10 Years Later.
The sky was… wrong.
Ryu squinted upward, hands stuffed lazily into the pockets of his long cloak, the wind teasing the frayed edges of his once-red bandana. Now faded into tones of burgundy and age, it whispered against the air like a relic of a past life.
Beside him, the wind swirled unnaturally—sky bleeding from molten orange to glacial white as if reality itself were peeling at the edges. This wasn't a sunset. It was a warning.
"You smell that?" Ryu asked, glancing sideways.
Luto sat cross-legged atop a floating shard of cracked obsidian, snacking on a luminous fruit that glowed faintly in the dark—starfruit, sliced into precise hexagons.
"I smell a tear in local gravity, six hostile signatures burrowed below us, and whatever war crime you cooked for breakfast."
Ryu smirked.
"Still better than your constellation stew."
"It was smoked nebula root, peasant."
"Still tasted like feet."
⸻
The Brothers.
They were no longer boys.
Ryu had grown into a quiet storm—still carrying the chaotic spark of youth, but now buried beneath years of trial. His body was forged for speed and precision, each step calculated. His every movement now whispered of danger, his presence veiled in a strange hum of cosmic energy.
In high-stress moments, their master had once noticed a shift—Ryu's dreadlocks subtly fading into deep red. Caelivar, despite his legendary wisdom, never figured out what it meant.
But he always suspected it was connected to something… ancient.
A mystery wrapped around a single, unstable power deep within Ryu's soul.
The Ember Vow.
No one knew if that was even its real name. The power seemed older than the gods themselves—responding only to extreme emotion. A fire that slept until provoked. A will that refused to die.
Ryu's abilities had evolved to complement his instinctive style:
• Spectral Blitz – Brief bursts of short-range cosmic speed that seemed to break the sound of light itself.
• Mirage Clones – Optical echoes left behind to mislead foes mid-battle.
• Ember Vow – The dormant power Caelivar feared… and revered.
"There's something inside him," the master once whispered. "Older than war. If he ever fully awakens it… the stars will either bow… or burn."
⸻
Luto, on the other hand, had become a weapon wrapped in sarcasm.
Cold. Brilliant. Lethal.
His lean frame and slouched posture often misled strangers into underestimating him—but those who did rarely got a second chance.
Luto had mastered the mechanics of battle:
• Phase-Lock – Freezing enemy momentum or locking dimensional movement.
• Snare Fields – Gravity-based traps that bent perception and mobility like paper.
• Void Archive – A dangerous ability allowing him to record and mimic fragments of other cosmic powers. It came at great cost.
• Riftwalk – His newest, unstable technique—ripping open dimensional rifts to jump between nearby planets or moons. Caelivar warned him that trying to cross systems or galaxies could kill him. He tried anyway. Once.
He was also the only person in the multiverse who kept snacks in extradimensional pockets.
⸻
They stood on the edge of a shattered moon, its jagged remains floating above a blackened star cluster—once a proud civilization, now devoured by divine judgment. The winds here screamed with memory, whispering secrets to anyone brave enough to listen.
"Master said we're ready," Luto said, brushing starfruit juice from his fingers.
"Ready for what?" Ryu asked.
"To find the past," Luto murmured. "And take back our future."
Ryu turned to him and grinned.
"I like the sound of that."
⸻
Their master, Caelivar, had trained them for a decade, then vanished.
He left only one message:
"Your time with me is done. I've taught you all that I can.
Seek the memories the gods have tried to erase.
Find the minds that remember the First Wars.
The truth isn't in power. It's in the past."
And so… they walked.
Across dying planets, collapsed dimensions, silent shrines wedged between shattered systems—they traveled.
On a moon carved into a monastery of mirrors, they faced a cult of reflection. In a sea where time flowed backward, they fought beasts who could rewrite reality. In a sunless tavern beneath a black hole's rim, they overheard a name whispered by mercenaries nursing bruised egos and expensive drinks:
"The Abyss Warden."
Ryu paused mid-drink. Luto dropped his snack.
They heard it again on a broken mining station orbiting a sleeping god.
Heard it in markets, bars, and bounty exchanges:
"He doesn't speak."
"He leaves no survivors."
"His eyes are hollow. Void. Like someone already dead."
Luto froze in a twilight street on Nebulith.
Ryu's chest tightened.
"…Onyx."
⸻
Fury Rising.
That night, beneath a thousand dying stars, Ryu sat near a cliff carved into a planet's skeleton. A sea of antimatter glowed far below, and meteors danced overhead like fireflies.
Luto joined him.
"I know what you're thinking."
Ryu said nothing.
"If it's really him—"
"It is."
Luto exhaled, frustrated. "Then he's been hunting for years. Killing. You know what that means."
"He's not lost," Ryu growled. "He's just… trapped."
"And if he's not?"
"Then we'll bring him back anyway."
Luto stared at the sky.
"You always say things like that. Like words are swords."
"Because sometimes they are."
Luto stood.
"You're reckless."
"I'm desperate."
The silence between them was heavy.
"…Then I guess I'll handle the smart parts again," Luto sighed.
"Like always," Ryu smirked.
They stood side-by-side on the broken cliff edge, twin shadows beneath the ruins of the stars.
A journey ten years in the making was no longer a quest for power—
It was a war for family.
And it was only just beginning.