Sereon: Let the first light perish without a witness.
Dark swung for his mouth.
Varek felt the throat turn inside his hand. He closed his fingers before the movement finished, breaking the returning bones and fixing Sereon's head against his palm.
Kyuketsu reached him.
Suigōraku met it beneath the jaw.
Dark saw Varek's other hand still holding the sword. He felt a second edge against his own, heard the steel, and watched the angle change before he could decide which part of the sight mattered.
Sereon stepped toward him.
The movement should have been impossible. Kenzo's law held his weight. Tier's restraints fixed his returning body. Leona had spread his sword fingers apart with water.
Dark saw those fingers close.
Sereon: And let the hand that shelters it be named.
Suigōraku slid along Kyuketsu.
Dark turned his wrist to keep the edge away from his neck. Sereon followed the correction, entered beneath his elbow, and struck him with the pommel.
The blow caught the hinge of his jaw.
His teeth closed on blood. Before Ryo corrected the injury, Suigōraku passed across his chest.
Vorax hardened under the cut.
The blade went deeper.
Varek pulled Sereon backward by the throat.
Dark caught the sword with Kyuketsu and forced it down, but Sereon let the pull carry him. His rear foot rose against Varek's wrist. He turned around the grip, coat sweeping across the Grand Regent's arm, and brought Suigōraku toward the inside of the elbow.
Varek caught the blade.
The edge stopped in his palm.
Varek: You've tried this.
Sereon looked at the hand.
Sereon: You remember.
Silver crossed the fingers holding his throat.
Varek opened them.
His other hand stayed shut around Suigōraku.
Sereon dropped beneath the arm, released the hilt, and struck Varek's chest with two fingers.
The wound Shinryu had closed flashed beneath the clothes.
Varek did not retreat.
He drove his knee into Sereon's stomach.
Soul Ryūgu broke against the impact. Sereon folded over the leg, blood leaving his mouth, and Varek caught the back of his head before he could fall.
Varek: So do I.
He drove Sereon into the stone.
Kenzo's fist arrived with him.
The explosion went downward. The floor vanished beneath the body, leaving Varek standing over a hollow whose depth Dark could not immediately judge.
Sereon's voice came from behind his shoulder.
Sereon: Let every mercy declare what it abandoned.
Dark turned.
Suigōraku crossed the space his head had occupied.
He bent beneath it and brought Kyuketsu up toward Sereon's ribs. Sereon lowered his elbow, caught the rising sword against the guard, and stepped on Dark's forward foot.
The pressure lasted less than a heartbeat.
It was enough.
Dark's next step failed. Sereon struck his throat with the heel of his free hand and drew Suigōraku across his shoulder.
Blood ran under the obsidian.
Dark drove forward anyway.
His forehead struck Sereon's cheek. He felt bone give and followed with a cut toward the opening beneath Soul Ryūgu's collar.
Sereon turned sideways.
Kyuketsu scraped armor.
Suigōraku came back along Dark's forearm.
Dark released one hand from the hilt, caught Sereon's wrist, and forced the cut away from his fingers.
Sereon smiled faintly.
Sereon: Better.
Dark: Shut up.
He pulled Sereon toward his knee.
Sereon went with the pull, placed one foot outside Dark's stance, and turned his captured wrist inward. The edge came toward Dark's neck from beneath his own arm.
Dark let go.
Suigōraku opened his cheek instead.
Before Sereon could recover the blade, a changing light appeared behind his shoulder.
Shinryu had made no sound.
His sword approached low, hidden beneath the fall of Sereon's coat, its edge already turning toward the spine.
Sereon reversed his grip.
Suigōraku passed behind his back.
The swords met.
Shinryu felt the contact shift along his edge. He adjusted immediately, bringing the changing blade upward toward the neck. Sereon lowered his head and stepped between the two attacks, using Shinryu's rising sword to keep Kyuketsu outside his shoulder.
For an instant, Dark and Shinryu faced each other across him.
Sereon: You should have kept the first angle.
Shinryu's expression did not change.
Shinryu: You should have checked my other hand.
His palm struck Sereon beneath the ribs.
The light from his sword passed through the impact.
Sereon's back arched.
Dark cut.
Kyuketsu entered the shoulder, crossed the collarbone, and stopped against Suigōraku as Sereon brought it around his body.
