Consciousness returned to Shadaiku, Kanochi, and Gashuki not with a gentle dawn, but with the cold, hard reality of imprisonment. Their bodies ached from the null-energy blast, a deep, bone-chilling cold that was slow to recede. They found themselves on a cold, stone floor, trapped within a cage of thick, rusted iron bars that hummed with a faint, dark energy, neutralizing any attempt to summon their powers.
The room was vast and circular, like the inside of a gargantuan, dark tower. The air was stale and carried the metallic taste of ozone and something older, something deeply wrong. The only light came from faint, dying magical runes etched into the distant ceiling, casting long, dancing shadows.
And then they saw her.
Milena lay a few feet away, still and pale. The others had bruises and scrapes, but she looked… faded. As if the Darkness Falchion had stolen more than just her consciousness.
A jolt of pure panic shot through Shadaiku. He scrambled over to her, ignoring the protest of his own sore muscles. Gently, he lifted her head and rested it on his thighs. Her skin was cold.
"Milena…" his voice was a broken whisper, choked with emotion he couldn't name. "Please… please don't leave us alone." He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, his touch trembling. He couldn't understand the depth of his own fear for her. It was a raw, aching thing that eclipsed his own peril. "Please wake up," he pleaded, his tears falling onto her still face.
Gashuki, his usual rigid composure softened by concern, placed a heavy hand on Shadaiku's shoulder. "Don't worry. She's the toughest of all of us. She'll wake up soon." His voice was meant to be reassuring, but it carried a tremor of doubt.
Kanochi, meanwhile, was a caged animal. He paced the perimeter of their prison, his fists clenched, his eyes scanning every inch of their cage and the dark room beyond. "There's gotta be a way out of this stupid thing," he muttered, kicking at one of the bars. It didn't even shudder.
Suddenly, with a sound like a mountain grinding against another mountain, the huge, ornate gate at the far end of the room began to open. A shaft of sickly, purple-tinged light flooded in, so intense it made them wince.
Kanochi, fueled by frustration and rage, was the first to shout into the light. "Who are you?! And why are you doing this to us?!"
The voice that answered was not just loud; it was a physical pressure that filled the room, vibrating in their chests and rattling the cage bars.
"I AM LORD KUROZAI!" the voice boomed, the title dripping with smug superiority. "And I am the one who brought you here. By the way… you're welcome."
"Keep your welcome to your pathetic self!" Kanochi shot back without a second's hesitation. "GET US OUT OF HERE!"
"SHUT UP!" Kurozai's roar was like a thunderclap of pure malice. "You insignificant speck! You don't know who you're talking to, do you?!"
"Well, I asked 'n' you were saying nonsense!!" Kanochi retorted, his impulsiveness overriding any sense of self-preservation.
Through all this, Shadaiku didn't look up. His world had shrunk to the pale girl in his lap, his fingers gently stroking her hair, his tears a silent prayer.
"Aren't you even scared of me?!" Kurozai demanded, his pride seemingly wounded by their defiance.
"You're not worth being scared of," Kanochi sneered. "You're so pathetic, you look hungry. Have you eaten breakfast?"
Gashuki, a grim smile touching his lips, decided to join in. He leaned against the bars and said in a tone of mock sympathy, "Ouch!! Bro, chill. Baby's gonna cry. Damn!"
The taunts hung in the air. For a moment, there was only a deadly, silent fury emanating from the light.
"DO YOU MAGGOTS THINK THIS IS A JOKE?" Kurozai's voice escalated into a shriek of pure, unadulterated rage. The shadows in the room deepened, stretching and twisting into monstrous shapes. "I WILL UNMAKE YOU! I WILL SCRAPE YOUR SOULS FROM THE FABRIC OF EXISTENCE!"
He raised a single, shadowy hand. Above his palm, the air itself fractured. A sphere of absolute nothingness began to form, pulling the light and sound from the room into its core. It was the same cataclysmic power that had shattered the Celestial Pact, now condensed into a single, soul-erasing attack.
"OBLIVION CASCADE!"
