The silence in the celestial realm was heavier than any sound. It was the silence of a corpse. The beautiful, harmonious light that had flowed through the Pact for eons was gone, extinguished. In its place, a creeping, invasive chill began to spread, a metaphysical frost that bit deep into the essence of the four gods.
Hiroki, the unbreakable, felt a terrifying brittleness in his core. The magnificent sheen of his metallic form dulled, and a network of hairline fractures spread across his arms. He tried to take a step, but his body felt impossibly heavy, as if he were rusting from the inside out.
Kagerou, a being of boundless energy, felt his lightning slow to a pathetic crawl. The brilliant arcs that usually danced around him sputtered and died, leaving behind only the acrid smell of ozone and a profound, draining fatigue. He flickered, unstable, a ghost of his former self.
Emberlyn's fiery heart, which had blazed with passion and hope just moments before, now guttered like a candle in a storm. Her flames, once a vibrant orange and gold, dimmed to a sickly, weak red. She felt cold, a sensation so alien it was agony.
Akira, the steady earth, felt the foundation of her very being crumble. The deep, resonant connection she shared with all growing things snapped, leaving a hollow, aching void. She stumbled, her mountainous form feeling loose, like gravel about to slide away. She was the first to speak, her voice a broken whisper that echoed the shattering of the world.
"Kurozai…" she gasped, the words causing her pain. "Why…? After all this time… why would you do this?"
Kurozai, now radiating a palpable aura of supreme, unchecked power, threw his head back. His laughter was no longer a mere sound; it was a weapon. It was a cold, sharp thing that shredded the remaining light and hammered into the weakened gods, driving them to their knees.
"HA HA HA HA HA!"
The laughter echoed through the dead realm, a symphony of triumph and malice.
"IT… IS… DONE!!!" he roared, and with a final, contemptuous glance at his broken siblings, his form dissolved into the very darkness he had unleashed, leaving them alone in the freezing, dying ruins of their home.
Down in Atarashi Academy, the unnatural purple flash in the sky and the subsequent psychic shockwave had left everyone disoriented and afraid. Magical lights had flickered out, and some of the more sensitive students reported feeling a deep, profound sadness they couldn't explain.
It was in this atmosphere of confusion and fear that Kiran found his opening. He cornered a group of three newly arrived first-year students near the eastern fountain. They looked lost and scared.
"You feel it, don't you?" Kiran said, his voice smooth, yet carrying an undeniable edge of power. He leaned against the fountain, the water behind him seeming to darken. "The emptiness. The feeling that all this…" he gestured vaguely at the grand academy around them, "…is just a pretty illusion. That the magic they teach here is a weak, watered-down joke."
The students exchanged nervous glances. One, a boy with more bravery than sense, frowned. "What are you even talking about?"
"I'm talking about true power," Kiran said, pushing off the fountain and taking a step closer. His shadow seemed to stretch longer than it should. "Power that doesn't come from dusty books or weak-willed professors. Power that comes from embracing the truth of the world, not hiding from it. I can show you. Just follow me. I promise, you won't regret it."
Another student, a girl, shook her head, taking a step back. "You're a liar. You just want to trick us. Make us your slaves or something!"
A third, emboldened by her defiance, stepped forward and, in a moment of pure disgust, spat on the ground at Kiran's feet. "You've failed! We'll never fall for a trap set by a creep like you!"
They turned to leave. For a moment, Kiran just stood there. The smirk vanished from his face, replaced by a blank, terrifying stillness. The insult, the rejection—it wasn't just a slight against him. It was a rejection of Lord Kurozai's gift. It was an insult to the new god he served.
The humiliation he'd felt at Shadaiku's hands, the frustration from his dream, the innate rage that had always lived within him—it all coalesced into a single, white-hot point of fury.
He didn't scream. He didn't yell. He simply raised a hand.
A sphere of swirling, devouring darkness, shot through with violent purple energy, materialized above his palm. It was small, no larger than an apple, but it pulsed with a horrifying gravitational pull, sucking the light and sound from the immediate area.
The students, feeling the wrongness behind them, started to run.
They didn't get far.
Kiran didn't even seem to aim. He simply flicked his wrist.
The sphere shot forward and hit the cobblestones at their feet.
There was no fire. There was a VOID IMPLOSION.
The sound was a deafening WHUMP of air being violently sucked in and annihilated. The cobblestones weren't blown apart; they were unmade, turned to dust that was instantly vacuumed into nothingness. The three students were thrown forward by the concussive backlash, slamming into the far wall of a dormitory before slumping to the ground, unconscious.
The noise was catastrophic, a thunderclap of anti-matter in the heart of the academy. Doors flew open. Students and professors poured into the courtyard, their faces masks of shock and fear.
Shadaiku, Kanochi, Gashuki, and Milena arrived together, pushing through the crowd. Their newfound connection made them feel the wrongness of the magic before they even saw it.
"What happened?" Gashuki demanded, his eyes scanning the new crater in the ground.
As the dust and lingering tendrils of darkness began to fade, a single, blurry figure became visible standing at the epicenter of the destruction. His outline was wreathed in a malevolent purple haze, and two points of violet light glowed where his eyes should be.
Kanochi's temper, barely under control at the best of times, ignited. He shoved his way to the front, flames erupting around his clenched fists. "Hey! You! Whatever you are, back off! Leave them alone!"
The dust settled completely.
The figure was Kiran. But it wasn't the Kiran they knew. His posture was different—relaxed, supremely confident, dripping with contemptuous power. The evil smirk on his face was a mockery of their very existence.
"Kiran!" Kanochi yelled, his voice a mixture of rage and disbelief.
