Silence hangs for a heartbeat.
The battlefield breathes like a wounded beast.
It seemed like the Heavens were breaking.
Ares releases his spear from his shoulder and crushes it into the ground. The earth fractures. A corona of crimson light erupts around him — petals of burning energy scattering like war blossoms torn by a divine storm.
Ares lifts his hand slowly, almost reverently.
"Witness a god unchained."
His form ignites armor liquefying into luminous war-plate, tendrils of red-gold MSE spiraling upward, twisting the sky itself into a vortex of crimson cloud and golden lightning.
The ground trembles. Ruined towers groan.
Even the air seems to scream as reality bends under the weight of divine release.
Ren staggers, sweat and blood mixing down his face. His fists twitch, every muscle aching, lungs dragging breath like each inhale is a negotiation with death.
He is empty.
MSE reserves scraped raw, body on instinct, soul frayed.
Ares' voice echoes across the ruined city — not spoken, but imposed.
"Kneel."
Everybody kneels.
Ren spits blood and tries to stand despite his shaking.
Akira braces the ground, aura sparking even as his body sways.
Kenta's one arm tightens around his knife, spirit burning like a candle fighting a hurricane.
They stand but weakly.
Ares narrows his eyes, amused.
Insulted.
"You still misunderstand your place."
He moves. Speed beyond mortal sense the world simply changes, and Ares is already there.
Akira's wind-dragon surges to intercept roaring blade-storm spiraling.
Ares pierces it with one finger.
The dragon collapses into wind, Akira thrown back so hard he rolls across the ground like a ragdoll, blood trailing in arcs. He coughs, vision spinning, but he forces himself to rise, leaning on the broken katana hilt like a crutch.
Ares appears above him, spear materializing from light
Ren blurs, tackling Ares mid-strike.
The two slam into a collapsed subway entrance, stone exploding outward.
Ares flings Ren off with a backhand that rattles bone.
Ren skids across asphalt, body screaming.
Ares walks forward.
"You burn bright. But only briefly."
Ren grins through blood.
"Yeah? Then let me burn in your face."
He swings a punch fueled by everything he has left.
Ares catches it effortlessly, fingers locking around Ren's fist like a divine shackle.
"Meteor. Comet. Starfire. You cling to names hoping they grant you meaning."
He twists Ren's hand — bones crack. Ren grunts but doesn't fall.
"Do you know what I called my strongest strike when I was mortal?"
Ren gasps through pain, teeth grit. "What?"
"Nothing.
Power does not name itself."
Ares' fist cracked against Ren's jaw, launching him skyward in a brutal arc. Before Ren could regain control, Ares seized his leg mid-air, yanking him back down with pitiless force. In a savage echo of the blow Ren had given him, Ares drove a thunderous punch into Ren's midsection, sending him hurtling across the battlefield like a comet torn from its path.
Ren coughs blood, vision blurring. His body shakes uncontrollably now. MSE flickers around him like dying fire.
He can't win.
He knows it.
Ares knows it.
But giving up feels farther away than death.
Kenta forces his broken body to rise and charge again.
Akira staggers forward, dragging wind around him like chains.
Ares raises his spear divine light surging enough to erase cities.
"Sleep, sparks.
I will extinguish you gently."
Ren tries to stand. Falls. Pushes again, hand slipping in blood. He snarls, trying to force life into limbs that refuse.
"Not… yet…"
The world narrows. Everything distant. Sound muffled. His heartbeat heavy and uneven. He can feel his body shutting down, spirit flickering thin.
He thinks of Babel.
Of laughter echoing through narrow streets.
Of kids playing with cracked soccer balls.
Of Kenta's voice a protector stands even if he burns doing it.
And then
A whisper.
So soft it might be breath.
Or memory.
"Do not kneel yet boy."
A warmth sparks in his chest ancient, vast, coiled like a star behind a door.
Ren's eyes widen.
The world goes silent.
And something opens.
Golden-white light erupts from Ren's chest not explosive, but sovereign, like a sun quietly rising in the night.
Ares freezes mid-strike.
The battlefield hushes.
Even the wind stops.
Even pain stops.
A silhouette unfurls behind Ren — tall, regal, wings of blinding radiance folded like unraised banners. Chains shimmer around it, breaking one by one.
A voice like both thunder and whisper echoes from beyond flesh:
"I remember you, child of war."
Ares' eyes widen — real shock. Real fear.
"Impossible."
Ren's voice overlaps with another deeper, older, resonant with forgotten heaven:
"You betrayed me and casted me from the Throne, Ares."
Chains snap. The final one shatters like glass made of starlight.
A god returns.
"This time I will not allow you to escape my wrath."
Ren inhales sharply air flooding spirit. His wounds glow. Bones knit. Breath steadies. Golden aura sweeps across him like a mantle, not wild and chaotic like before sovereign, controlled, rightful.
His hair lifts in slow waves of light. His eyes burn with two pupils layered one human, one divine.
Ares snarls divine fury twisting his face.
"You are forbidden."
Ren smirks but the expression has weight beyond his own.
"Banishment never meant silence."
He steps just one.
The ground does not explode.
It bows.
Ares lunges spear descending like a falling judgment star.
Ren lifts one hand.
Catches it.
The divine spear, the weapon that unmade elites, shudders in Ren's grip. Energy flares, god-will colliding with reborn divinity.
Ren's voice echoes layered, mortal grit coated in celestial authority:
"I am the light you feared in Duwedon."
He swings — not elegant, but absolute.
Ares is hurled backward, smashing through an entire office tower, rubble collapsing in roaring waves.
The city quakes.
Kenta stares, tears in his eyes despite the dirt and blood.
"I don't know what happening but we may be able to win this…"
Akira breathes, awe and pride mixing in his voice. "…Show him hell."
Ren floats slightly above the cracked ground, aura haloing him like dawn.
Ares rises from debris, armor cracked, aura bleeding raw war-energy. He wipes golden ichor from his mouth — a god bleeding from a mortal's strike.
"You wear stolen power."
Ren's eyes burn brighter.
"I inherit unfinished vengeance."
Ares roars the sky trembles divine blood boiling into lightning.
Ren clenches his fist, divine flame and human fury intertwined.
"Let's finish what heaven started."
The two charge one god unchained, one god reborn inside a stubborn human who refuses to bow.
Their collision splits the storm above, light and crimson shockwaves rippling through the city like a scar cut into the sky.
This is not hero vs villain.
This is history correcting itself.
A god of rebellion rising against a god of tyranny — through a boy who refuses extinction.
Ares screams:
"YOU WERE CAST OUT!"
Ren echoes like thunder:
"AND STILL I RISE!"
Their fists meet — a flash like the birth of stars —
Kasumori trembles, the world bearing witness to divine defiance reborn in mortal will.