The silence after the spirit's scream was heavy, almost solid. Jay, still kneeling after being freed from the shadow spears, breathed with difficulty. His body trembled, his vision wavered, and yet… something stronger than pain made him lift his face slightly.
A presence. A presence so strong that even the spirit's shadow seemed to tremble.
And then, the moon—once hidden behind black clouds like spilled ink—began to slide out, as if it wished to witness the scene with its own silver eyes.
Its light fell in a thin, slow, ceremonial beam upon the figure that had appeared in the darkness. The light did not reveal his face immediately. No. The moon seemed to savor it, deciphering him piece by piece, as if returning an important being to the world.
First, it illuminated his boots.
Black boots, tall, solid, biting firmly into the earth without yielding a single inch. Their surface was immaculate, as though blood, dust, and the chaos of battle dared not stain them.
The light rose slowly, revealing straight black trousers, unwrinkled, perfectly aligned to the firm contour of his legs. It was a martial bearing, disciplined, almost intimidating in its simple presence.
Then, the lunar glow reached the long black coat, its edges moving with the night breeze like the wings of an elegant raven. Red details swirled across the coat in subtle spirals. And on the chest, aligned in perfect symmetry, shone golden buttons, glittering like tiny stars borrowed from the night itself.
Beneath the dark coat was a fitted black vest, classic and refined, made to highlight an upright torso. And under that vest, the moon softly traced a high-collared white shirt, so pristine it seemed untouched by the bloody reality of the battlefield.
At each side of his waist, held with elegance and authority, rested two katanas: handles completely black, and blades slightly darkened, as if forged in pure night. The moonlight reflected on them with a faint, timid gleam, as though even the moon hesitated to touch such imposing weapons.
The light continued upward, bathing his firm neck, his straight posture, his presence so immovable it seemed to resist time itself.
Then the moon reached the face.
First his fair skin, clean, unmarked, like a canvas where destiny had chosen to paint only determination.
Then, finally, it illuminated his eyes.
Red eyes. Intense. Piercing. Like living embers trapped within a temple of ice. A gaze that did not merely observe the darkness… but defied it.
At last, the moon touched his hair: black, spiky, disordered, rebellious in every direction. Hair that told stories of battles, of paths traveled, of decisions made without looking back.
When the moon finished revealing him completely, the evil spirit retreated slowly, like an animal confronted by its natural predator.
Jay opened his eyes, incredulous, his breath trembling, as if his body recognized before his mind who stood before him.
That man… That face… That bearing impossible to forget…
It was Daru Eicker. His brother. His blood. The part of his life he thought distant, almost unreachable.
And Daru, with his typical arrogant confidence, tilted his head as he let out a mocking exhale.
"Well…" Daru said with an almost cruel smile as he lightly shook his coat, "and here I thought that supposed training you bragged about would actually help you, brother."
Jay, still gasping, lowered his head slightly with a bitter sigh.
"Shut up…" Jay said, his voice broken by pain, exasperation, and an unexpected touch of relief.
Daru answered with a soft, carefree laugh, as if he were not standing on ruined ground nor facing a spirit hungry for death.
"You look torn to pieces, Jay," Daru remarked as his shadow stretched under the moonlight. "Did this monster really leave you like that? I'd be ashamed."
The spirit, enraged by being ignored, let out a distorted roar, raising the miasma around it.
But Daru did not even look at it. His red eyes were focused solely on Jay.
"Don't die just yet," Daru said, resting a hand on one of his katanas. "It would be such a bother to explain to Mom that the most stubborn one died to some generic shadow."
Jay clicked his tongue with a grimace.
"Always so… annoying…" he murmured, his voice faint.
Daru tilted his face slightly, a murky, arrogant smile, as if savoring every second.
"And always so dramatic," Daru replied as he finally fixed his gaze on the spirit. "But don't worry… I'm here now."
The spirit let out a sharp shriek, preparing an attack.
But in that instant, Daru stepped forward.
A single step.
The moon flickered. The air thinned. The shadows trembled.
And then—
シュッ!
A clean cut. A silver flash. The brief sound of something being disintegrated.
The shadow spears still fragmented on the ground vanished like ash carried away by a nonexistent wind.
Daru remained there, motionless, his hand barely raised… without even unsheathing.
He had made only the smallest movement. Microscopic. Lethal.
Jay swallowed hard, shocked, wounded, trembling.
The spirit retreated several steps, its white eyes shaking with pure, primal, absolute fear.
Daru lowered his hand and spoke with a calm so cold the air itself seemed to drop in temperature.
"Now then. Let's begin."
And the moon, high and silent, watched. Because even it wanted to know what would happen next.
Jay lowered his head slowly, feeling the adrenaline begin to fade. As he looked at his wounds, he narrowed his eyes: small bluish flames rose from the cuts and scratches, dancing as if they had a life of their own.
