Confrontation Between Women

The private chamber within the Imperial Palace was designed with both luxury and security in mind.

Soft, ambient lighting illuminated walls of a material that resembled marble but was actually a specialized compound developed on Torlia Prime, capable of absorbing and neutralizing energy-based attacks.

The furnishings were elegant yet practical, each piece positioned to provide both comfort and clear sightlines to all entrances.

It was in this carefully designed space that Eve awoke, her consciousness returning in stages.

First came awareness of the unfamiliar softness beneath her, then the subtle scent of something floral yet alien, and finally the realization that she was not alone.

Her eyes snapped open, molecular energy immediately gathering around her hands as she bolted upright, ready to defend herself.

"Easy," a familiar voice cautioned. "You're safe."

Eve's gaze fixed on the speaker, and she found herself staring at... herself. Or rather, a version of herself that was both recognizable and distinctly different.

The woman sitting calmly in a chair beside the bed wore her face, but there was a maturity to her features that spoke of additional years and harder experiences.

Her hair was longer, elegantly styled, and she carried herself with a regal bearing that the Eve of Earth had never cultivated.

"You," Eve said, her voice tight with tension. "Emperor world's Eve."

The woman inclined her head slightly. "I prefer Atom Eve, actually. It's what I've always gone by, even after..." She gestured vaguely at their surroundings. "All this."

Eve's molecular energy continued to swirl around her hands. "Where is Megumi? What have you done with him?"

Atom Eve raised her hands in a placating gesture. "He's resting, recovering from the strain of the dimensional transition. You can sense him yourself - your powers should be able to detect his molecular signature, even at this distance."

Eve hesitated, then cautiously extended her awareness, searching for the familiar pattern that was uniquely Sukuna's.

To her surprise, she found it almost immediately - strong, stable, and unmistakably alive, somewhere else in the massive structure.

The relief that washed through her was so intense that her molecular control faltered momentarily, causing the energy around her hands to flicker.

"He's unharmed," Atom Eve assured her. "Mark would never allow anything to hurt him. Neither would I."

Eve's energy didn't dissipate completely, but it stabilized, no longer fluctuating with her emotions. "And Mark? My world's Mark?"

"Also safe," Atom Eve confirmed. "In a separate wing, under guard but comfortable. Mark - our Mark - thought it best to keep you separated initially, to prevent any... coordinated resistance."

Eve's eyes narrowed. "Smart of him. But unnecessary. I'm not leaving without Megumi, and Megumi isn't leaving without me."

A small smile touched Atom Eve's lips. "On that, at least, we agree. Though perhaps for different reasons."

She rose gracefully and moved to a small table, where she poured two glasses of a pale blue liquid from an elegant carafe. "You should drink. The dimensional transition can be dehydrating, and your body needs to replenish."

Eve eyed the offered glass suspiciously. "Is it poisoned?"

Atom Eve sighed, taking a deliberate sip from her own glass before extending the other. "If I wanted you dead, you would be. I don't need poison for that."

After a moment's hesitation, Eve accepted the glass, though she continued to analyze its molecular structure before taking a cautious sip.

The liquid was cool and refreshing, with a subtle sweetness unlike anything she'd tasted on Earth.

"It's called Cerulean Nectar," Atom Eve explained. "From the floating gardens of Altair Seven. One of the few pleasures I've allowed myself over the years."

Eve lowered the glass, studying her counterpart with scientific precision. "Why are you here? Why not let your Emperor handle me?"

"Because I thought you deserved to hear certain things from me directly," Atom Eve replied, returning to her chair. "Woman to woman. Scientist to scientist. Eve to Eve."

She crossed her legs, her posture relaxed yet maintaining that subtle regality. "And because I believe you'll understand my perspective better than anyone else could. After all, in the most fundamental ways, we are the same person."

"We're not the same," Eve countered immediately. "We've lived different lives, made different choices."

"Have we?" Atom Eve asked, her head tilting slightly. "Or have we simply experienced different circumstances while remaining fundamentally the same in our core nature?"

