Taizo stared down at Axamu's body.
The kid wasn't breathing right.
Blood leaking down his jaw.
Hands twitching.
Taizo tilted his head with a bored sigh.
"…So what now?"
He flicked a glance at the referee.
"Oi. He's down. You gonna call it, or should I go home?"
The referee panicked, stepping forward.
"I—I will now announce—"
His voice cracked.
And that's when it happened.
A tiny sound.
Tap.
Axamu's fingers twitched.
Scraped against the steel floor.
Then—
He rose.
Slow.
Shaky.
Like a corpse dragged up by invisible strings.
Gasps burst from the audience.
Taizo's eyes brightened.
"Ooh?
You stand back up again?
Now that's what I'm talkin' about."
Axamu didn't react.
Didn't blink.
Didn't even look at Taizo.
Instead…
He lifted his hand—
palm open—
reaching into empty space.
But he didn't reach like a human.
He reached like someone gripping a thread only he could see.
Taizo frowned.
"…Kid?"
No response.
The air rippled.
A low vibration trembled through the cage—
so low you felt it more than heard it.
Then Axamu spoke.
Except—
It wasn't Axamu.
His voice fractured.
One voice layered into a dozen.
Static woven into syllables.
"┈G̘̏͟… R̵̜͗͠… A̴̱̚… B̶̺̐…
T̶̞͝H̵̨̄… Ħ̴̣͒O̴̙̍L̴̮͐Ḏ̵̚…"
Reality cracked.
Like shattering glass.
CRRRRRRK.
A thin fissure of white light tore across the air.
Then another.
And another.
The floor dissolved first—
steel melting into swirling stardust beneath their feet.
The walls buckled inward, then burst outward into constellations.
Audience seats stretched into spiraling nebula.
The cage flew apart piece by piece, fragments turning into glowing dust.
The entire arena…
became a rotating galaxy.
A whole spiral of stars stretching infinitely in every direction.
People floated like feathers caught in cosmic tides.
Shoes drifted off the ground.
Shouts turned into echoes swallowed by the void.
Baito clutched a floating chair, screaming.
"T-TAIZO?!! WHAT—WHAT—WHAT IS THISSS?!!"
The underworld management stared into the void around them, speechless.
Even Taizo—
the unshakeable Gluttony—
took a step back, voice cracking.
"…What… the… hell…?"
Axamu stood in the very center of it all.
Black hair rising like submerged in water.
Eyes hollow—reflecting galaxies that weren't supposed to exist.
He didn't blink.
He didn't breathe normally.
He simply existed there.
Like a silhouette against the universe.
The space around him warped—
stars bending inward as though gravity was obeying him.
Then he opened his mouth.
And a voice older than human memory spilled out.
A voice that didn't belong in a body.
"Ħ̷̢̥̍O̴̩̾L̸̺̽D̸̢͂ ̶̪͘T̶̥̒H̷̭̐E̸̝̕ ̵̳̍L̸̡̍I̸̭͊N̶̥͝E̴͚̓…
R̷̲͐E̷̤̅T̷̟̾Ȕ̸̻R̷̗̎N̶͙̉…
T̸͈̏O̶͇͒ ̵̠͑T̵̗͛H̶̨̊E̴̥͋ ̴̞̀P̸̮͒Ä̸̺T̷̳̾H̷̡̕…"
The galaxy pulsed like a living heartbeat.
Star dust spiraled around his feet.
A cosmic wind roared across the void.
Taizo swallowed hard, breath trembling.
"I didn't pay enough for fight this though...?"
No answer.
Because Axamu wasn't there anymore.
Something else was.
Something that made even the void hold its breath.
---
Axamu's body was still trembling, eyes blank, mouth slightly open as glitch-like whispers leaked out of him.
It was like something else stood behind him—
Something ancient, enormous, not human—
A shadow pressing against the galaxy sky, watching through him.
Taizo's instincts screamed danger.
But he forced a smirk anyway. "Hah… I don't know what trick you're pulling, kid, but I'm not backing down!"
He launched his Bey again toward Axamu's White Cobalt Dragoon—
CLASH!!
The moment Saw Rake touched Axamu's Bey—
LIGHT EXPLODED.
A shockwave blasted outward, a wild cyclone of wind and pressure that felt like a real creature roaring.
A silver-white blaze shot out from Axamu's Bey—
And from above it…
Dragoon—
the real Dragoon—
burst out of the light.
Not a hologram.
Not an illusion.
A massive, spectral dragon made of pure, burning aura, spiraling through the cosmic air.
Taizo's eyes widened in terror.
"W–WHAT?! THAT'S—THAT'S REAL?!"
The pressure was overwhelming.
Spectators grabbed onto railings to avoid being blown away.
Some fell to the ground, unable to breathe.
Even the seasoned fighters in the back clenched their jaws.
The dragon roared, shaking the entire galaxy space.
WHOOOOOOM!!!
Saw Rake slammed into Dragoon's aura and was violently deflected, sparks flying in every direction.
