Part One: Severing All Ties
The wind howled through the empty corridors of the Sanctuary, like a ghost mourning the dead. Every gust carried a memory—the scent of Nea's herbs, the echo of Kael's laughter, the glimmer of Alabaster's wisdom. Now they were merely phantoms, and Akero had become the gravedigger who had buried both them and himself.
He stood before the colossal bronze doors of the Sanctuary, his body taut as a steel spring. He wore only a simple black tunic, the blade of his sword, and armor of remorse so heavy it could crush a mountain. His decision, made in the silence of the previous night, was etched into his bones like a carving in stone.
"You cannot go alone."
The voice pierced the silence—familiar, exhausted, yet unchanged in its persistence. Akero turned slowly, without haste, as if moving through thick honey. Kaelion and Serin stood a few paces away, their faces maps of suffering. Kaelion's broad shoulders, once brimming with the strength of a Guardian, were now bowed under the weight of failure. Serin, whose beauty was once like the first ray of the sun, now looked translucent, weary to the marrow.
Behind them, pale and trembling with uncertainty, stood Vexion and Ariela. Children that Unknown had created, whom Akero had spared only to perhaps lead them into a greater slaughter.
"Each of us has lost someone," Kaelion continued, his voice raspy from sleeplessness and unshed tears. "Each of us carries a piece of that guilt. Do not burden yourself with it alone. It is a load we must share."
Akero looked at them, and in his eyes, there was no trace of the man they knew. Those gray eyes, once full of curiosity and fire, were now two shards of polar ice. "Your guilt is yours," he said, his voice flat, without vibration, like a sound rising from the depths of a cave. "Mine is mine. And I will carry it alone to the end."
Serin stepped forward, her slender fingers clenched into fists. "Akero, please, reconsider. This is a madness that has no name. Unknown shattered the walls of a city that stood for millennia. He destroyed six Guardians in the full glory of their power. What do you think you will achieve alone, other than bringing him another head on a platter?"
"I do not plan to win," Akero replied, and in that moment, there was a terrifying calmness in his voice, the calmness of total resignation and absolute resolve. "Victory is an illusion fostered by the weak. I plan to drag him down with me into the deepest circle of hell that exists. And you..." His gaze swept over each of them, and each felt a chill run down their spine. "You will only get in my way. Your hope, your concern... they are anchors that will slow me down."
Ariela trembled like a reed in the wind, her interlaced fingers white with pain. "But... we can help. We can be bait... a distraction... anything." Her voice broke. "Just don't leave us."
Akero laughed. It was not a laugh they recognized. It was a short, sharp, dry sound, like the snapping of a bone. "I have already used people as bait. Look around you." His broad gesture encompassed the empty halls. "Look where everyone who was bait for me is now. They lie in the earth, and their souls scream in the darkness." He looked at each of them individually, and each felt the weight of that look like a physical blow. "You stay here. That is my final order as your leader. If you ever... EVER... listened to me, listen to me now."
He turned his back on them. His figure, solitary and dark, was silhouetted against the light streaming through a shattered window.
"AKERO, PLEASE!" Serin screamed, and her voice dissolved into an echo, full of a despair so potent it could tear down walls.
But he did not answer. He did not turn. He simply continued to walk, his footsteps ringing in the stone corridor, each step like a hammer driving the nails of his fate. The doors of the Sanctuary groaned as they opened, and then closed with a final, ultimate sound that reverberated through the hearts of those left behind.
Kaelion fell to his knees, his fists driving into the stone floor until the skin split and blood began to flow. "We have lost him," he murmured, his voice a whisper full of horror. "He is no longer among us. He has gone to a place from which there is no return."
Vexion watched through a fog of tears, while Ariela held him, her quiet weeping the only sound in the ensuing silence.
Part Two: The Bloody Road to the Citadel
The road to the Citadel of the End was not merely a physical journey; it was a walk through the hell Akero carried within himself. Every step through the desert sand was like a knife driving into a wound. He made no attempt to hide. Why would he? His energy was a torch lit in the darkest night, beckoning all of Unknown's servants to come and try to extinguish that flame. He was a storm summoning other storms.