He had caught the second half of the strike.
Blood ran between the locked blades.
Dark pushed closer.
Sereon's damaged face settled into another condition. The cheek returned beneath Dark's gaze, but the sword remained exactly where it had been.
Sereon: Let the wound outlive the name of its maker.
The sky cracked.
None of them looked up.
Shinryu stepped left.
Dark moved right.
Their swords reached Sereon together.
He caught Kyuketsu near the guard and let Shinryu's edge pass within an inch of his coat. His rear foot turned, drawing Dark across the line of the second attack.
Shinryu stopped before touching him.
Dark felt the hesitation and drove his shoulder into Sereon's chest.
This time, Sereon gave ground.
One step.
Kenzo appeared behind it.
His hand opened beside Sereon's head.
Kenzo: Explosive Gravity.
Sereon ducked into Dark's reach.
The explosion took the upper half of his shoulder.
Dark felt its heat cross his own face. He seized the broken armor and held Sereon where Kenzo could reach him again.
Kenzo's second hand closed.
The forming shoulder crushed inward.
Sereon drove Suigōraku through Dark's side.
Dark tightened his grip.
Dark: Again.
Kenzo put his palm against Sereon's face.
The blast tore the three of them apart.
Dark struck a wall with a piece of Soul Ryūgu still in his hand. He dropped it and pulled himself out while Vorax pressed the wound beneath his ribs shut.
Kenzo landed on his feet.
Sereon landed with Suigōraku already raised.
The first shot from the Witness struck its edge.
He turned the sword.
The round passed above Kenzo's shoulder and removed a strip of stone from the wall behind him.
Tier fired again.
Sereon changed the angle by less than Dark could have seen from the platform. The second shot cut through the hem of his coat.
The third entered his arm.
Tier: Turn that one.
The elbow disappeared around the impact.
Sereon transferred Suigōraku to his other hand.
He advanced.
Tier's Field Frame moved before the blade reached him. Armor folded across his chest, his body dropping beneath a cut that would have taken his head.
The Witness fired from beside his shoulder.
Sereon stepped close enough to put Tier between himself and the gun.
Tier's eyes narrowed.
Tier: Bad choice.
A weapon opened beneath the Frame's wrist.
Sereon caught the wrist with Suigōraku's guard and forced it toward the ground.
The shot went through the street.
Tier brought his other arm across.
Sereon struck its elbow with the pommel, turned the armored limb against the first, and raised the sword point toward Tier's eye.
A portal opened between them.
Suigōraku entered it.
Dantero stood behind Sereon with the other end beside his neck.
Dantero: Try swallowing that.
Sereon tilted his head.
His own sword passed beside his cheek.
He stepped backward through the opening.
Dantero's smile vanished.
Dantero: Oh, you cheeky—
Sereon's boot struck him in the chest.
Dantero hit the ground and rolled as Suigōraku came down.
Water caught the blade.
Leona pulled with both hands.
The edge stopped above Dantero's face.
Sereon looked toward her.
Leona: Get up.
Dantero opened a portal beneath himself and disappeared through it.
Sereon turned the sword inside the water.
Leona felt the resistance ease.
Her hands nearly followed.
Cron caught her wrist.
Cron: Don't.
The blade had not moved.
Sereon had.
He stood beside the length of water she was holding, his free hand already turning toward her throat.
Cron struck him.
The copied gravity caught Sereon in the chest and threw him across the square. He touched down on one foot, skidded through broken stone, and raised Suigōraku as Shinryu reached him.
Their swords met three times before Dark arrived.
The first contact rang.
The second made no sound.
At the third, the light along Shinryu's blade divided around the reflective edge and struck the buildings behind Sereon.
Windows burst inward.
Dark entered beneath their crossed arms.
Kyuketsu reached Sereon's stomach.
Sereon dropped his point, caught the black blade, and forced it toward Shinryu's leg.
Shinryu stepped over it.
His knee struck Sereon's jaw.
Dark drew Kyuketsu back and cut upward.
Suigōraku caught the strike late.
Blood crossed Sereon's forehead.
He moved away from both men, two measured steps across a street that was beginning to tilt beneath them.
Shinryu did not chase.
Dark almost did.
Shinryu: His feet.
Dark looked.