"Can the V2… heal me?" he murmured, incredulous.
He looked at his palms as well. The same tiny flames trembled upon his skin, reconstructing the injured flesh centimeter by centimeter. It was not a pleasant sensation… but neither was it painful. Rather, it was warm. Persistent.
Version 2 had kept him alive. And now it was healing him.
"Amazing…" Jay admitted with a sigh. "But far too slow for my taste."
With great care, he pushed against the ground with his arms, forcing his body to move. Every muscle protested, but the regeneration advanced just enough to allow him to crawl. Little by little, he managed to rest his back against a nearby tree. He exhaled deeply as he sat, keeping his gaze fixed on the enemy spirit… and on Daru.
"This reminds me of when I reunited with Daru," he said in a mocking tone, almost laughing at himself.
Then he clicked his tongue and added, clenching his fist:
"Damn it… saved by him again."
His gaze, however, was not one of frustration or envy, but of challenge. Pride. Still wounded, still gasping, Jay lifted his eyes toward his brother with a faint crooked smile.
From the moment he reunited with Daru… from the moment he saw what he was capable of… a spark ignited within him. One he had never had before.
He did not want to be left behind. He did not want to be "the brother who is always saved."
He longed to reach that power. Or something even greater.
But what Jay still did not know… was what kind of training Daru Eicker had endured to obtain such abyssal power.
Nor how much it had cost him.
The night air vibrated like a taut string about to snap. Jay, still seated against the tree, kept his gaze fixed on the scene before him. His eyes, half‑open from exhaustion, missed not a single detail.
Daru advanced a step—barely one—but that single movement was enough to change the atmosphere. It was as if the very world held its breath before him.
"It's time for you to finally die," Daru said as he unsheathed a single katana.
The metallic sound slid through the air with unnatural smoothness, as though it cut not silence, but reality itself. As the blade was bared, shadows flowed from it. They were neither aggressive nor warm, but something in between: a neutral manifestation, like a natural phenomenon that simply existed. They moved like dark vapor escaping from freshly broken ice, wrapping the blade with a muffled whisper.
The shadow aura descended along Daru's hands and coiled around his feet and legs. It formed a small vortex, weak yet incredibly elegant, spinning with movements that seemed like choreography crafted by the wind itself. Each turn of the aura left behind a black trace that slowly dissipated, like withered petals falling from the air.
"At last I can finish you and continue exploring," Daru said with a barely perceptible smile, his sword now fully unsheathed.
He gripped the katana with both hands. His stance leaned slightly forward, precise, polished by training Jay had never witnessed. It was the posture of one ready to deliver a thrust so swift the human eye would struggle to comprehend it.
The evil spirit sensed it immediately. Its many deformed eyes widened, trembling. A distorted growl erupted from its dark body. And suddenly, it began to disperse, turning parts of itself into black smoke, attempting to slip away like a trail of shadow into the dark gaps between the trees.
Jay, seeing this, drew a deep breath and raised a trembling finger. Every muscle protested. His whole body burned and felt as heavy as if a planet pressed against him from every direction. Yet still, he pointed forward as if his hand were a weapon.
His finger snapped faintly, tracing a weak arc in the air. From that movement burst a small fiery circle, which immediately grew as if inhaling the very life of the forest. Flames rose into a massive circular wall that enclosed Daru, the spirit, and Jay himself.
A ring of fire that danced like a burning aurora.
"You won't escape, bastard," Jay said, exhausted, one eye closed, barely holding himself against the tree's bark.
The glow of the fire lit his face, revealing beads of sweat, traces of blood, and the weary determination of someone who had no strength left… yet still refused to fall.
Version 2 continued healing his wounds, but it did not replace the energy spent. His arms were numb, his legs trembled, and his breathing lashed at his chest like a whip.
Even so… he smiled.
A stubborn, defiant smile—the smile of someone who refused to retreat even when his body could go no further.
The evil spirit, cornered by the ring of fire, began to shriek in a distorted, desperate tone. Its shadows struck against the flames, but the fire did not yield. Jay had created them from the very core of his exhaustion; they were weak in power, yet unbreakable in will.
Daru stepped forward. His dark aura spun faster, and in an instant, his figure seemed to wrap itself in shadows emanating from the earth itself.
The moon shone upon him. The trees bent as if moving aside from his presence. Jay watched him, his heart pounding like a broken drum.
Daru's shadows concentrated on the blade, making it vibrate with a sound so fine it blended with silence.
"Brother," Jay said in a nearly fading voice, though a spark burned within his words, "show him… why I could never reach you…"
Daru did not answer with words. He only lowered his body slightly, preparing for a thrust the spirit could not yet comprehend.
The spirit trembled. Jay clenched his teeth to remain conscious. The flames wavered as if announcing the end.
And then—
The air split.
