The wind snapped through the arena as clouds rolled like smoke, churning the sky into a chasm of black and silver. Rain didn't fall. Lightning didn't flash. It was silent—eerily so.
And then it wasn't.
A thousand voices whispered from the sky itself, as the Dark Lord's clones dispersed like torn cloth and were sucked back into his body. Each shadowy form twisted into him like smoke spiraling into a bottle.
The Fallen One stood there, calm, but focused—his coat billowing, one hand on the sheath of his sword.
Kage:
"Let's go."
"I just finished practicing my moves."
His voice hit like thunder, and even the stone beneath their feet cracked slightly.
The Fallen One rolled his shoulders, loosening his joints. A grin nearly cracked on his face, but didn't. Not yet.
Fallen One:
"I figured. You always were the flashy type."
Then, like a clap of dimensional thunder, both of them vanished—a shockwave blasted outward, flipping debris and carving shock lines into the arena's walls.
In the audience, there were no spectators. This was no public event. This was old business. Old rivalries.
Old debts.
Above them, the sky was clearing.
But beneath that clearing, two beings were about to shatter the ground below them.
Kage moved first, his fist cracking with lightning as he appeared above the Fallen One. His punch came down like a meteor, the air itself caught fire from the speed.
But the Fallen One didn't block.
He sidestepped.
Barely.
Then, with a pivot, he drew only half of his sword—still in sheath form—and used the butt of it to redirect the Dark Lord's force into the ground, which shattered like a glass plate.
Fallen One:
"I don't want to kill you."
Kage (grinning):
"You say that every time. But your sword always begs to differ."
Then the air around the Dark Lord compressed, and his newly practiced moves weren't just flashy. They were refined. The sound of murmuring crowds began to rise. The arena stands, once empty, now brimmed with shadows, drifters, mercenaries, and even normal stick-civilians —everyone wanted to see a fight between two legends.
Kage (grinning):
"Figured I'd make this a public event."
He raised his arms theatrically, feeding off the growing roar of the crowd.
The Fallen One's eyes narrowed. The air shifted around him—not from the crowd, but from something deeper.
Fallen One (quietly):
"You're forgetting something…"
His hand tightened on the hilt.
Suddenly—FWOOOSH.
The blade ignited—not with normal fire, but a deep-core flame, white at the center, blue on the edges, spiraling like a miniature sun.
The entire sword began to change shape, its frame liquefying into coils of rotating flame. He gripped the hilt, and began to spin it in wide arcs.
Faster.
And faster.
And faster.
The flames wrapped around his arm like armor, yet didn't burn him.
The sand below him melted into black glass.
Fallen One (voice rising):
"This isn't a game."
The crowd fell silent.
The pressure radiating from him was unnatural—like time itself hiccupped. The spin of the flaming sword was beginning to look like a ring, a disk of plasma, then a halo, then—
BOOM.
A sonic burst launched out from the tip of the sword, slicing through the upper edge of the arena wall, leaving a searing mark on the stone dozens of meters high.
The Kage didn't move. He just stared.
His grin... tightened. Not smug now.
Serious.
Kage:
"…So you have been practicing."
Then both of them launched forward simultaneously.
One—wielding a sword turned into the spinning sun.
The other—cloaked in clones, shadow, and gravity-forged chains.
The sky above began to swirl again.
The earth beneath? Already trembling