Sereon's boots had stopped on two separate pieces of stone. Between them, a point of compressed darkness waited in a crack.
Dark changed his advance.
The point fired.
Karyū passed beside his head and went through the place Shinryu would have reached if he had followed.
Sereon lowered his sword.
Sereon: Let distance keep no promise.
Above the capital, the fracture widened into a dark opening.
Dark felt the change before he saw what had happened. The sky no longer seemed high enough. The pressure that had crossed the Sphere was returning through places that had never belonged to the capital.
Raith gripped the side of Tier's displaced platform.
The floor shook beneath him.
Gilmuar lay several paces away, his axe against the folded coat under his arm. Lara's bell trembled beside it.
Raith caught the bell before it rolled.
He looked down at it, then toward the battlefield.
Raith: Tier!
Tier turned beneath another swing.
Tier: Busy!
Raith: He's completing the incantation between exchanges!
Tier drove an armored forearm against Suigōraku and fired into Sereon's chest.
Sereon turned with the shot.
The round tore through Soul Ryūgu and went beyond him.
Tier: We noticed!
Raith: Then stop treating the words separately!
Sereon's sword came toward Tier's mouth.
Tier leaned back.
The edge opened the front of his Frame.
Sereon: He means that each line remains.
Varek caught the sword wrist.
Sereon's movement stopped.
Varek: Then finish explaining.
He struck him.
The blow carried Sereon through the square and into the tower beyond it. Varek followed before the structure began falling.
Dark saw the tower fold around a second impact.
Then a third.
He moved toward it with Kenzo beside him.
Kenzo: Keep him from leaving.
Dark: Which side?
Kenzo: Both.
Gravity closed around the ruined tower.
The walls drew inward.
Varek stood inside them with Sereon's sword arm in his hand. Suigōraku had opened his forearm to the bone. The flesh grew around the wound while Varek forced the wrist farther from his throat.
Sereon stepped onto a falling slab.
Varek pulled him off it.
He struck the floor hard enough to flatten the slab beneath them.
Varek: You've had room enough.
Sereon's free fingers touched the ground.
Varek broke them with his heel.
Suigōraku moved toward his knee.
Varek caught the hilt.
For a moment, both men held the sword.
Sereon looked at their hands.
Sereon: You intend to break it.
Varek: You intend to make me think I have.
He drove his forehead into Sereon's face.
The reflective eye disappeared beneath blood.
Varek pulled the sword.
Sereon's fingers broke around the grip.
Dark arrived as the weapon came free.
He put Kyuketsu through Sereon's chest and held him against the remaining wall.
Kenzo closed his hand.
The tower became smaller.
Stone compressed around them, stopping short of Dark and Varek while it crushed the space Sereon could use.
Kenzo: Now speak.
Blood moved at Sereon's mouth.
Dark watched it.
He could feel the body against his sword. He could feel Varek's hand fixed around the shoulder beside his own.
A breath touched his ear.
Sereon: Let the bound be—
Dark struck backward.
Kyuketsu left the chest and met Suigōraku beside his head.
Varek still held the sword in front of him.
Dark did not look at it.
He turned toward the edge against his own and drove it upward.
Sereon stood behind him.
The coat brushed Dark's arm.
Dark caught the collar and pulled.
Sereon struck his wrist, slipped the grip, and cut across his stomach.
Vorax caught the torn flesh.
Kenzo's gravity took Sereon from the side.
He bent under it, boots scraping through stone, and brought Suigōraku across the path of Kenzo's approaching hand.
Kenzo caught the edge.
Blood ran between his fingers.
Sereon turned the hilt.
The blade cut deeper.
Kenzo did not release it.
Kenzo: You keep thinking that matters.
His free hand opened beside Sereon's face.
Sereon struck the elbow with the pommel.
The explosion passed above his head.
He moved beneath the arm and brought his shoulder into Kenzo's chest, turning him toward Dark.
Dark stopped Kyuketsu before it reached Kenzo's back.
Sereon's point appeared beneath Kenzo's arm.
Dark caught it with his guard.
Their faces came close across the crossed steel.
Sereon: You stopped.
Dark: He's my friend.
Sereon: I know.
Dark's eyes moved toward Kenzo.
Kenzo had already understood.
He let himself fall backward.
Gravity took him clear of both swords.