A single clean cut sliced through space, light, and shadow alike. The blade traced an imperceptible arc, so swift and so perfect that the world took a second to remember how it was meant to move.
The shadow binding the monster shuddered.
And in that instant—
the spears of darkness the spirit had formed disintegrated like ash scattered by the wind.
The sound of the cut resonated beyond the forest, beyond the fire, beyond even the night itself.
Daru remained motionless. His katana pointed toward the ground. The silence was absolute.
The spirit, still half‑dispersed, trembled as if it had just witnessed something beyond all logic.
Jay's fire crackled, illuminating the particles of shadow drifting in the air.
And then—
the figure behind the spirit was revealed in full.
The moon, once serene, now seemed to tremble. As if it sensed that what was about to manifest did not belong to this world, not even to the concept of "life" or "death." The shadows around the evil spirit began to writhe with a new, unnatural rhythm… and then it happened.
The spirit stopped screaming. No more distorted howls, no more roars of fury, no more shrieks filling the forest with infernal echoes.
Now… it laughed.
A broken laugh, deep and shrill at the same time, as if many throats spoke through one. A laugh that vibrated in the air as though it shattered reality itself. A laugh that could not be called human in any form.
Daru narrowed his eyes, unable to ignore that sinister melody spilling across the forest.
"Did something amuse you, bastard?" Daru said with a voice cold as steel, gripping his katana with a firmness that seemed capable of splitting the air. His expression remained the same: serious, imperturbable… yet that laughter had planted a small doubt deep within his mind.
The change had been too sudden, too unnatural. To shift from absolute pain to euphoric laughter could only mean one thing: the spirit had made a decision.
Jay watched the scene in disbelief, breathing unevenly as his back remained pressed against the tree. For an instant, even his eyes—still struggling to recover—opened completely.
"How the hell can it laugh like that…? Even now… in this situation…? After everything we did to it…?"
Jay ignored the stabbing pain in his hands and legs as the V2 continued healing him with those small flames sprouting from his wounds. But none of that mattered in that moment. Something within that laughter, something deep and macabre, seemed to mock them, their effort, their very hope.
Daru stepped toward the spirit. That single movement was enough to crack the ground slightly beneath his feet, raising a fine dust that lifted as if trying to escape him.
His aura of shadows, once calm and elegant, now ignited like a dark whirlwind that wrapped around his legs, climbed his clothes, and intertwined with the katana's blade, as if the weapon were a magnet for darkness itself.
Daru lowered his stance slightly. A warrior about to deliver a mortal strike.
"Stop laughing… foolish spirit," Daru said, letting his voice resonate like a muted thunder.
And then the spirit reacted. Its arms, long and deformed, stretched spasmodically to the sides. Its palms opened, pointing directly toward the earth.
A brief silence descended.
And then…
The miasma emerged.
It was not simply a dark gas. It was like an ocean of shadows, like the breath of a dead world. A black, viscous mass that burst forth like a malignant explosion, contaminating even the moonlight.
The earth shook. The trees groaned with force. The air grew heavy, poisonous, capable of draining the vital energy of anyone who breathed it.
"Don't you dare—!" Daru shouted, but he could not finish the phrase.
The miasma exploded in all directions.
A dark gale shattered Jay's circle of fire, extinguishing the flames as if they had never existed. Jay was hurled backward, his body slamming against the tree trunk. The impact tore a grunt from him, and he had to cover his face with both arms, feeling the dark wind claw at his skin like blades.
Daru too was violently pushed back. In a desperate attempt, he drove his katana into the ground and leaned forward to resist, but the force of the miasma was so brutal it dragged him backward, leaving a deep furrow in the earth where the blade scraped and tore soil and stone.
Jay clenched his teeth, nearly breathless.
"What the hell is happening…?" he muttered, gasping, barely able to remain conscious as the dark storm crashed against his body.
The miasma kept advancing, seeking to devour everything, to cover every inch of life, to smother every trace of light.
Daru growled through his teeth as his boots slid backward again and again.
"You… won't… move me…" he said with concentrated fury as his aura intensified.
The shadows around Daru responded. His aura exploded like a dark tsunami against the miasma. It was like watching two oceans of different colors collide at the center of the world: one black and thick, the other dark but sharp and clear, like a controlled nocturnal storm.
The earth trembled. The sky vibrated. The pressure was so immense that even the leaves of the trees ignited from friction or froze from the absurd clash of energies.
And then…
Little by little… Very slowly…
Daru's aura began to devour the miasma.
As if his shadow were a hungry abyss. As if darkness itself sought to reclaim what belonged to it.
The miasma receded. Then it twisted. And finally, it was completely absorbed, vanishing into the whirl of shadows that enveloped Daru Eicker.
The forest fell silent.
A silence so deep it seemed the world had forgotten how to breathe.
The moon shone upon the three, revealing a scene that could barely be called a battlefield.
And the spirit… The spirit was gone.