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The two clashed like tempests.
Karmore fell from the sky with fists coated in solid energy, tearing through the roof in a wild dive. Tekio leapt in the same direction, his arm wreathed in lightning, and they collided in mid-air—a shockwave exploded around them, shattering the windows of nearby buildings.
Tekio spun in the air, kicking off the ground to cushion his fall. Karmore did not bother to land gracefully—she dragged herself across the cracked concrete and charged back, as if her body no longer registered the damage.
Each blow was a conversation. Each block, a plea. Each wound, a denied memory.
— Why do you insist?! — Karmore roared, launching three energy missiles that split from her shoulders. — You don't know me! You never have!
Tekio dodged, his torn uniform dancing in the wind, his eyes fixed on her. — That's true. But I know your soul. And it is crying for help.
Karmore advanced with a sequence of punches. Tekio blocked with his electrified forearm, but the blows were stronger now—more desperate.
The marks on both of them vibrated in a frenzy.
Hers… dark, hungry, corrupted. His… pure, but unstable, cracking with each new surge of feeling.
— Shut your mouth, Tekio!! — she screamed, but the voice that came out… was more than one.
He felt it.
Two voices in the same throat. Karmore… and something else. Something ancient. Something trapped.
— This curse... it feeds on your pain. — And it is winning.
Karmore trembled mid-attack, hesitating for half a second. Tekio took advantage and grabbed her arm.
— Listen. I know there is something in you... something that still remembers Yara. — he said, his eyes steady on hers. — You don't have to carry this burden alone. Let me help you!
— I NEVER ASKED FOR YOUR HELP... and I don't want to remember... — she whispered, and her eyes teared blood. — I can't…
The mark pulsed.
And the blood streamed from her eyes, as if water were not enough to express the suffering of denying love.
Suddenly, she spun, her energized elbow striking Tekio's jaw. He staggered, spitting blood, but kept his eyes on her.
She panted, but laughed no more. Her fists trembled.
— They... they took everything from me... — she whispered. — Her voice. Her touch. Even my name… They made me forget who I was…
— But your body remembers. — Tekio replied. — Your soul… still holds onto it. And I will bring it back, even if I have to endure a thousand beatings.
— Why?! Why do you care so much about me?!
Tekio fell silent for a moment, his eyes wavering, but his posture firm.
— Because no one ever fought for me like this.
And I... refuse to be like them.
I refuse to abandon you.
— Because I don't carry only my own will with me.
— Because I see your soul. And because I would do anything to have my own sister back…
— Yours is waiting for you. You have to remember. Amara.
Karmore took a step back.
Tekio was stupefyingly similar to Yara in that instant.
Memories began to invade.
The scent of trees.
Yara's laughter.
Fingers entwined as children.
A name lost to the wind…
The name her mind had erased.
"Am…"
Silhouettes, scribbled and torn memories came like lightning in Karmore's mind.
Alongside the boy who whispered before her.
— Remember.
"Ama…"
The scribbled memories made Karmore's head burn, the mark on her back bubbled and seared.
She felt it, and she wept blood.
Tekio merely watched.
He saw Karmore's soul slowly yielding to the truth.
Karmore grasped a full memory.
Something clean.
Yet stained with blood, blood that had gushed for love and hatred.
And that had snaked over Karmore's hands ages ago.
The figure smiled even while wounded and said.
"I will always love you... Amar-..."
— AAAAAAGGGH!!
The curse reacted with force, a black wave exploding from her body.
Tekio saw the dark side of Karmore's soul taking form and growing strong, suffocating what remained of Amara's traces within that poor soul that seemed more like a prison.
Veins bulged on her arms. Her skin turned grey for seconds. Her eyes, crimson, burned with fury. But now… it was a fury of defense.
Of fear.
She advanced with an animalistic scream, and Tekio did not retreat.
They resumed their exchange of blows, breaking the ground beneath their feet, shattering pillars, crashing through structures. They fell into a concrete hall, dust everywhere.
Tekio bled from his forehead. But his eyes remained gentle.
— You are not a weapon.
— You are a person, Amara.
— YOU HAVE TO FACE THIS!
— STOP!
— NO!
She advanced, tearing through the air with her speed.
The punch hit his chest with such force that he flew through a wall. He coughed blood onto the floor, but stood up.
— And even if you kill me... I will keep saying it.
Because if Yara believed in you…
Tekio's mark shone with a strong white light.
— …then I believe in you too.
Karmore's scream tore through the environment.
She covered her face, knees hitting the ground, her hands shaking.
— I CAN'T!!
And Tekio walked to her.
Even though he could attack. Even though he could end it all.
He extended his hand.
— Then let me help you.
The marks reacted. A thunder echoed without sound.