Dark stepped into the space he left and drove Kyuketsu toward Sereon's throat.
Shinryu's changing blade arrived from behind.
Sereon caught Dark's strike.
He could not turn far enough to meet Shinryu with the same motion.
His free hand opened.
Sereon: Gyuro Two. Niren.
Two points appeared beside his wrist.
Shinryu changed his cut before they joined.
His blade passed between them and entered Sereon's back.
Sereon exhaled.
The points met behind Shinryu.
Dark saw the light gather.
Dark: Move!
Shinryu withdrew his sword and turned.
The force struck the flat of his blade.
His boots tore through the floor.
Sereon used the separation to force Kyuketsu down and strike Dark across the brow with his guard.
Dark's sight filled with blood.
He swung through it.
Suigōraku caught the blow close to the hilt.
Sereon leaned against the swords.
Sereon: Your strength has improved.
Dark spat blood at his face.
Dark: You keep saying that like you're proud.
He brought his knee up.
Sereon checked it with his own and turned his hip, drawing Dark off balance.
Varek's hand closed around the back of his neck.
Varek: He doesn't need your approval.
The Grand Regent lifted him.
Kenzo's explosion met the suspended body.
The remains struck the compressed wall and returned around Suigōraku's raised edge.
Sereon landed in a crouch.
For a moment, he stayed there.
Blood ran from his hair onto the stone.
His sword arm hung lower than before. Dark watched the fingers close around the hilt, then tighten again.
Tier's Witness fired from outside the ruined tower.
Sereon rose into the shot.
Suigōraku turned it aside.
The movement ended with his point aimed at Dark.
Sereon: Neither do you.
He advanced before Dark could answer.
The first cut came high.
Dark met it.
The second followed the recoil of the first, lower and closer, reaching for the fingers around Kyuketsu.
Dark drew his hand back.
Sereon stepped with him.
The third strike never completed. He stopped it against Dark's guard, slid the edge across the contact, and changed direction beneath the hilt.
Dark felt the point enter his side.
He caught Sereon's shoulder.
Sereon had already begun withdrawing.
Kyuketsu cut the front of his coat.
Suigōraku opened Dark's thigh.
Dark's knee bent.
Sereon lifted the sword toward his neck.
Shinryu caught it.
The changing blade entered beneath Suigōraku and raised both of Sereon's hands. Dark straightened into the opening, striking him in the ribs.
Sereon gave ground again.
Shinryu followed this time.
His attacks came without a spoken name. Light altered with each contact, sometimes reaching past the steel, sometimes disappearing entirely until Sereon's blade met it.
Sereon kept his eyes on Shinryu's chest.
He blocked a cut toward his shoulder, turned another away from his hip, and stepped inside a thrust that would have reached his heart.
Suigōraku passed close to Shinryu's jaw.
Shinryu lowered his head.
The edge took a strand of hair.
His sword struck Sereon's guard and forced it outward.
Dark came in from the other side.
Sereon bent between them.
Kyuketsu crossed above his shoulder.
Shinryu's point reached his coat.
Sereon brought Suigōraku up behind his back again, catching the changing blade before it entered him, then drove his heel into Dark's knee.
Dark's leg broke.
Ryo corrected it before he fell.
He struck Sereon across the mouth.
Shinryu's sword entered the shoulder.
Sereon twisted away from the blade, leaving blood across its changing light.
He reached the open street.
The others were waiting.
Kaelith stood to his left, fire running over both arms. Rykaou had taken the right. Eiren's cold spread beneath the stones, while Lucen watched the space behind him.
Nekros lowered his scythe.
Nekros: There is less room now.
Sereon looked around them.
Sereon: You've all come closer.
Kaelith stepped forward.
Kaelith: You keep moving away.
Fire struck the street between them.
Sereon cut through the first rising sheet and turned toward Rykaou, meeting his attack with a short blow from the hilt. Rykaou took it across the cheek and stayed close enough to seize his sleeve.
Rykaou: Here!
Eiren froze the sword wrist.
Nekros' scythe came across the neck.
Sereon bent beneath it, broke the ice against Rykaou's forearm, and thrust toward Eiren.
Lucen closed the space in front of the point.
Suigōraku stopped.
Leona's water caught Sereon's ankle.
Cron pulled.
