Long strands of hair dropped free as the shattered mask gave way, falling to just below the shoulders while the wind caught and pushed it back, revealing blue hair and blue eyes that locked directly into the Beast's many. "Take a good look," X said, his voice no longer modulated, carrying that eerie similarity to Xain's yet older, more androgynous, something that felt like a version that had been worn down and sharpened by time. His face matched that voice, familiar yet altered, something older more androgynous. "You're looking at a man who only has one real connection left!" he added, and then he stepped in and drove his fist straight into the Beast's face, the impact snapping its head to the side as fragments of its flesh cracked and sloughed off, dark pieces breaking loose and scattering as it reeled.
"Your fighting back more now? Good! Fight back even more because otherwise not only will you drown in that thing, but you'll hurt or kill those you like!" X shouted, pressing forward without pause, pivoting on his lead foot and slamming a kick into its side hard enough to stagger it again, more of its body breaking apart under the force. The Beast answered with a roar, its arm lashing out in retaliation, the blow connecting cleanly with X's face, but this time he only lost a step instead of his life, his footing sliding before he forced himself steady again. "Heh, now that he's fighting back, I don't have to worry about you killing me in one punch," he chuckled, breath rough but grin still there as he stepped back in and buried a punch into its stomach, forcing black blood up its throat. "Just this once, I'll get into a slugfest, just to get that kid out of you," he said, and he meant it.
They collided again immediately, no distance, no hesitation. The Beast swung, and X met it head-on, their fists crashing into each other's guard and slipping through in the same breath. X's knuckles drove into its ribs, cracking through what remained of its structure, and the Beast answered with a punch into his side that forced a grunt out of him as he shifted with it instead of resisting, turning the impact and answering with another strike to its face. It staggered, then surged, its arm snapping forward again, and X took the hit across his shoulder, rolled through it, and came back with a sharp hook to its jaw that tore more of its face away.
"Is that all you have now? Just clinging to someone actively rejecting you!?" he barked, stepping in again, his fist slamming into its chest as its own strike clipped his ribs in return, the exchange tight, brutal, neither of them giving ground. The Beast's form flickered with instability, pieces of it breaking and reforming slower now, its hold on itself weakening as X kept forcing it back.
"Let me tell you something Xain! While I never had this thing, I pushed away everyone besides one person away from me despite them trying to reach out!" he continued, driving another punch into its stomach, doubling it over before its elbow snapped up into his chest in retaliation, forcing him back a half step before he surged right back in, refusing to let the distance stay.
"And while I don't regret that! I know you will!" he pressed, his fist crashing into its cheek, tearing away more of it as the Beast lashed out wildly, its blow catching him across the jaw, snapping his head to the side before he reset and hammered a strike straight into its sternum. "I can tell how much you care about others compared to me, so fight back and take control again because your going to be all alone otherwise!"
Each exchange stripped more of it away. Its arms began to thin, cracks running through them as chunks fell loose mid-motion. Its legs buckled more with each hit, struggling to keep balance as X kept pressing, refusing to give it a moment to recover. The torso split in places, fragments breaking off and dissolving before they could reform, and through the gaps, through the collapsing structure, glimpses of Xain began to show beneath, faint at first, then clearer with each impact.
X's breathing grew heavier, his legs starting to shake under him from the strain, but he did not slow. He stepped in again, took a punch to the side that forced a sharp exhale out of him, and answered with a brutal strike to the Beast's face, breaking more of it away, exposing more of what lay underneath. The Beast swung again, slower now, less certain, and X slipped inside the arc and drove his fist into its ribs, then into its jaw, then into its chest again, each hit stripping more of it away until it was barely holding itself together.
"Don't you dare give up in the last stretch! Your me! And I refuse to let any version of me be a freaking weakling!" X yelled, forcing himself forward one last time, his right fist drawing back fully, everything he had left put into that final motion. The Beast mirrored him, its own arm pulling back, its body barely holding form as it lunged forward, but at the last second it shifted, abandoning the punch for a stab as its tails snapped forward toward X's chest.
They never made it.
Mid-strike, the tails crumbled apart, breaking into nothing before they could reach him.
X saw it, and he smiled.
He stepped through the failed attack, weaving past the collapsing motion, and drove his fist forward with everything he had left, slamming it directly into the Beast's face. "You win!" he said as the impact sent it flying back, its body finally giving way as it hit the ground.
It tried to rise.
It couldn't.
The remaining pieces of it began to break apart entirely, the last of its form crumbling away as it looked up at him, that Extreme Bestial Hatred still burning in its eyes even as it faded, as if memorizing him in that final moment. It let out one last growl before its entire body gave out, collapsing into nothing.
X stood there for a second longer, chest rising and falling, before the tension left him all at once. He let out a long, exhausted breath and dropped back onto the ground, staring up at the sky. "Ugh... never doing that... again..."