First came the Shadow-kin. They did not come individually, but in waves, like a sea of darkness rising to devour every glimmer of light. Their faceless forms glided over the sand, emitting a rasp that froze the blood in the veins.
Akero did not stop. His temporal power, once a subtle tool for control and protection, was now a brutally efficient weapon of destruction. He would raise his hand, and the air around the Shadow-kin would thicken, becoming dense as honey. Their movements, already slow and mechanical, would decelerate until they halted completely, trapped in the amber of time. Then Akero would pass through them, his sword moving with cold, mechanical precision, slicing the dark shapes into pieces that crumbled into dust. There was no anger in his movements, no haste. He was like a blade that knew only one thing—to cut.
Blood and twisted darkness stained the sand black and purple, and he simply continued to walk, his footsteps leaving bloody trails in the grit.
Vorath waited for him at the entrance to the Valley of Shadows, a narrow canyon whose rocks were filled with the despairing faces of those Unknown had consumed. The Blood Master laughed, a wide, sanguinary grin spreading as he spotted Akero's silhouette approaching, covered in the filth and darkness of his enemies.
"You have brought me your blood as a gift, boy!" Vorath roared, his voice echoing off the rocks. He raised his hands, and blood crystallized from the air around him, forming sharp daggers that glowed with a sinister red light. "I will finish what Carlos started!"
Akero did not answer. He did not slow down. He simply raised his hand, palm facing Vorath. The air shimmered, and then... stopped. Vorath's smile froze on his face. The blood blades hung in the air, motionless, trapped in a blink of time. Akero walked past them, his steps quieter than a whisper. He stopped in front of the immobile Vorath, staring into his wide eyes, full of confusion and horror. Then, without any expression on his face, he laid a hand on Vorath's chest. It was not a physical touch; it was a touch of souls. He felt Vorath's source, a turbulent sea of blood and rage. And then, quite simply, he reversed the flow. Vorath's body jerked, and then blood began to pour from his mouth, nose, ears, eyes. He fell to his knees, uncomprehending, watching his own power turn against him as Akero continued to walk, not turning to see the final outcome.
Lex awaited him on the bridge over the Labyrinth of Despair, deeper within Unknown's domain. The bridge was a marvel of engineering, built of dark stone that was alive and felt pain. The Master of Matter stood in the center, his hands raised, the air around him trembling with concentrated energy.
"Your path ends here, little Guardian!" Lex shouted. "This fortress is my kingdom! Every stone obeys my will!" He swung his hands, and the bridge came to life. Stone hands emerged from the sides, grasping for Akero's legs, while the bridge itself began to twist like a snake, trying to throw him into the abyss below, filled with jagged rocks and despair.
Akero closed his eyes. He felt... everything. He felt the atomic structure of the stone, its history, its essence. He felt the stone as it formed under great pressure, as it flowed through the centuries. And then he... accelerated. He raised his hands, and a wave of temporal energy surged through the bridge. The stone began to crack, to crumble. A thousand years of erosion unfolded in a second. The bridge disintegrated into a cloud of dust, and Lex screamed as he fell into the dark chasm below, his voice lost in the depths.
Nothing could stop him. He was a storm, a force of nature, an engine of destiny leaving only destruction in his wake. Every defeated enemy was just another tombstone on the path to his own funeral.
Part Three: Confronting the Darkness
Finally, he reached the heart of the Citadel—a vast, circular chamber where Unknown himself waited. The room was so immense its ends could not be seen, and at the far side, upon a throne forged of solidified darkness and despair, sat the entity that had shaken the very foundations of existence.
Unknown did not look like a monster; he looked like the absence of everything. His form was shifting, darker than a black hole, and his presence sucked the light, sound, and hope from the very fabric of reality.
"You have brought me your hatred," Unknown said, and his voice was not a sound; it was a sensation, a vibration that permeated bone and soul. "A lovely gift. The purest emotion the human heart can produce."
"I have brought you death," Akero replied, his voice hoarse from exertion, from pain, from carrying the weight of all those dead.
"Death?" Unknown laughed, and that laugh was like the cracking of ice on a lake freezing to death. "Boy, I am OLDER than death. I am what comes AFTER death. I am the eternity of the void."