Sereon's foot left the ground.
Kaelith struck him with both hands.
The fire carried him across the avenue.
Dark moved to meet him.
Sereon turned in the air.
Suigōraku met Kyuketsu before his feet touched down.
Dark felt the weight behind the block and drove harder, forcing Sereon backward into Varek's reach.
Sereon saw the hand.
His expression changed.
Then the street beneath them split.
Sereon: Let the bound be counted among the free.
Every piece of Tier's broken restraint rose from the ground.
Akira's fingers jerked.
The ring she had opened around Sereon's next movement tightened around her own wrist.
Shinryu turned toward her.
Akira: Don't touch it!
She caught the ring with her other hand.
Akira: Tier. My wrist. Shoot through the outside.
Tier's gun turned.
Akira held still.
The round removed a thin section of the ring without reaching her skin.
She pulled her hand free as the remaining metal closed on empty air.
Across the square, Kenzo felt Gravitas answer a weight he had not placed.
He raised both hands.
Kenzo: Get off the ground!
Dark jumped.
Leona's water lifted her and Cron. Dantero opened beneath Tier. Shinryu caught Eiren by the shoulder as the street folded where she had been standing.
Varek remained below.
Sereon stood opposite him.
Stone rose between them in a vast curved sheet.
Varek struck it.
The sheet broke.
He crossed through the fragments and caught Sereon by the face.
Varek: You're staying.
The incantation continued through his fingers.
Sereon: Let no height absolve the hand above it.
The sky descended.
Dark had no better word for what he saw. The opening beyond the Sphere pressed against the capital, bringing the distant fracture close enough that the city's towers stood against it like small black marks.
The force struck Kenzo's World.
His arms bent.
Blood left his nose.
Kenzo: No.
He straightened them.
Gravity spread above the capital, meeting the descending pressure across the full breadth of what he could hold.
Kenzo: I said no.
The city stopped falling upward.
For a breath, everything hung.
Then another fracture appeared beyond the first.
Raith saw it from the platform.
His mouth went dry.
He had been counting the lines. He had been trying to separate the Gyuro rising beneath them, to recognize enough of the arrangement to give Tier a useful answer.
The new fracture crossed the darkness.
Raith: He's still extending it.
Beside the platform, Raiku watched the light travel.
Enra had turned toward the farther boundary. Lybel stood with his head slightly inclined, studying something the others below could not see.
Leona looked up at them.
Her water trembled beneath her feet.
Leona: Are you waiting for it to reach you?
No one answered before the next impact.
Kenzo dropped to one knee.
The World around him held.
Dark landed beside him.
Dark: How long?
Kenzo's eyes remained on Sereon in Varek's hand.
Kenzo: Go hit him.
Dark: Kenzo.
Kenzo turned.
There was blood on his teeth.
Kenzo: Don't make me spend this talking.
Dark went.
Vorax spread over his shoulders as he crossed the broken square. The symbiote's tendrils caught falling stone and threw it clear of Akira and Leona.
Vorax: Your left arm is slowing.
Dark flexed his fingers.
Dark: Keep it together.
Vorax: I am keeping all of you together.
Dark reached Sereon as Varek dragged him across the ground.
Suigōraku rose.
Dark struck it aside.
He put his shoulder against Sereon's chest and drove him into the wall beyond Varek's hand.
The Grand Regent released the face and caught the sword wrist instead.
Dark raised Kyuketsu.
Sereon looked at the blade.
For an instant, Dark saw his own reflection in Suigōraku.
Gilmuar stood behind it.
Dark struck without turning.
The reflection broke beneath Kyuketsu. The cut continued into Sereon's shoulder.
Sereon: You're becoming accustomed to him.
Dark's hand stopped.
Only for an instant.
Sereon's free fingers closed around his wrist.
Dark felt them.
He looked into the reflective eye.
Dark: Say his name.
Varek tightened his grip.
Varek: Dark.
Dark stepped closer.
Dark: Say it to me again.
Sereon's gaze moved over his face.
Behind them, Kenzo's World shuddered.
Dark heard the sound.
He felt the pull on the stones under his feet, the effort holding the people above the street. He saw Leona catch Akira when another piece of ground broke away.
His grip on Kyuketsu changed.
Sereon watched.
Dark: That's what you wanted.
