuse me," Leo began, voice tight with offense, "what did you just say about vanilla?"
Leo had been this close to explaining the nuances of mortal greed, maybe even making progress — until Ophis decided to get political.
"Vanilla," Ophis declared, voice flat but brimming with unexpected conviction.
"Is a pale imitation of true ice cream. An offense to existence."
Leo's mouth twitched.
"What?" he blinked, momentarily thrown off. "It's vanilla. Classic. Timeless. Pure."
"Lifeless," Ophis countered without a hint of hesitation. "It is flavorless milk ice."
Leo crossed his arms. "Excuse you, vanilla is the foundation of all other flavors... You wouldn't have your precious chocolate without vanilla first paving the way."
Ophis tilted her head, almost mechanical in motion. "That is irrelevant....Chocolate transcends. Chocolate is depth, complexity. Bitterness balanced by sweetness. Vanilla is empty simplicity. It is ice cream pretending to be ice cream."
"That's rich coming from someone who looks like she's never even tasted either!" Leo shot back, glaring.
"I have," Ophis replied immediately, almost too quickly.
She paused. "Chocolate was correct."
A child who was watching them curiously ran away at that point, deciding they were both way too weird.
Another pair of kids passed by, momentarily slowing.
One of them — a curious little girl with a bright sunhat — stared at Ophis, tilting her head.
"Wanna play tag?" she offered innocently, mistaking Ophis's rigid posture for shy hesitation.
Ophis, without shifting her gaze from Leo, replied in her usual deadpan, "No. Tag is meaningless... I prefer to chase existential silence."
The little girl blinked, gave a polite bow like a confused character in a slice-of-life anime, and hurried off to safer social circles.
Leo, however, was not ready to drop the argument.
"You can't just dismiss vanilla like that," he persisted, pointing toward a vendor.
"Look at that couple over there — vanilla soft serve with rainbow sprinkles. That's a celebration of life."
Ophis followed his gesture, observing the happy pair.
"They are lost," she concluded. "Only those who know despair choose vanilla to pretend they are content."
"That doesn't even make sense!" Leo shot back.
"It does," she replied firmly, as if it were an absolute law of the universe.
Leo groaned, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. "You know what, forget it. I am not about to have a theological debate about frozen desserts with the Dragon God of Infinity."
"You are," Ophis corrected him blandly.
"...I am," Leo admitted in defeat.
There was a moment of silence between them, punctuated only by the rustling of leaves and the distant chatter of children playing in the park.
It was surreal — two beings capable of erasing worlds, standing beneath cherry blossoms, arguing like squabbling children about which flavor of ice cream reigned supreme.
Finally, Leo exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose again.
"Anyway," he tried, dragging the conversation back to sanity by sheer willpower, "as I was saying about greed—"
"Greed for chocolate is understandable,"
Ophis interrupted, somehow flawlessly merging the topics. "Greed for vanilla is misguided."
Leo stared at her, soul-weary, lips parting for a retort — then, with a slow sigh, he let it go.
"...Fine. You win this round, Chocolate Cultist."
Ophis, despite her monotone expression, seemed pleased in her own subtle way. "Victory is chocolate," she pronounced solemnly.
Leo rubbed his temples. "You're impossible to understand rationally. "
"I am infinite," she corrected.
A brief silence followed, broken only by the distant sound of laughter and the jingling of an ice cream cart bell.
---
Somewhere in the multiverse, the system auto moderator pinged with a faint notification, almost as if it too was wondering how this conversation spiralled so far off-course.
---
Ophis, with the solemn pride of a warrior who had won a world-shattering debate over ice cream, turned her gaze back to Leo.
Her expression remained blank, yet something in her eyes flickered with faint curiosity.
"Why," she asked, voice still monotone, "can I tell you are not lying? Even though I do not understand why I know that."
Leo, caught off guard by the shift back to serious matters, felt her steady stare like a needle threading through him.
He ran a hand through his hair and, for once, answered without his usual snark.
"…I don't know," he admitted.
Ophis tilted her head, studying him like an NPC processing dialogue choices in an old game, scanning her options carefully.
Her eyes narrowed just a fraction, as if some unseen system scrolled through lines of text only she could see.
Then, without a word of warning, she stepped closer.
Closer still.
Too close.
She sniffed the air, once, twice, like an animal trying to catch an elusive scent.
And before Leo could react, she leaned in clutching his shirt and began sniffing at his neck, her blank expression completely at odds with the action.
"O-oi, oi, oi—! What are you doing?" Leo protested, jerking slightly back but finding her grip surprisingly firm as she latched onto him like a cat claiming its territory.
"If you keep doing that, people are gonna get the wrong idea!" he hissed, glancing around.
And sure enough, though it wasn't exactly the bad kind of idea, a few passerby had taken notice.
From their angle, it looked rather wholesome — like a clingy little sister holding onto her older brother's shirt, her face pressed against him in childlike stubbornness.
An old lady smiled at the scene, nudging her companion. "Look at that. Aren't they cute?"
A pair of teenagers snickered, but moved along without comment.
Leo sighed, deeply, feeling the weight of the absurdity crash down on him. "I'm trying to explain greed to you, not start a scandal…"
Unfazed, Ophis continued sniffing him, her tone still eerily flat but with a hint of puzzlement.
"There is something in you," she murmured, monotone as ever. "Strange. I will continue examination."