The battle exploded not with physical blows, but with a collision of wills. Akero raised his hands, and time bent around Unknown. Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes into hours, trying to snare the darkness in a trap of time. But Unknown simply swallowed that time, absorbed it into his void. The walls of the Citadel trembled, and the sky above them, visible through a gaping hole in the ceiling, turned black, not from night, but from the absolute absence of light.
Akero was faster, smarter. He used his power in ways he had never dared before—stopping the flow of Unknown's energy, accelerating the decay of the fortress itself. But Unknown was IMMEASURABLY more powerful. He was an ocean, and Akero was a man trying to stop a tidal wave with a fist. Every blow Akero struck, Unknown absorbed. Every wound, he closed with the darkness that was part of him.
"You see?" Unknown hissed, as dark energy, sharper than any sword, pierced through Akero's defense and sliced his flesh. "You see how useless it is? Your hatred, your rage, those were the candles that led you to me, but they are not enough to light the fire that will burn me."
Akero fell to his knees, blood pouring from deep wounds on his chest and arms. He felt his strength draining, the darkness devouring him. "It is not... hatred..." he gasped, every word agony. "Love... love for them... that brought me here. Hatred is only... a mirror."
Unknown laughed, and that laugh was the most terrifying sound Akero had ever heard. "And look where that love has led you. Alone, defeated, on the brink of non-existence. Love weakened you. Love destroyed you."
He raised his hand, and dark energy gathered in his fist, forming a sphere of absolute annihilation, a world ending in his palm. "Time to return to the nature from which you came. To dust."
PartFour:TheSacrificeofTruth
"NO!"
The voice echoed off the walls, full of a despair and determination so strong that even Unknown paused for a moment. At the entrance to the chamber, illuminated by the pale light filtering through the hole in the ceiling, stood Lucius.
But this was not the Lucius Akero knew. His tunic was torn and filthy, his face haggard and furrowed with tears. His red eyes, once full of arrogance and manipulation, were now full of pain, remorse, and something else... something Akero could barely recognize—love.
Unknown turned slowly, his dark form swirling with interest. "Ah... my lost tool. Have you come to see how your masterpiece ends? To see how your betrayal finally pays off?"
Lucius did not look at Unknown. His gaze was fixed on Akero, who knelt, bleeding, on the edge of death. A storm raged in his eyes—a struggle between years of programming, lies, and crimes, and the pure, raw truth breaking to the surface.
"Akero..." Lucius said, his voice breaking, full of emotions fighting to escape. "You must live."
Akero looked up, his eyes blurred with pain and blood loss. He saw Lucius, but he saw only the traitor, the man who had brought him to this moment. "Traitor..." he mumbled, his voice full of contempt and despair. "You came to watch me die? To make sure your job is finished?"
Lucius nodded, tears now flowing freely down his face, cutting tracks through the dust and blood. "I came to tell you the truth." He turned toward Unknown, and his stance changed—from a desperate man to a man who had made a final decision. "I came to correct my mistake."
Unknown laughed, a sinister, deep laugh that vibrated in the air. "What mistake can you correct, tool? You are nothing more than an instrument in my hand. And an instrument makes no mistakes. An instrument only... serves."
Lucius turned back to Akero, and in that moment, all the deceptions, all the lies, all the manipulations vanished from his face. Only the naked, vulnerable truth remained. His gaze was clear, transparent, filled with a love so strong it pierced through years of darkness.
"I am not him," Lucius said, and then, his voice becoming firm, filled with a realization that finally set him free, he added: "I AM AIRON! Your brother!"
The world stopped for Akero. The words hit him like a physical blow, stealing his breath. They echoed in his head, impossible, absurd, and yet... TRUE. Everything clicked into place—the strange pull he had felt toward Lucius from the very beginning, the pain they shared, the way Lucius... Airon... always looked at him, even in the darkest moments, with a kind of painful, twisted love. All the pieces of the puzzle finally joined, creating a picture so terrible the mind could barely accept it.
"What...?" Akero whispered, his voice breaking, his mind seized by total emptiness. "That... that is not possible."
In that moment of total shock and vulnerability, the moment when Akero's mind was weakest, Unknown struck. Seeing the opportunity to destroy both at once, he gathered all the remaining darkness in the room and fired it as a concentrated beam of absolute destruction, aimed straight at Akero's heart.