He hurled it. The sphere of void-energy shot towards the cage, moving slowly, deliberately, savoring the inevitable end. Kanochi and Gashuki stumbled backward, throwing their arms up over their faces, a final, futile act of defiance. There was no escape. This was it.
The explosion was not what they expected.
It wasn't the silent erasure of nothingness. It was a VOLLEY OF COSMIC THUNDER.
A blinding, blue-white light tore through the ceiling of the chamber, not from the gate, but from above, as if the very sky had punched through the fortress. The light hit the floor between the cage and the oncoming Oblivion Cascade with the force of a dying star.
When the light and dust cleared, a new figure stood there, crouched on one knee, one fist embedded in the stone floor where it had impacted.
The figure was massive, easily eight feet(2.4meters) tall, and crackling with raw, untamed power. His form was semi-transparent, flickering with energy, but his shape was humanoid and built of living storm clouds and arcs of lightning. His eyes were two blazing orbs of pure white-blue energy, and lightning crackled from them like tears of fury. The air filled with the smell of ozone and a pressure that was the direct opposite of Kurozai's draining void—it was alive, electric, and overflowing with furious power.
He had intercepted the Oblivion Cascade not with a counter-spell, but with a single, world-shattering punch. Fist met null-sphere, and the resulting detonation of opposing energies had saved them.
Kurozai was thrown backward by the blast wave. He crashed through the far wall of the chamber with a roar of surprise and pain, landing in a heap somewhere in the darkness beyond.
Kanochi and Gashuki slowly lowered their arms, their eyes wide with utter, jaw-dropping amazement.
"He… he just punched it…" Kanochi stammered, his voice full of awe. "He punched the attack with his… fist."
"I've never witnessed a power as strong as this," Gashuki breathed, his philosophical mind reeling at the sheer impossibility of what he'd just seen.
The massive explosion finally drew Shadaiku's full attention. He looked up from Milena, his eyes reflecting the crackling lightning of their savior. A strange feeling washed over him—a pull, a resonance. "That power… it feels like mine," he whispered. "But… it's on a completely different level."
Outside the shattered fortress wall, Kiran, who had been overseeing the corralling of terrified students, snapped his head around at the sound of the colossal explosion. His smug confidence faltered for a second. "What was that?"
Back in the chamber, the lightning giant rose to his full height. The rubble around him levitated, caught in his powerful electrostatic field. He turned his blazing gaze towards the hole in the wall where Kurozai had fallen.
From the darkness outside, Kurozai rose, his form flickering with unstable shadows. He clutched his side where the pure lightning energy had struck him. He looked up at the new arrival, and for the first time, genuine shock and a sliver of primal fear showed on his shadowy face.
"KAGEROU?!" he gasped, the name a horrified exhalation. "How?! How are you here?! The Pact is broken! You should be fading into nothing!"
Kagerou, the God of Lightning, took a step forward. The ground cracked under his foot, and the hum of the prison cage died completely, its dark magic overwhelmed by his presence.
"YOU…" Kagerou's voice was the roar of a hurricane, the crash of a thousand thunderstorms given sentience. It was a sound of pure, undiluted hatred that had been festering for millennia.
"YOU DARE SPEAK OF THE PACT? YOU, WHO SHATTERED IT WITH A TRAITOR'S HAND?"
He took another step, each movement causing the very dimension to shudder.
"YOU THINK YOUR SHADOWY HOLE COULD HIDE YOU FROM ME? YOU THINK I WOULD NOT FEEL YOU TOUCHING WHAT IS MINE?"
A colossal hand made of storm clouds and lightning pointed past Kurozai, straight at the cage, at Shadaiku.
"THAT BOY CARRIES MY SPARK! HIS HEART BEATS WITH MY RHYTHM! AND YOU… YOU LAID YOUR FILTHY, NULLIFYING HANDS UPON HIM!"
Lightning erupted from Kagerou's body, scorching the walls and ceiling. He was not just a god. He was Wrath incarnate.
"I AM NOT HERE BECAUSE OF THE PACT, BROTHER. I AM HERE BECAUSE OF YOU. AND I AM NOT FADING."
He raised a fist, and the sky beyond the fortress, visible through the shattered roof, darkened with a colossal storm.
"I AM JUST GETTING STARTED."