Taizo panicked and hit the X-Rail—
Not because he planned it.
His hands moved out of survival instinct.
Saw Rake rocketed into Xtreme Dash again, coming down from above like a falling chainsaw comet—
"END IT!!!" Taizo screamed desperately.
But Axamu didn't move.
He just stood there, face empty, arm still frozen mid-air like he was reaching into another dimension.
Dragoon lowered its head.
And with a blinding burst of silver flame—
FWOOM!!
It launched alongside White Cobalt Dragoon, countering Taizo's attack with unstoppable force.
KAAAA—BOOOOM!!!
Saw Rake was blasted backward, nearly thrown out of the cosmic arena, wobbling violently but somehow still spinning.
The entire atmosphere felt thick, heavy, suffocating—
as if Axamu and his Bey were rewriting the rules of the world itself.
Everyone felt it.
A pressure that shouldn't exist.
An energy that was alive.
---
Taizo's breath hitched.
He could feel it—
the cold, suffocating pressure rolling off Axamu like he wasn't a person anymore.
Like something had climbed inside him and was wearing his skin.
Axamu slowly shifted.
His arm—
the same hand that had been reaching toward the center of the galaxy—
began to tilt
point
directly toward Taizo.
A tremor ran across the air.
Taizo froze and his inner though speak.
"…What the hell is happening right now…? Is this real...?"
He didn't have time to finish that thought.
FWOOM!
Axamu's Bey, White Cobalt Dragoon, suddenly moved.
Not launched, not redirected—
just moved
as if responding straight to Axamu's pointed arm.
Wind spiraled around it.
Every shift of its spinning body tore the galaxy floor beneath it.
Every rotation sent shockwaves rippling outward.
"What—WHAT THE HELL?!" Taizo roared, panic finally taking over.
Dragoon soared above Axamu's Bey again, massive, shimmering, the holy-white energy crackling in all directions.
Taizo's instinct screamed: RUN.
"DODGE IT—!!" Taizo screamed at his Bey like it could hear.
Saw Rake swerved away just in time—
WHOOSH!
Dragoon's spectral claws cut through the air where it had been a split second before.
The audience shrieked as the wind pressure lifted their hair.
Again Dragoon swung—
Again Saw Rake dodged—
again and again and again
like Taizo was desperately dancing with death.
"STOP-!!" Taizo shouted, voice cracking.
But Axamu's Bey only moved faster.
White Cobalt Dragoon blurred—
a streak of silver and holy light slicing arcs across the galaxy.
Saw Rake barely evaded—
until finally—
CLANK!!
A hit.
A direct one.
Not on the Bey—
on the X-Rail.
White Cobalt Dragoon slammed into the rail.
And the universe cracked.
Like glass.
Everyone felt it—
a soundless shatter,
a ripple across the galaxy as if Axamu's power was tearing reality apart.
The pressure doubled—
tripled—
the holy wind behind Axamu's Bey erupted into a blinding aura.
A halo of wind.
White. Violent. Sacred.
And Dragoon above it—
It grew.
Not just in size—
in presence.
In force.
In divinity.
Even Taizo staggered back, voice trembling for the first time:
"Th–this… isn't… Beyblade anymore…"
White Cobalt Dragoon slid across the X-Rail.
And launched.
And then—
the whole universe froze.
Axamu exhaled.
His voice shattered reality:
"Ｘ̵̢̛͈̞̇͒̍̇̃͠Ｔ̴̗͚̯͉̙͉͌́̽͜͠Ｒ̶̥̟̂͑͠͝Ê̸̻̯͗̔͠M̴͍̈́̽͊ͅＥ̷̞̥̳̟͉̓͝͠ ̶͚̄͆̇̆͜ͅＤ̵̢̬͉̯͓̍͋͊̑ͅＡ̷̰̳̫͕̱̐͆̑͘Ş̸̧̪̭̩͕̻͑̅̍̿̂͜͝ͅＨ̸̢̝͈͍̝̽͊̍͐̅̕ͅ"
Dragoon roared—
and unleashed a holy inferno down onto Saw Rake.
A tidal wave of white fire.
A divine explosion.
KAAAAAAAAA—BOOOOOMMMMM!!!
Saw Rake burst into pieces instantly—
fragments scattering like dying stars.
And behind Taizo—
The air ripped open.
A black hole spiraled open—
"Huh?"
violent
hungry
inevitable.
"NO—NO NO NO—SOMEONE HELP ME—!!"
Taizo screamed as he was lifted off his feet—
sucked in.
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH—!!!"
FWIP.
Gone.
Erased.
Like he never existed.
The galaxy cracked again—
and shattered—
SHKKKKKKKKK!!!
Everything returned to normal.
The crowd.
The cage.
The underground arena.
The screaming stopped.
Only Axamu stood in the center—
eyes empty,
body trembling,
blood dripping from his lips.
His knees gave out.
His vision collapsed into black static.
And Axamu finally—
fell unconscious.