She gestured between them. "We both fell in love with Megumi Fushiguro. We both recognized something extraordinary in him that captured us completely.

We both devoted ourselves to understanding him on a molecular level, studying him with scientific precision while simultaneously being consumed by emotions that defy rational analysis."

Eve wanted to argue but found herself unable to refute the observation. Instead, she changed tack. "You said you wanted to tell me certain things. What things?"

Atom Eve's expression softened, a distant look entering her eyes. "I want to tell you about us. About Megumi and me, and Mark.

About the life we shared before everything changed. I think you deserve to know who he was - who we were together - before you judge our determination to reclaim him."

Eve hesitated, then nodded once, her curiosity temporarily overriding her wariness. "Tell me."

Atom Eve's gaze grew distant, looking back through years of memories. "We met when we were children. I was the new girl at school - brilliant but socially awkward, more comfortable with molecules than with people.

Mark was already popular, athletic, everyone's friend. And Megumi... Megumi was the quiet transfer student from Japan who somehow saw right through everyone's facades, including mine."

A soft smile touched her lips. "The three of us became inseparable.

Mark was the heart, I was the mind, and Megumi was the soul - the one who gave direction and purpose to our little trio.

Even at twelve years old, he had this... gravity to him. This quiet certainty about how the world worked and how it could be better."

She took another sip of her drink, her eyes never leaving Eve's face. "We grew up together, navigating the typical teenage dramas, but always with this sense that we were meant for something more.

When Mark's powers manifested, Megumi was the first person he told - before his parents, before me.

And Megumi's response was to immediately start developing training protocols, strategic applications, ethical frameworks for how such power should be used."

"That sounds like him," Eve acknowledged quietly.

Atom Eve nodded. "By the time we were sixteen, I knew I was in love with him. I tried to hide it - worried about ruining our friendship, about making things awkward with Mark. But Megumi, being Megumi, had already figured it out."

Her expression grew fond at the memory. "He approached me in the lab one day - I was working on a molecular stabilization experiment.

Without preamble, he said, 'Your pulse accelerates by approximately 12.3% when I enter a room.

Your pupils dilate, and you demonstrate increased clumsiness despite your normally precise motor control. These are classic physiological indicators of attraction.'"

Despite herself, Eve laughed. "That's... very him." Especially recently. 

"Isn't it?" Atom Eve agreed, her own laughter joining Eve's for a brief moment. "So clinical, so matter-of-fact. And then he simply said, 'I find these responses mutually satisfactory and propose we explore their implications further.' His version of asking me out."

Her expression softened. "We were together from that moment on.

Through high school, through the revelation of Mark's Viltrumite heritage, through the discovery that Nolan was not the hero Earth believed him to be.

Megumi was... he was simply always there, always three steps ahead, always seeing patterns the rest of us missed."

She rose again, moving to the window that overlooked the Imperial capital - a breathtaking vista of crystalline spires and elegant bridges, with ships of various designs moving through designated aerial lanes.

"When Nolan offered to take us to Viltrum, to show Mark his heritage, Megumi insisted on coming along.

He said he didn't trust Nolan's motivations, that there were inconsistencies in his behavior that suggested hidden agendas. We didn't fully understand his concerns then, but we trusted his judgment."

Atom Eve's voice took on a harder edge. "He was right, of course. Nolan had been sent to evaluate Earth for conquest, to prepare it for Viltrumite occupation.

But what none of us anticipated was how Megumi's brilliance would impact the Viltrumite High Council."

She turned back to Eve. "Can you imagine it? A human boy, barely twelve, walking into the most powerful governing body in the galaxy and telling them their conquest strategy was inefficient? That he had a better way?"

Despite the tension of the situation, Eve found herself smiling at the image. It was so perfectly in character for the Megumi she knew - that absolute confidence, that dismissal of conventional power structures in favor of pure strategic efficiency.

"They were going to kill him on the spot," Atom Eve continued. "But then he outlined a plan that would reduce their casualties by sixty percent while increasing territorial gains. Even Thragg couldn't argue with those numbers."