Kiran chuckled, a low, unpleasant sound. "What's the matter? Can't a man have a little fun? They were being… disrespectful."
The flames around Kanochi's hands roared higher. "I'll show you fun, you..."
"Kanochi, don't!" Shadaiku's hand clamped down on his friend's shoulder. His voice was low, urgent, his eyes fixed on Kiran with an electric intensity.
"Why not?!" Kanochi snarled, trying to shrug him off. "He just attacked three students!"
"Look at him!" Shadaiku insisted, his grip firm. "Really look! He's not just stronger. He's… different. That power… it's eating the light around him. Your fire might not even touch him. It might just… feed him."
The truth of it settled on them. The air around Kiran was cold and dead. The very concept of their elemental magic—fire, lightning, earth, metal—felt feeble and childish in the face of this absolute negation.
"Then what do we do?" Kanochi asked, the fire around his hands dying down to a frustrated simmer.
Shadaiku's gaze swept over Gashuki and Milena, a silent question passing between them. They both gave a grim nod.
"We do what we should have done from the beginning," Shadaiku said, his voice firm. "We fight together."
It started not with magic, but with motion. Shadaiku became a blue streak, closing the twenty-yard distance between them in a heartbeat. He didn't throw a lightning bolt; he threw a fist, aiming for Kiran's jaw.
Kiran moved with impossible speed, swaying back just enough for the punch to miss. But he didn't see Gashuki coming from the other side. The larger boy didn't try to punch; he simply lowered his shoulder, his entire body sheening into living steel, and slammed into Kiran like a battering ram.
THUD.
The impact was solid. Kiran grunted, stumbling back a step. It was the opening Kanochi needed. He lunged, not with fire, but with a solid right hook that connected with Kiran's stomach. At the same moment, the ground beneath Kiran's feet, manipulated by Milena, turned to sucking, grasping mud, trying to trap him.
For a glorious second, it was working. They were a unit. Speed, strength, fury, and control.
Then Kiran laughed.
"Enough of this childish play," he sneered.
He stomped his foot. A wave of pure shadow erupted from him, throwing all four of them backwards through the air. They landed hard, skidding across the cobblestones.
Kiran raised both hands to the sky. The air grew thick and heavy. The temperature plummeted. Above his head, darkness congealed, drawing in the very light from the surroundings. It formed into a massive, spinning scythe of solidified void energy, crackling with purple lightning. It was a weapon designed not to wound, but to unmake.
"DARKNESS FALCHION!" he roared, and he brought his hands down, hurling the monstrous blade of nothingness straight at the four recovering guardians.
Gashuki's eyes widened in pure terror. He felt the nature of the attack on a primal level. "That's not just dangerous! If that hits us, it won't kill us… it will erase us! Our magic, our souls… everything!"
"I've got it!" Milena yelled, her voice filled with desperate love for her friends. She slammed her hands onto the ground, pouring every ounce of her being into her power. "GRANITE BULWARK!"
A massive wall of the hardest, densest rock she could summon erupted from the earth, ten feet thick and covered in ancient, defensive runes. It was a masterpiece of earthen magic, a testament to her growth and her nurturing spirit.
The Darkness Falchion hit it.
And it didn't even slow down.
The magical rock didn't shatter or explode. It simply ceased to exist where the blade touched it, vaporized into nullity. The falchion continued its path, unimpeded.
"What? No!!" Milena screamed, her faith in her power, in her very connection to the earth, shattering in that instant.
Shadaiku tried to summon a lightning shield. The electricity fizzled and died before it could form. Kanochi's flames guttered out. Gashuki's metallic skin reverted to flesh. The breaking of the Celestial Pact had severed their direct line to their gods' power. They were left with only the faintest echoes.
They were utterly helpless.
The Darkness Falchion struck the ground in front of them.
The resulting explosion was silent and blindingly black.
The force of the null-energy wave hit them like a physical wall. Milena, who had been in front, taking the brunt of the impact to protect the others, took the full force of the erasing power. A scream was torn from her throat before she was thrown backwards like a ragdoll, her body slamming into Shadaiku and Kanochi. All three of them, along with Gashuki, were lifted off their feet and hurled into the side of the main academic building. The stone wall cracked under the impact, and they slumped to the ground in a heap, completely unconscious.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Then, a voice cut through the haze. Professor Helios, followed by a burly, newly arrived combat magic instructor named Professor Trevin, pushed through the terrified crowd. Trevin's face was a mask of fury.
"HEY! YOU!" Trevin boomed, pointing a thick finger at Kiran. "STOP THIS MADNESS! YOU ARE EXPELLED! SURRENDER NOW, BEFORE WE SUBDUE YOU!"
Kiran didn't even bother to look at him. He simply flicked his finger in the professor's direction.
A small, dense ball of solidified darkness, no larger than a marble, shot out. It crossed the distance in a nanosecond and hit Professor Trevin square in the chest.
There was no explosion. The professor just… stopped. All the energy was sucked out of him in an instant. His eyes glazed over, and he was thrown backwards as if by a giant's hand, crashing through a classroom window and landing in a limp heap inside.
Pandemonium erupted. Students screamed and ran in every direction, pure terror finally overriding their curiosity.
Kiran stood amidst the chaos he had created, the crater, the unconscious guardians, the defeated professor. He breathed in the fear like it was fine perfume. The shadow around him deepened, and the purple light in his eyes blazed like twin evil stars.
He spread his arms wide, addressing the fleeing crowd, the academy, the world.
"Run little insects! Run and hide! Your world of weak light is ending!"
He laughed, a sound of pure, unadulterated triumph that echoed over the screams.
"MY DOMAIN HAS ALREADY BEGUN!"