Yara, in tears, watched from within.
"Perhaps... he is the key."
Karmore attacked Tekio's hand and screamed.
The battle of souls continued.
The sound of Tekio's breathing echoed like hammer blows in the void between them. The dust hanging in the air seemed to freeze between movements—and yet, they continued.
Karmore advanced like a storm. Each step left cracks in the ground, and her eyes, now tinged a grotesque red, seemed to deny any remnant of humanity. Tekio dodged, rolled, retreated with difficulty. His left arm was already throbbing with pain, and his legs screamed for breath—but he persisted.
— Amara… can you hear me? — his voice came out trembling, not from fear, but from urgency. — Can you feel it? The tracing of your soul is trembling. You are… trying to remember.
She stopped for a second—just one. And in that instant, Tekio saw: distorted fragments danced around her. Karmore's aura was splitting into fine cracks, like glass under pressure.
At this point, Karmore was the curse and Amara was her true soul.
— Silence. — Karmore snarled, her voice distorted, as if two entities spoke within her. — I want... to remember... BUT IT WON'T LET ME!
She attacked, and the impact split a concrete block as if it were paper. Tekio blocked with his concentrated electrical energy, sliding to the side and releasing a precise counterattack that exploded in lightning across the field.
— I know what it's like to be afraid of yourself. — he shouted, appearing behind her in a burst of speed. — But I also know what it's like for someone to reach out. I am here for that. For you.
Karmore's eyes trembled. Images floated before her—a soft laugh, the touch of a warm hand… and a voice:
"I will never abandon you, my dear sister…"
But as soon as these memories came, something else suffocated them.
A strange voice, deep and broken like rotten wood, tore everything apart from within:
— You are mine. There is no past. There is no name. Only the curse.
Inside that divided, cursed being, a girl wept and screamed, trying to free herself from the darkness that surrounded her.
Only one soul could see this and hear her laments, and that soul was Tekio's.
Karmore's pupils dilated, and blood streamed like tears. She screamed, and her energy transformed into black thorns that shot out in all directions.
Tekio was struck squarely in the rib, but even so, he retreated with firmness. His body was covered in wounds, but his grey eyes, almost white with energy, remained unshaken.
— You are crying blood… because water is not enough for this pain, is it? — he said, panting. — But I see you in there. I see you. And your soul… it wants to fight.
— What you see, boy, is a fragment broken so long ago it has forgotten its original form.
The curse was taking possession of everything now, even intentions and voices.
Tekio's gaze hardened.
The two advanced together.
The blows became a tragic dance: each of Karmore's charges was accompanied by stifled cries of pain and flashes of recollection. Tekio, even wounded, molded himself to her rhythm, dodging, spinning, using his electric aura to propel his body and strike with precision—never attempting to kill. He wanted to wake her. He wanted to free her.
From within the mark on his back, Yara's soul began to vibrate intensely.
"She is… almost there, Tekio. Keep going. You are the only key."
But then, at the height of a new movement, Tekio froze.
He felt the Veil.
An overwhelming spiritual pressure shot through his body like silent thunder. His eyes widened.
— Mei…? Akira…?
He felt them. Their souls, connected. But Mei…
She was being swallowed.
A profound anguish seized his chest.
The hesitation lasted only a second—but it was enough.
Karmore, her face distorted by hatred and the curse in full control, appeared before him like a formless nightmare.
— DON'T YOU DARE LOOK AWAY FROM ME!!
The blow came like black thunder.
The strike was brutal, cutting in an arc and hitting Tekio squarely in the face, piercing through his spiritual protection. The blow landed on his left eye—and the world turned.
Tekio flew like a dry leaf in the storm, breaking columns, crashing through walls, and being swallowed by a cloud of rubble and dust.
The silence that followed was oppressive.
Karmore stood panting, the curse still in control, but her body trembled. Something inside her was breaking, the screams of memory mingling with the chaos.
— I DON'T WANT TO HURT ANYONE ELSE!
— IT DOESN'T MATTER, JUST DIE IN THE DARKNESS, YOU ANNOYING GIRL!
Inside that broken being, the memories came, even more fractured, but they came.
Little by little.
— "Why are you crying… sis…?"
— "I don't want to lose you again..."
— "Promise you'll find me...?"
Karmore clutched her head with both hands, screaming into the void, against the voices, against the collapse of her own soul. The tears of blood now flowed like rivers.
Yara, from within Tekio, whispered:
"She is breaking apart. But perhaps… that is what she needs to rebuild herself."
And amidst the rubble, a hand trembled.
Tekio was still standing.
His left eye bled, and part of his vision faded.
But what worried him was Mei.
"Because of me, because of my hesitation again, I..."
To be continued…
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