She returned to her seat, her expression growing more animated as she recounted their shared history. "After that, Megumi became integral to Viltrumite strategic planning.

The council members hated it - a human child advising the empire? - but the results spoke for themselves. And as we grew older, his influence only expanded."

Her eyes met Eve's directly. "We were engaged when he was nineteen. It wasn't a grand romantic proposal -that wasn't his style.

We were reviewing the architectural plans for what would eventually become this palace, and he simply said, 'This would function more efficiently if we shared living quarters permanently. A formalized partnership would simplify administrative processes.'"

Eve couldn't help but laugh again. "He proposed by citing administrative efficiency?"

"He did," Atom Eve confirmed, her own smile widening. "And I understood exactly what he meant. That was always our language - precision and efficiency as expressions of deeper emotions neither of us was entirely comfortable articulating directly."

Her smile faded slowly. "We were to be married three months later. The ceremony was planned, the arrangements made. I was..." Her voice caught slightly, and she paused, collecting herself. "I was four months pregnant with our child."

Eve's breath caught, the revelation hitting her with unexpected force. "You were pregnant?"

Atom Eve nodded, her composure wavering for the first time. "We had worked for years to make it possible.

My molecular powers had always affected my reproductive system - an unintended consequence of my abilities.

Megumi helped me develop specialized blockers, more sophisticated than the mental controls I'd used since childhood. He was... meticulous in his research, determined to find a solution."

Her hand moved unconsciously to her abdomen, a gesture of remembered loss. "When we finally succeeded, he was... different.

Still Megumi, still precise and methodical in everything, but there was a new softness to him.

He would talk to the baby at night, explaining complex theoretical concepts in that serious voice of his, as if our unborn child needed to understand quantum mechanics and strategic theory from the womb."

A ghost of a smile touched her lips at the memory, though her eyes remained shadowed with grief. "And then Nolan happened."

Eve felt a chill run through her at the sudden darkness in Atom Eve's voice. "He killed Megumi," she said softly, not a question but a statement of empathy.

"To teach Mark a lesson in 'detachment,'" Atom Eve confirmed, her voice hardening. "To show him that humans were beneath Viltrumites, that no human should have influence over their kind."

She looked down at her hands, which had clenched into fists in her lap. "I was there. I watched it happen. Nolan stabbed him in the heart with such... casual disdain.

As if he were discarding something worthless rather than destroying the most brilliant mind of our generation."

Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I held him as he died. His last words were about the baby - instructions for prenatal care, contingency plans for possible complications. Even dying, he was thinking three steps ahead, trying to protect us."

Eve felt tears forming in her own eyes, the scientist in her temporarily overwhelmed by the sheer human tragedy of the story. "The baby..."

"I lost her that same day," Atom Eve said, her voice hollow with remembered pain. "The shock, the stress, the grief - my body couldn't maintain the pregnancy.

The blockers we'd developed were sophisticated, but they weren't designed to withstand that kind of trauma."

She looked up, meeting Eve's gaze directly. "It was the only reason I didn't tear the palace apart molecule by molecule in that moment.

The only reason I didn't try to kill Nolan on the spot, suicidal as that would have been.

I was focused entirely on trying to save our child, using every bit of my molecular control to maintain the pregnancy. But it wasn't enough."

Eve swallowed hard, finding herself at a loss for words in the face of such profound loss. "I'm so sorry," she finally managed, the words feeling woefully inadequate.

"In a single day, I lost everything," Atom Eve continued, her voice gaining strength again. "My fiancé. Our child. Our future together. All of it, gone in an instant of Viltrumite cruelty."

Her expression hardened with resolve. "But I refused to let his legacy die with him. In that moment, as I lost both Megumi and our child,

I made a promise - that I would preserve everything he had built, everything he had envisioned. That his death would not be the end of his story."

Eve nodded, understanding dawning. "That's why you stayed with Mark, why you helped him build the empire."

"Mark was as devastated as I was," Atom Eve confirmed. "When he found us in the garden -me cradling Megumi's body, already bleeding from the miscarriage - something in him simply... broke.

