The Heart of the Nexus was silent.
Not the silence of stillness—but the kind that follows a scream. A timeless pause before fate takes its final breath.
Akuzai stood at the edge of the inner sanctum. The Eternis Edge no longer shimmered—it hummed, resonating with the pulse of creation. Behind him, Aditya and Abhishek readied their blades. Ahead of them, the Rewrite Matrix hovered in stasis, a tower of light and symbols rotating in impossible patterns. And beside it—Rivan.
He was no longer fully human.
The five fragments he had stolen radiated from him like orbiting moons, their corrupted energy swirling into the Nexus itself. His eyes glowed with cosmic knowledge. His voice, when it came, was both intimate and infinite.
"Do you feel that?" Rivan said. "That weight on your soul? It's the future, Akuzai. It's begging to be healed."
Akuzai didn't answer. He closed his eyes, letting the silence stretch. No fury. No shouting. Just breath.
He stepped forward.
Rivan attacked first—without warning, without hesitation.
And Akuzai blocked it.
The sound of clashing blades shattered the stillness. The others joined in, and the Heart of the Nexus became a battlefield of gods and ghosts. Rivan's power twisted the room—shifting it through past and future. One second, they stood in the ruins of Ashkara. The next, on the field where Tanishk died. Then again, in a timeline where none of them had ever met.
He was showing them what could be.
"What's the point of suffering," Rivan hissed, "if we can erase it all?"
Abhishek fought back, sweat dripping. "Because we learn from it."
Aditya roared. "Because we earned our scars."
Akuzai said nothing. He fought like water—calm, precise, unwavering.
It was silence that unnerved Rivan most. Because in silence, there was no fear. No guilt. No room for manipulation.
Finally, the Eternis Edge caught Rivan's blade mid-strike—and shattered it.
The corrupted shards scattered across the floor.
Rivan recoiled, clutching his arm, blood dripping into the floating code of the Matrix. "You think this ends with me falling? You think you've won?"
Akuzai stepped forward, the blade glowing with light and memory.
"No," he said softly. "I think it ends with you remembering who you were."
Rivan's expression twisted—rage, sorrow, longing—all at once. The energy around him destabilized.
Akuzai raised his sword.
Rivan braced.
And then… Akuzai lowered it.
The others froze.
"I won't kill you," he said. "You wanted to erase pain. I chose to carry it."
The Matrix behind Rivan began to collapse. Without a final act of will, it unraveled.
Rivan dropped to his knees, staring into the reflection of what he almost became.
The Heart of the Nexus pulsed one final time—then fell still.
The silence returned.
But this time, it was peace.