An impact tore a crater in the asphalt.
Tekio slid back, fists clenched, breathing heavily. White sparks raced along his forearms, crackling down to his knuckles.
— Still with that look in your eyes? — Karmore advanced, her hair thrown back by the wind, energy pulsing beneath her skin as if it were alive. — How long will you look at me like that, Tekio? Do you want me to burst your eardrums again?
Tekio did not answer with words. He answered with his body.
He advanced.
They collided in the middle of the street, their movements like cuts in the still air. Fist against forearm. Knee against rib. Shoulder against shoulder.
Karmore laughed on impact. Her smile was distorted, but there was something… broken in it.
Tekio noticed. Her energy… vibrated in dissonance. A corrupted frequency.
Yara, inside him, watched—desperate.
"You cannot kill her, Tekio…"
But she knew.
He now had the power to do it.
Karmore threw herself to the side, kicking the wall of a building to gain momentum. Tekio followed, the two of them shattering windows and metal staircases, grappling like chaotic beasts. Tekio used his forearm, wreathed in white electricity, to deflect a kick, then landed a straight punch to her stomach that cracked the concrete behind her.
But she laughed. The mark on her back vibrated.
And Tekio's answered.
A dry thunderclap echoed deep within them both.
— You feel it, don't you? — she said, her eyes alight. — This excitement, our souls… they sing the same song.
Tekio retreated, but only for a second.
Sweat and blood streamed down his face.
— That song… — he said, his tone cold and centered. — Is a curse. And you dance to it as if it were a blessing.
— Because I have made it my blessing! — Karmore screamed.
Tekio advanced.
She smiled, and her energy solidified over her shoulders like white plates, shielding her from a direct blow from Tekio. — I am what they created. What they fear.
For ages before you even existed, I slaughtered your kind in revenge.
She spun her body, kicking Tekio into a narrow corridor. He slammed against an iron staircase, slipped, but was back on his feet before the next blow landed.
— And yet, for all your wrath — he said, already appearing beside her, his fist wreathed in crackling white electricity — you are still just a piece.
The punch grazed her, but it was enough to make cracks appear in the wall.
She staggered.
For a moment, something in her expression hesitated.
— You… know nothing! — her voice wavered.
— You don't know what it's like to have your family killed and your soul cursed by your own sister.
After all, yours died, didn't she? You fucking brat.
Tekio's gaze hardened.
But the mark burned, its color darkening, and she advanced again.
Tekio dodged, counterattacked, tumbled down the stairs with her.
They fell into the basement of a building. An abandoned parking garage.
Dust in the air. Flickering lights. A natural arena.
— You talk as if this is your choice, as if there's no other way, but you decide nothing, Karmore… — Tekio said, breathless, but growing firmer. — You never have.
— Shut up!! — She charged like lightning.
Tekio saw her gaze. The rage. But also… the fear.
Yara screamed inside him, her eyes full.
"If you kill her… she will vanish. She will cease to exist. Her only chance of freedom lies with you!"
But Tekio was desperate.
He felt… something else.
Deep in his soul, he felt Akira.
Weak. Distant. In pain.
Mei.
They were all in danger.
And this fight… was taking too long.
The electrical energy began to increase, responding to his desperation.
Lightning crackling along his arms.
Yara wanted to stop him.
But Tekio did not retreat.
Karmore fell to her knees for a second, gasping, and Tekio stopped before her.
She lifted her face, panting.
Her skin marked, her soul pulsating.
— Are you… going to finish me, Tekio?
Silence.
Tekio stood over her.
His eyes shone with pain and decision.
And yet, he hesitated.
— Your soul is screaming — Tekio said. — But it is not you who screams.
— ...
— It is the curse.
— I am the curse! — she roared. — I was made for this!
— NO!! — Tekio replied with firmness. — You are just being used, manipulated, a piece in a larger game.
I know it, I feel it, the tracing of your soul, Amara still exists inside there, I can see and feel it.
— ...
— Somehow, I know this is not your fault, you have committed sins but there is a way, your sister believes it, I believe it too, I know that…
Tekio's words were cut off by the dry sound of laughter.
She was cackling as she stood, her eyes sparking.
— Going to lecture me now, Tekio? Going to try and save me with sweet words while you punch me?
— It is not only your body that has been twisted, Karmore. — Tekio said. — Your soul… it vibrates as if it were at war with itself.
She hesitated for a second.
— Shut up, Tekio! — she screamed, her tone cracking — I know exactly who I am!
— Do you? — Tekio walked slowly now, his eyes fixed on her. — Since I first knew you… when I saw you in Yara's memories, you were distorted. Always in Dante's shadows, always at the mercy of the situation. You have always reacted to commands. Orders. Missions. Voices. You never chose anything for yourself.
Not even what you became.
Karmore gave a crooked smile.
— Is that what you think?
— It is what I see. — he replied. — And what I feel.
The marks on both of them vibrated, a strange pain running down their spines. Something in them resonated between the two, a deep, ancestral echo they didn't even know how to name.
But Karmore felt it. Tekio did too.
Yara, trapped inside him, watched with wide, tense eyes. Her energy stirred like an erratic heart.
At the start of the battle, Tekio fought to kill, but now…
All he saw was a broken soul crying for help.
Karmore shook her head. Her energy grew more intense.
— Do you still think there is salvation? — she mocked, moving closer. — You want me to bow, cry, and say "thank you, Tekio"?
GO TO HELL — She screamed.
— No. — he replied, sliding to the side, dodging a surprise spinning kick. — I want you to choose for yourself, for the first time.
— I chose this!
— No. This was imposed on you. Since birth. Your memories, everything is false and made for you to be this way.
They burst through the parking garage ceiling, shattering concrete as they landed on a slanted roof. Karmore spun, trying to strike his head with a kick, but Tekio blocked, countering with a fist charged with lightning.
A flash exploded. The two were thrown in opposite directions, stopping at the edges of the roof.
The tension was suffocating.
Karmore panted. Her hands trembled slightly—not from fear, but from conflict.
— I don't want to kill you, I…
The silhouette of Tekio and the words he spoke, even though he didn't finish the sentence, Karmore heard them. And she saw.
A memory.
Yara bleeding, like Tekio, standing before her.
— I don't want to kill you… Because I love you… — Her sister had said, smiling amidst cuts, wars, and blood.
Karmore had never understood when she fought Yara, never understood why that woman, who had nearly killed Dante alone, was incapable of killing her.
She looked at him, eyes wide. For a fraction of a second… she was just a confused girl. A broken soul.
Slowly surrendering to the truth.
But then… the other part of her screamed.
A dry roar. A hunger for blood. And the marks shone with power, her veins turning black for a moment, a red gleam flashing in her eyes for a few seconds.
— SHUT. YOUR. DAMN. MOUTH! — she bellowed, advancing like a feral beast, driven by something beyond her will.
Tekio braced his fists, steady, his eyes filled with sadness and determination.
— If you cannot break free…
Then I will shatter the chains for you.
And the fight exploded anew.
Violent. Brilliant. Desperate.
Cutting through streets, crashing through walls.
Two bodies. Two marks. Two souls…
fighting for something they couldn't even explain.
And in the depths of his spirit,
Yara squeezed her eyes shut.
"Please, Tekio… do not kill her."
To be continued…