Airon saw what was coming. Instinct, older than reason, stronger than programming, stronger than darkness, took control. There was no time for thought, only action. "AKERO!" he screamed, and threw himself forward, between his brother and the deadly attack.
"NO!" Akero screamed, realizing too late.
The dark energy hit Airon with full force. His body glowed with a blinding white light as he absorbed the blow meant for Akero. The sound that filled the room was not a sound of pain; it was the sound of disintegration, the tearing of the fabric of being.
"Akero..." Airon whispered, as his form began to dissolve, glowing particles detaching from him and vanishing into the dark air. "Forgive me... brother... for everything..." His hand, already scattering, reached toward Akero in a last, powerless attempt at a touch. "I love... you."
And then he was gone. Only a pale aura of light remained where he had stood, which quickly dispersed, leaving only emptiness and a silence louder than any noise.
Part Five: The Fracture of Time
Akero remained kneeling, staring at the empty space where his brother had stood a second before. He felt something inside him, something that had survived all the losses, all the destruction, finally and completely break. All the hatred he had fed upon, all the icy rage that had driven him, all the cold resolve—it all unraveled in a second, leaving only RAW, NAKED, INCURABLE PAIN. A pain so intense it was beyond sound, beyond sight, the pure essence of suffering.
"NO!" His scream was not just a sound; it was an explosion of the soul. His voice shattered, full of despair that surpassed anything he had ever felt, anything he had ever lost. "NOT LIKE THIS! IT CANNOT END LIKE THIS! I WILL BRING HIM BACK! I WILL BRING IT ALL BACK!"
His temporal power, until now controlled by the tools of hatred and discipline, EXPLODED out of him. It was no longer a tool; it was a storm, a volcanic eruption of pure, uncontrolled will. The world around him cracked. The walls of the Citadel did not fall; they dissolved into colorful ribbons of light and hue, like a reflection on water struck by a stone. The floor turned to liquid gold beneath his knees. The sky through the hole in the ceiling twisted into a vortex of shimmering stars. Unknown screamed in rage as his dark form too began to disintegrate, stretched and twisted into the chaotic flow of time dragging him into non-existence.
Akero no longer saw, heard, or felt. He was only core, pure intent, the single thought that survived everything—BRING BACK HIS BROTHER. He felt time pulling him, felt himself traveling through centuries, through history, through the very essence of existence. He passed through lives he hadn't lived, through moments that happened before him, through the voids between seconds. He was a storm of emotion and power, helpless and omnipotent at the same time, and in the center of that storm was only one, single, burning desire.
Part Six: In the Heart of the Past
Consciousness returned to him slowly, like a receding tide. He felt... different. Lighter. Younger. The scent in the air was different—clean, full of flowers and earth, without a trace of ash and blood. He heard birds singing, the wind rustling through leaves.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. He was sitting in a field of wildflowers, a colorful tapestry of violets and daisies stretching to the slope of a mountain in the distance. The sun was warm, and the sky was flawlessly blue.
And before him stood a boy.
A boy of perhaps ten or eleven. He had black, almost short-cropped hair, and his eyes... his eyes were two grains of blue, like ripe blueberries. But in those eyes, there was no malice, no darkness. They were full of curiosity, life, and mild concern. He wore simple, but clean cotton clothes.
It was Lucius. But not the Lucius he knew. This was Airon. His brother. Before Unknown touched him. Before he became a tool.
"Airon?" Akero whispered, his voice sounding strangely young, untainted.
The boy laughed, and that laugh was like little bells, clean and sincere. "Are you alright? You look like you fell from Mars. You've been sitting there staring for five minutes."
Akero looked at his hands. They were smaller, softer, without the scars of battle. He felt the air entering his lungs, pure and uncorrupted. He understood. He was in the past. The distant past. Before he was born. Before Airon died in the Battle of Hot Stone.
"Airon, listen to me," Akero said, grabbing the boy by the shoulders. His touch was urgent, desperate. "You must listen to me very carefully. The Battle of Hot Stone... it will happen soon. Do not go. Unknown will kill you there."
Airon's smile vanished, replaced by confusion and mild fear. "How... how do you know about the battle? It's a secret. And... who is Unknown?"