He killed his father without hesitation, without mercy. Punched straight through his chest before Nolan even realized what was happening. Just like the way he killed Megumi"

She shook her head slightly, remembering. "The empire fractured after that. Half supported Mark's actions, viewing Nolan's murder of Megumi as treason against the empire itself.

The other half saw it as justifiable discipline of an uppity human. Civil war followed, with Mark eventually emerging as Emperor."

"And you stood by him," Eve observed.

"We stood by each other," Atom Eve corrected. "United in grief, in rage, in determination to build the empire Megumi had envisioned. To ensure his death meant something."

She leaned forward, her intensity growing. "For seventeen years, I've kept that promise. Helped Mark build the empire Megumi designed.

Maintained his principles, his vision. Never sought comfort in anyone else's arms - not even for a moment, never allowed myself to form emotional attachments that might dilute my devotion to his memory."

Her eyes took on a fierce light. "And all the while, I studied dimensional theory. I researched the multiverse, the possibilities of alternate realities where there might be a way to revive him. I never stopped believing that somehow, someday, I would find him again."

Eve set down her glass, her own emotions threatening to overwhelm her scientific composure. "Why are you telling me all this?"

Atom Eve's gaze was steady, unflinching. "Because you're pregnant with his child."

The words hit Eve like a physical blow. "What?"

"You're pregnant," Atom Eve repeated calmly. "About three weeks along, I'd estimate, though that may be wrong, since you are special, and the child could simply be developing too fast. The molecular changes are subtle but unmistakable to someone with our level of perception."

Eve's hand moved instinctively to her abdomen, her powers immediately focusing inward to analyze her own cellular structure.

And there it was - a small cluster of cells already developing, already containing the unique genetic signature that combined her DNA with Sukuna's.

"I... I didn't know," she whispered, genuinely shocked. "How did you-"

"I've been studying human reproduction at the molecular level for decades," Atom Eve explained.

"Particularly as it relates to enhanced beings. The signs are clear to me, though they might not have been noticeable to you yet, especially given the chaos of recent events."

Eve's mind raced, processing this new information with scientific precision even as her emotions threatened to overwhelm her. A child. Sukuna's child. Growing within her at this very moment.

"I'm not surprised by it," Atom Eve continued. "You are the peak specimen of women, and Megumi - especially Megumi as he is now, with his evolution in power - is the peak of male specimens. The compatibility between you is exceptional."

She paused, something vulnerable entering her expression. "And he has fallen in love with you. That much is clear, even to me."

Eve's head snapped up. "You're wrong. Megumi - my Megumi - isn't the same as yours. a being with a different soul, different experiences-"

"No," Atom Eve interrupted firmly. "I know what I see. The soul is the same, regardless of the name or the experiences."

She rose again, pacing with elegant precision. "But that isn't my point. My point is that I will get Megumi back in my life, and you must accept that."

Eve's molecular energy flared defensively. "If you think I'm just going to step aside-"

"That isn't what I'm saying," Atom Eve cut in, her own energy responding but remaining controlled.

"Initially, during the merger, there was a simpler solution. If you had died and I had remained, things would have been uncomplicated. But now, the situation is more complex."

Her expression hardened. "Megumi does not tolerate betrayal. If I were to kill you - especially now that you carry his child - he would not forgive me.

He might even kill me in retribution, and I don't know that I would stop him, because the thought of him hating me is more abhorrent than death itself."

Eve stared at her counterpart, recognizing the truth in her words. This was not a threat but a statement of fact - an analysis as clinical and precise as any scientific observation.

"So," Atom Eve continued, "you must accept that from now on, I will do everything in my power to make Megumi remember who he was, who we were together.

I will be with him again. If you wish to remain by his side, that is your choice, and I will accept it. I will even share him, if that is what he desires."

Her eyes met Eve's with unwavering intensity. "But I will not let him go again. Not after seventeen years of emptiness. Not after losing him and our child. Not after finally finding him across the dimensions."