He drove the sword through Sereon's chest and left it there.
Dark: Varek. Hold him.
Varek: Where are you going?
Dark looked toward the sky, then at the people still fighting beneath it.
Dark: I'm ending this with everyone I've got.
A massive weight struck the far edge of the capital.
Kenzo's head lifted.
The pressure above him eased.
Across the broken streets, Biru stood with one hand raised. Behind him, people crowded onto a stretch of ground that remained level while the city moved around it.
One appeared at his side carrying two children.
He set them down and looked toward Dark.
Biru: They're clear of the buildings!
Tier turned toward him.
Tier: The buildings aren't the problem anymore!
Biru looked up.
Biru: I noticed.
He raised his other hand.
The protected ground drew farther from the collapsing streets.
One stepped away from the children.
A girl caught his sleeve.
He looked down.
Girl: Are you leaving?
One crouched long enough to loosen her fingers without pulling them away.
One: Stay with him.
He nodded toward Biru.
Girl: Are you coming back?
One stood.
One: Yes.
He crossed the capital.
Sereon saw him arrive.
Varek's grip had not loosened. Kyuketsu remained through the chest. Dark was still standing close enough to reach him.
One stopped beside them.
His gaze moved from Sereon to the blood on Dark's hands.
Then toward the platform.
He saw the axe.
One: Who?
Dark swallowed.
Dark: Gilmuar.
One looked at him for a moment.
The noise of the battle continued around them. Tier's gun fired. Shinryu's blade met another pressure descending from the sky. Kenzo stood again beneath the weight of his World.
One turned to Sereon.
His expression had not changed.
Sereon: You've arrived after the decision.
One placed his hand against the flat of Suigōraku.
Varek felt the resistance leave the sword wrist.
One: Then you've had enough time to speak.
He struck Sereon in the chest.
The body left Kyuketsu.
Varek released the wrist as One followed it across the square.
Sereon landed with his sword raised.
One was already inside its reach.
He caught the hilt, struck the elbow, and put his other hand beneath Sereon's jaw.
The next impact silenced every loose piece of stone around them.
Dark drew Kyuketsu back to his side.
From above the capital, Sukojo watched One force Sereon through the remains of the avenue.
His broken halo turned with his head.
Sukojo: About time.
Dark looked toward him.
Dark: Sukojo.
Sukojo glanced down.
Dark: Stay here.
The grin faded from Sukojo's mouth.
Sukojo: Choose your next words carefully.
Dark held his gaze.
Dark: With us.
Behind Sukojo, the fracture spread across the distant dark.
He looked at it, then back at Dark.
Below them, Sereon caught One's next strike against Suigōraku. The sword bent under the pressure. His feet cut deep into the street.
Dark raised Kyuketsu.
Dark: All of us. Together.
Sukojo looked from Dark to the sword bending between One's hands.
Sereon turned the edge before it broke. One let it slide past his palm, stepped inside the returning cut, and struck him beneath the ribs. The impact lifted both men off the street. They landed farther down the avenue with Suigōraku already coming toward One's eye.
One caught the wrist.
Sukojo's fingers moved.
A cut opened across Sereon's elbow.
One pulled the damaged arm away and drove his forehead into the face behind it.
Sukojo: You took your time asking.
Dark lowered Kyuketsu.
Dark: I'm asking now.
Above them, another section of the sky gave way. Kenzo's shoulders dipped beneath the pressure. He spread his hands farther apart, forcing the falling weight around the people crossing the square, but the ground under his boots had begun sinking.
Sukojo watched him.
Sukojo: And what happens when I'm inside you?
Dark: You stay awake.
Sukojo's gaze returned to him.
Dark: All of you do.
For a moment, the markings across Sukojo's chest stopped moving. Then his mouth curved slightly.
Sukojo: That could become unpleasant.
Dark: It already is.
He stepped away from the avenue and opened his hand.
His shadow widened.
The broken stones remained visible beneath it for a breath, their edges faint beneath the spreading black. Then the darkness deepened until the square no longer seemed to have a floor. Something round turned beneath Dark's feet.
Leona felt it before she recognized it. The water around her wrists drew toward him. She closed her hands to keep it in place.
Cron looked down.
Cron: Dominion Sphere.
The black surface opened.
Grey stillness waited beneath it.