Akero felt time slipping through his fingers, felt reality rejecting him. He had no time for subtlety. "I know because I am your brother," he said, tears beginning to flow, tears that did not belong to this young body, but to an old, tortured soul. "I am Akero. I have come from the future."
He watched Airon's eyes grow wider as he spoke. He told him everything—about Unknown, about the fall of the Guardians, about the war that would follow, about how Unknown would use his death, brainwash him, turn him into Lucius, about all the crimes he would commit, about Alabaster, about their parents, about Nea and Kael, about everything he had lost, about everything Airon had lost.
Airon listened to him, wordless, his face pale with horror. "That is... impossible," he whispered, his voice trembling. "You are talking about... hell."
"But it is the truth," Akero said, feeling his hands beginning to fade, to become transparent. Pain pierced him, sharp and penetrating, a sign that time would not allow his presence here. "You must run, Airon. You must hide. They will tell you that you are a coward, that you are running from duty. But run! Live! Find me in the future. I will be waiting for you. I promise."
Airon watched as the form of his brother, the man from the future, began to disintegrate into golden light. "Akero! No! Don't go!"
"I love you, brother," Akero whispered, as his last words were lost in the wind, and his form completely dispersed into a cloud of glowing particles that vanished. "Remember... find me..."
And then only silence remained, occasionally broken by the chirping of birds, and a boy left kneeling in the flowers, clutching his chest, his heart pounding with fear and incredible realization, with one word etched into his soul: Future.
Part Seven: A New Day
Akero jerked awake, inhaling sharply and deeply, like a drowned man who had just surfaced. His heart pounded madly in his chest, and the scream of time rang in his ears. His hands trembled as he raised them to his face, inspecting them. They were... his. Real. Full of scars and the strength of a grown man.
He was in... his bed? In his room in the Sanctuary? The morning light streamed through the window, illuminating familiar stone walls. There were no signs of battle, destruction, blood. It smelled of wooden furniture and dried herbs, not ash and death.
"Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."
A voice. A familiar voice. But not the one he expected. It was warm, full of care, without a shred of arrogance or malice.
Akero turned, his heart leaping into his throat. A man stood leaning against the doorframe. A man with black hair and blue eyes, but... different. His hair was longer, messier, full of life. His red eyes were not cold like rubies; they were warm as a fire in a hearth, full of sincerity and a kind of soft, brotherly concern. On his lips was a smile, gentle, natural, that reached his eyes.
"Airon?" Akero whispered, his voice breaking with disbelief and a hope so fragile he feared even a breath would shatter it.
"I am," Airon said, his smile widening, lighting up the room. "And you are Akero. My little brother." He approached the bed, unhurried. He sat on the edge and kissed Akero on the forehead, a gentle, protective gesture that carried the weight of all the lost years. "I have waited a long, long time to meet you."
Akero looked at his brother, and then a storm of memories from the previous timeline hit him with full force. He saw everything—Nea's death, Kael's end, Alabaster's demise, their parents' despair, Lucius's... Airon's sacrifice. Pain, loss, betrayal, love, it all came back at once, so bright and real that he groaned, gripping Airon's hand convulsively.
"Airon," he sobbed, tears flowing like a river, releasing the burden he had carried through two lifetimes. "I saw... everything. Everyone dead. Because of me. Because of us."
Airon did not interrupt him. He simply held him, providing a sanctuary as the storm receded. "I know," he whispered softly. "I saw it too. I dreamed... nightmares. Of a man telling me to run. Of a dark man offering me power. Of you." His gaze was distant, full of sorrow for what could have happened. "I listened to you. I ran from the battlefield. I hid. And I waited." He hugged Akero tighter. "And here I am. I am not a tool. I am not a traitor. I am your brother. And I am ready to fight beside you. As it was meant to be from the very beginning."
Akero hugged his brother, feeling the ice that had encased his heart for a lifetime finally melt, leaving behind a vulnerable, but pure, warmth. He had his brother. He had his memories, lessons learned through pain and loss. And now he KNEW. He knew who the enemy was. He knew who the allies were. He knew what he had to do.
Unknown thought he had won. He could not even guess that he had just lost everything. For now, he was not facing an avenger driven by hate. He was facing two brothers, united by love and knowledge, and nothing in the world was stronger than that.