Eve's mind worked rapidly, analyzing the situation from every angle. This woman before her was not evil, not in any conventional sense.

She was simply... herself, shaped by different circumstances, driven by the same fundamental devotion to the same being.

And now there was the added dimension of shared motherhood - one who had lost a child, and one who was just beginning the journey of creating new life.

"And if he chooses me?" Eve asked quietly. "If, despite your efforts, he remembers nothing of your shared past and wants only the life he's built with me?"

Atom Eve's expression flickered with pain, but her resolve remained unshaken. "Then I will accept his choice, while continuing to hope that in time, his memories might return.

But I don't believe that will happen. The connection we shared was too profound, too fundamental to who we both are."

She moved closer, her energy field brushing against Eve's - not aggressively, but in a gesture almost like recognition. "We, again, are more alike than different, you and I. We both love the same man with an intensity that defies conventional rational explanation.

We both have devoted ourselves to understanding him, to protecting him, to standing beside him against whatever threats arise."

Her voice softened. "Is it so unthinkable that we might find a way to coexist? To share in his life rather than forcing him to choose between us?"

Eve's immediate instinct was to reject the suggestion outright.

The thought of sharing Sukuna with anyone, even another version of herself, triggered a possessive response so intense that the molecules in the air around her began to vibrate visibly.

But beneath that initial reaction, her analytical mind continued to work, examining the situation from all angles.

This woman had loved and lost the same being Eve herself had only recently found. She had preserved his memory, his vision, for seventeen years without wavering in her devotion.

She had lost a child - their child - in circumstances of unimaginable trauma.

And now, Eve herself carried a new life within her - a child who would need both stability and protection in a universe far more dangerous than Earth had ever been.

"I need time," Eve said finally. "Time to process all of this. Time to speak with Megumi."

Atom Eve nodded, accepting this response. "Of course. But understand that time is something we have in abundance here. Mark rules seventeen galaxies.

We have resources, technology, and lifespans that extend far beyond what you knew on Earth. This is not a decision that needs to be rushed."

She moved toward the door, pausing before she reached it. "You'll be given freedom to move within certain areas of the palace once you've recovered fully.

I've arranged for a complete wardrobe and personal items to be delivered. If there's anything specific you require for your pregnancy, you need only ask."

The mention of her pregnancy - still so new, so shocking - sent another wave of emotion through Eve.

Her hand moved protectively to her abdomen, a gesture that did not go unnoticed by her counterpart.

"I lost my chance to be a mother," Atom Eve said softly.

"I won't interfere with your opportunity. Whatever happens between us, between you and Megumi, I want you to know that your child will be protected and cherished in this empire.

That is a promise I make without condition or expectation."

The sincerity in her voice was unmistakable, and Eve found herself nodding in acknowledgment of this unexpected pledge.

As Atom Eve reached for the door, a final thought occurred to Eve. "The child you lost - was it a boy or a girl?"

Atom Eve paused, her hand on the door. "A girl," she said softly. "We had already chosen her name - Shinobu. It was one of the few times Megumi ever referenced his Japanese heritage directly.

He said it represented both beauty and resilience, qualities he hoped our daughter would embody."

A small, sad smile touched her lips. "Perhaps that's another reason why the universe brought us all together now. A second chance, not just for me and Megumi, but for the family we lost before it could truly begin."

With that, she exited the chamber, leaving Eve alone with her thoughts, her hand still resting protectively over her abdomen where a new life - impossibly, miraculously - had already begun to grow.

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(Author note: Hello everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!

Do tell me how you found it.

So, to clarify something. Megumi was without his Sukuna memories, so as many who know my Samael MC's they're quite factual and formal and not as emotional in expression -

qualities I myself have, so he was like that, plus, knowledge of science and the like and strategy was his only way of having power in this world so he dedicated himself to it a lot.

Now... The question will be, will Megumi end up with both Eves or only our Eve? Do tell me what you think should happen, since I'm leaning towards the option B route, the regression route still.

So yeah, do tell me how you found it and I hope to see you all later,

Bye!)