The silence of the shattered dimension was broken by a single step.
Fenra advanced first.
Her feet touched the ground with firmness. The blade in her hand emitted no glow, it merely cut through the space before her as if sliding through dense water.
Vernasha smiled lightly and spun the short dagger in her fingers, framed by her relaxed posture—but her eyes, ever watchful, were already reading every micro-movement of Fenra's.
— Still holding back... — Vernasha whispered. — Is it fear or pride?
The attack came sharp. Fenra vanished for an instant, not through space, but through technique. A low spin, lateral displacement, horizontal slash.
Vernasha blocked with the base of her fist and spun the short blade for a direct counter-attack to the jugular. Fenra dodged with her shoulder and kicked her rival's knee—which buckled and slid back.
— You talk too much. — Fenra replied, her breathing controlled.
— And you feel too much. — Vernasha flashed a smile while wiping the blood trickling from her mouth. — You still haven't learned to use that as a weapon.
Another assault. Short blows. Elbows. Knees. Claws scraping metal. The sound of clashing blades was muffled by the very fabric of that unstable reality.
Fenra pressed with efficiency, but Vernasha was rhythm. She danced. She used her own retreats as traps.
In a feint, Vernasha got too close—and whispered in her enemy's ear:
— Do you know why you were never like Mei?
Fenra snarled and delivered a direct punch to the woman's stomach, pushing her away.
— Because I don't need to be. — Fenra replied firmly. — I am what remains when everything has already collapsed.
Vernasha slid across the ground, rising slowly, licking the blood from the corner of her lips.
— Fine speech. But speeches don't save your allies, Fenra. They didn't save Aisha. They didn't save Mei. And they won't save... you.
This time, she attacked first.
The blade cut at unpredictable angles, short, calculated movements. Fenra retreated, blocked, spun her body, using elbows, knees, and even shoulders to cushion the impacts. Blood began to appear in small marks—both were wounded, but neither blinked.
— You think fighting is a test of character. — Vernasha said between blows. — But it isn't. It's about manipulating. Toppling. Controlling.
— Then you never understood what courage is. — Fenra retorted, spinning with her whole body and delivering a spinning kick, slamming Vernasha against an invisible wall of the dimension.
It cracked.
The structure of space groaned.
Both stopped for a second.
The dimension... was beginning to give way.
— Interesting... — Vernasha touched the cracked surface with her fingers. — We're going beyond what we should.
— We always have. — Fenra replied, readying her blade for the next exchange. — That's why we're still standing.
And this time, they ran toward each other.
Without powers.
Without escape.
Only the sound of steel, of breath, of rage, of memory... filling a space that could no longer sustain so much past.
In that space collapsed by the collision of two dimensional powers, the air was thick like glass about to shatter. Neither shadow, nor light—only the imperfect stitching of realities that should never have touched. Gravity was a whisper, time, a hesitant echo. The laws of the outside world bent here like branches before a silent storm.
The battle had already lasted longer than the senses could measure.
Fenra remained standing, even as her body cried out for rest. Her hands were clenched, her chest heaved with restraint, but what weighed heaviest wasn't the pain: it was the doubt. A thick silence stretched between her and Vernasha—an abyss threatening, at any moment, to rupture into a scream.
Her adversary, or perhaps something far beyond that, watched her with her head slightly tilted, golden eyes glowing like embers buried in darkness. There was something ancestral in that gaze. Something that knew too much.
— Why, Vernasha? — the question cut through the silence, trembling with frustration and exhaustion. — Why all this? What's the point? How long will it continue?
Vernasha smiled—a smile that seemed more like a disguised lament. Gentle, almost maternal. She took a few steps, without a sound, as if treading on the veil of reality without actually touching it.
— It's almost over — she murmured. — Only the final... touches remain.
— Touches? — Fenra narrowed her eyes. — You call destruction, manipulation, and death touches?
Vernasha did not answer immediately. Instead, her eyes rose to the fragmented sky above, where the firmament seemed torn by invisible claws.
— And very probably... — she said, her voice soft as the crackle of a distant fire — ...one of those touches is beginning to bloom right now.
Fenra remained motionless, but felt her thoughts colliding within her. The pieces were before her, scattered, but the complete picture still eluded her. It was like staring at a broken stained-glass window—colors and shapes, but without light to comprehend them.
Vernasha spoke again, now in an incantatory tone:
— Tell me, Fenra... what happens when fire dances on the skin of gasoline?
Fenra remained silent, her eyes fixed on the figure challenging her without raising a finger.
— When the heart pulses in the ear of blood? — Vernasha continued. — When the moon falls... and meets the sun inside the abyss?
The metaphor seemed to arise from an ancestral language, laden with symbolism and hidden layers. Fenra was not naive—she had read prophecies, faced lesser gods. But before that woman... she felt small. As if every word were a piece of a chess game played across distinct centuries.
— That sounds like lovers' poetry — she said with sarcasm. — But you were never poetic.
— Love is a language... and that one has been spoken too much — Vernasha murmured. — What comes now is not love. It is collision. It is fusion. Elements that have sought each other for ages... and finally recognize each other. So that I... may finally, happen.
Fenra felt her blood run cold. This wasn't just philosophy. It was an announced birth. Something Vernasha had been preparing in silence, for ages, among people, battles, sacrifices.
She wasn't a piece.
She was the board.
— Who is the fire? — Fenra murmured, almost unwillingly. — Who is the gasoline?
Vernasha closed her eyes for a moment, like one contemplating a memory or an inevitable destiny. And then, she smiled. A smile that held no joy, but the quietude of one who is years ahead in the game.
She raised a hand to her own forehead, as if shooing away a noisy thought. And her eyes met Fenra's again—now with something more intense, almost intimate.
— Now, dear Fenra... now things are going to get truly fun.
(...)
On the other side of the undone field, where the war had left scars on the earth and the air, Tekio advanced.
Under his feet, the ground still burned red, living traces of the collision between titans—Mei and Dante. The world itself seemed to stagger, as if every burned stone, every breath of dust, announced the collapse of balance. Reality bent under the weight of the inevitable.
And yet, he walked.
His steps were heavy, yes, but his gaze… his gaze was steel forged in loss.
He would not bear to fail again.
Not now.
Not with her.
He would rescue Mei.
He would save Akira.
He would face the end of the world if he had to—but he would not retreat.
His mind was a focused storm. He did not see the pain, did not feel the fear, only what needed to be done. It was then that a silhouette tore through the veil of dust like a specter molded by tragedy.
She emerged.
Delicate, almost ethereal—a slender body, white clothes stained with dried blood like brushstrokes of a cruel art.
But her eyes… her eyes were abysses of ice.
Blue, cold, and absolutely self-assured.
— Well, Tekio. — The voice came like a cutting breeze, too sweet for the scene around them, almost mocking. As if this meeting were a casual detail of fate.
Karmore.
The traitor.
The sister.
The shadow fate had hidden for too long.
Amara.
Tekio halted. The air seemed to freeze in his lungs. On the outside, he was rock. On the inside, something trembled—and Yara, inside him, felt it. It was like an invisible blow to the chest.
That gaze.
That damned gaze.
It wasn't just arrogance, nor the pleasure of a well-executed betrayal.
It was purpose.
It was certainty.
It was destruction with a name and a face.
Yara no longer knew what awaited them. And Tekio, even with his chest ablaze, realized—destiny had changed shape once again. And it was about to deliver its next blow.
To be continued...