"No, you won't!" Leo barked, attempting to pry her off — only to find her surprisingly immovable.
The wind rustled the cherry blossoms overhead as the absurd tableau continued: The Dragon of Infinity clinging to him like a koala, bystanders misunderstanding everything, and Leo — self-proclaimed new Lucifer — internally debating if this counted as sexual harassment on a minor.
He was the minor here.
"Why do you resist?" Ophis asked, still glued to him.
"This is efficient examination method."
"Because it's weird!" Leo shot back.
She paused as if considering this deeply.
"…I do not understand."
"…But I know why I felt that," she said, her monotone voice carrying the faintest hint of triumph.
Leo tilted his head, not sure whether to brace himself or feel impressed.
"You smell like… like… Gala," she declared, pausing mid-sentence as though the word didn't taste quite right in her mouth.
Her brows scrunched in the smallest, almost imperceptible frown.
She looked up at him, still clinging to his shirt like a lost child piecing together a puzzle.
"Gaia?" Leo corrected instinctively, raising an eyebrow.
She blinked once, slowly, like her system just completed a loading bar. "…Yes. Gaia."
Her hold tightened for a second as she confirmed it to herself. "You smell like Gaia."
Leo rubbed the bridge of his nose, torn between confusion and exasperation. "That raises more questions than it answers…"
Ophis nodded solemnly, like she just stated a universal truth. "Good. More questions mean more answers later."
"That's not how that works."
"Yes, it is," Ophis replied flatly, without missing a beat.
A couple of kids playing tag ran past them, slowing momentarily to stare at the strange girl still attached to the older boy's shirt.
Ophis stared blankly at them , then turned back to Leo. "After this, I want chocolate ice cream."
Leo groaned. "We're not— No, you know what, fine. Whatever helps you detach from my neck, chocolate it is."
Ophis finally let go, but not before giving him one last, thoughtful sniff, as if committing his scent to memory.
"Chocolate," she confirmed once again, as if it was now a sacred oath.
Leo stared at her, deadpan. "This is going to be one of those days, huh?"
She gave him a blank blink. "It has always been one of those days."
"Wait a minute…!" Leo's eyes narrowed dangerously, his brain running at full tilt, processing her offhand reply like a courtroom lawyer catching a slip.
He swung around to face Ophis fully, arm outstretched, finger pointing squarely at her like she was caught red-handed.
"Gaia sent you, didn't she?!"
Ophis tilted her head to the side, slow and deliberate, her expression blank as ever.
"No," she replied in her perfectly deadpan monotone. "She did not."
"No, no, no—don't you dare," Leo waved his hand, pacing in a small frustrated circle before her.
"I know I manipulated the teleport coordinates.! Specifically avoided you and Great Red. Double-checked it. Triple-checked it. Rerouted through five different folds of the dimensional gap to make sure."
He stabbed a finger toward the ground beneath their feet.
"Yet! Yet! Not even a full minute later, I end up bumping straight into you!"
"Maybe…" Ophis intoned, as if testing the words carefully, "…you made a mistake."
Leo's face twisted in outrage, almost offended by the mere suggestion.
"As if I could make such a mistake!" he shot back, scandalized.
" It's been at the back of my mind since the moment we met."
" I just couldn't prove it. You covered your tracks well enough, didn't you?!"
"I did not." Her flat voice persisted, unchanging, as if she couldn't comprehend the magnitude of the accusation.
But Leo wasn't done. Oh no, he was just getting started.
"You think this is something new? Hah! This… this chicanery, —I've seen worse from you!" he declared, as though unveiling some grand conspiracy.
"Huh?" Ophis blinked, genuinely confused, like she wasn't programmed for this particular dialogue tree.
Leo wasn't letting go.
His eyes flared with mock dramatic intensity as he spun and pointed furiously toward the park bench.
"That kid! Are you telling me that someone just so happens to be eating vanilla ice cream right there, at that exact moment, perfectly placed for you to soapbox your ridiculous political opinion on ice cream?!"
"What… are you talking about?" Ophis asked, clearly baffled, her head tilting the other way now as though trying to keep her balance in this storm of accusations.
Leo leaned in, his voice a low, conspiratorial hiss.
"You orchestrated it!" he accused, like a madman unveiling the secret strings of fate.
"Don't play dumb with me, Ophis! That vanilla slander wasn't spontaneous, it was pre-meditated!"
She paused, processing. "…I did not," she repeated, though a suspicious beat later this time.
"That pause! See! See!" Leo jabbed the air triumphantly, eyes wild.
Ophis, meanwhile, blinked slowly again, her voice as flat as always:
"…Chocolate is still better."
Leo groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "We are not back to that debate!"
"Yes, we are," she stated matter-of-factly, as though it was a universally accepted law.
Before Leo could retort, she raised her hand, pointing deadpan at a passing vendor cart.
"There. Chocolate."
Leo followed her gaze, and indeed, a new ice cream stall had just pulled up as if summoned by the gods themselves.
He looked back at her in disbelief. "How are you doing this?"
"I am not doing anything," Ophis replied simply, monotone but now strangely smug in her own blank way.
Leo gave up, throwing his hands to the sky.
"This is some Bullshit."
=======================
"He defecated through a sunroof ! "
- Charles Mc.gill
Lighthearted fun chapter Kinda like filler for the poll..
800 Powerstones New goal for [Bonus]
Power Stones and Reviews please