The Elder's eyes narrowed, his calm mask breaking at last. The chamber warped around them, time itself groaning under his command. Rei's God Enso blazed bright, but even that light dragged heavy, slowed like it was drowning.
The Elder's blades cut faster than thought, steel splitting the air. Rei staggered back, crimson streaks tearing across his chest and arms. Each slash bit deeper than the last. His scream ripped the silence, but he refused to fall. He lifted the Blade of Resolve, sparks clashing with inevitability.
"Why do you still rise?" the Elder asked, voice smooth, merciless. "You know I can unravel every move before it is made."
Rei spat blood and forced a grin through his pain. "Then unravel this."
He moved. Every muscle screaming, every vein flooding with God Enso. Strike for strike, he met the Elder's storm. The chamber thundered with each collision, stone splitting, air bending under their fury. Still, the Elder's rhythm pressed him down. And then, with a slow, deliberate motion, the Elder opened his other palm.
Another blade of shadowed steel slid from his flesh.
Rei's breath hitched. Two swords now. Two rivers of death.
The Elder stepped forward, his voice like cold steel. "This is the pace you cannot match."
His dual blades descended, every cut folding time itself, strikes repeating before Rei could parry the first. Rei blocked by instinct, by luck, his arms trembling under the impossible weight. His vision blurred, sweat burning into blood. But he didn't stop.
Through the blur, Rei saw it. A fraction, an opening.
He staggered back, steadied himself, then hurled his blade. The Blade of Resolve vanished into speed, faster than light, faster than memory. It pierced the Elder's left side, tearing through his ribs, exploding out his back. The Elder's eyes widened for the first time, knees buckling, black blood spilling like poison.
Rei roared, rushing forward with bare fists. "This is for Hurukoya! For Shira! For everything you erased!"
He slammed his fist into the Elder's face, bone cracking under the blow. He wrenched the blade free from the Elder's side and drove it into his thigh. The Elder screamed, his perfect calm shattering into raw rage.
"You dare, insect!" His voice broke like thunder. "You think you carry more than ash!"
Rei twisted the blade, eyes burning. "All of you will pay!"
He raised the blade for the final strike.
And the world snapped.
The Elder's body rewound. The wound sealed. The blood vanished. The moment before the thrown sword returned, untouched. Rei's victory dissolved like smoke.
The Elder stood straight once more, unscarred, his blades gleaming. "I saw it all before it began. You cannot kill what time denies."
He planted both swords into the ground. The chamber froze. Sound, light, even breath—erased. Time itself fractured.
"Chrono Dominion"
When motion returned, it was too late. The Elder's twin blades were already buried deep in Rei's chest. Rei gasped, choking on his own blood, eyes wide with disbelief. His body crumpled, knees slamming into stone. His grip slipped from the Blade of Resolve. For the Elder, the fight was over.
"You end here," the Elder said coldly. "The vessel dies before the cycle."
Rei's vision blurred. His chest was fire. His breath was broken. His will was shattering.
And then, everything turned black.
A laugh slid through the dark, low and merciless. Crimson light burst from Rei's dying eyes, black veins crawling across his face. His broken body rose, not with his own will, but with something older. Something absolute.
Raga had taken hold.
The Elder stepped back, unease finally flickering in his gaze.
Raga's voice poured from Rei's lips, deep as a grave, final as a verdict. "Ah… so you still crawl in the hours. Keeper of time, little spider in your web. You bend seconds, you rewind wounds, you think yourself eternal." His words dripped like poison, each one heavy with inevitability. "But all your threads end in the same truth."
His crimson gaze burned like furnaces, his smile cruel and absolute.
"You should have buried the boy deeper. Now you face me. And against death, there is no rewind."
The chamber quaked. The torches died.