Dark had stood inside that stillness before, facing a bound man who had laughed at the reasons he wanted strength. He remembered the voices of the Champions following him out. He remembered what it had felt like to carry them.
This time, there were people behind him whose hands he knew. There was a body above the square that would not rise when he called.
Dark looked toward Biru.
Dark: Bring them through.
Biru's head lifted.
Behind him, the civilians stood on the ground he had kept whole. Some had knelt. Others held one another so tightly that they could barely move when the floor shifted beneath their feet.
Biru: Into Dominion?
Dark: Give them somewhere to stand. Keep your protection around them until Tier takes over.
Tier turned toward Dark.
Tier: I need a moment to anchor anything in there.
Dark: You'll have it.
Sereon heard him.
He drove his shoulder into One, let the man's grip turn him, and brought Suigōraku backward beneath the captured arm. One moved his head before the point reached his throat.
The sword cut his cheek.
Sereon pulled free.
Sereon: You're bringing them closer to you.
Dark did not answer.
The Dominion Sphere widened beneath Biru's protected ground.
Children cried when the courtyard began descending. A woman tried to pull her son toward its edge, saw nothing beyond it but broken streets, and stopped.
Biru lowered himself beside them.
Biru: Stay on the stone.
Woman: Where are we going?
Biru: Somewhere he can't reach without coming through us.
The boy beside her looked toward Dark.
Dark had heard the answer.
He kept the opening steady as the first families passed beneath the surface. Tier sent three devices after them. Each unfolded against the floating ground, their legs driving deep into the stone while the Field Frame marked the limits of Biru's protection.
Tier: Dantero, take the platform next.
Dantero glanced up.
Raith stood beside Gilmuar.
Dantero: All of it?
Tier: All of it.
Dantero raised both hands.
The platform shifted.
Kenzo looked toward the sound.
For one terrible instant, the pressure above the capital descended farther. His fingers bent backward. Blood crossed his palms before he forced them straight.
Dark reached him.
Dark: I have him.
Kenzo's eyes remained on the platform.
Dark: Kenzo. Look at me.
Kenzo did.
Dark: Nobody's leaving him out here.
The platform entered the grey stillness. Raith stayed beside the body until the opening passed above his head. The last thing Kenzo saw was the axe lying against Gilmuar's arm.
He faced the sky again.
Kenzo: Then hurry.
Dark stepped back.
Sereon was watching him over One's shoulder.
The reflective eye moved from the opening to the people entering it. His lips parted.
Sereon: Let the shelter name its master.
A point appeared beneath Tier's first device.
Tier's eyes caught it.
Tier: Biru, underneath!
Biru turned his hand.
The point rose out of the stone before it could fire.
A thin line passed through it.
The pressure vanished.
Igor stood beside the opening.
God Killer remained in its sheath.
Dark had not seen him arrive. He had felt a brief change in the air, a clean separation where Sereon's technique should have continued into Dominion.
Igor looked at the disappearing ground.
Igor: How many remain outside?
Tier checked the readings.
Tier: In the evacuation groups, none. One was checking the outer streets.
One twisted Sereon's sword wrist and struck him across the mouth.
One: Cleared them.
Igor's gaze lifted toward the fracture.
Far above, the joined Gyuro crossed the places Kenzo was holding and disappeared into the dark beyond the Sphere.
Igor placed his thumb against God Killer's guard.
Dark: Igor.
He looked back.
Dark: Keep the strike away from Sereon.
Igor's hand stayed where it was.
Igor: You intend to take him alive.
Dark looked at the man fighting One.
He could still see Suigōraku through Gilmuar's chest.
Dark: I intend to reach him myself.
Igor watched his face for a moment, then inclined his head.
The blade left its sheath by the width of a finger.
A pale division appeared across the sky.
The All Gyuro struck it.
Pressure continued spreading beyond the capital, but the force descending toward the opening separated from it. Kenzo's arms rose abruptly as the weight they had carried disappeared.
He nearly fell.
Cron caught him beneath one shoulder.
Kenzo pushed him away and stayed upright.
Sereon turned his head.
One struck before the turn finished.
Suigōraku caught the blow, but Sereon's rear foot slid through the street.
Igor sheathed the blade.
Igor: That gives you time.
Dark: Come with me.
The shadow at Igor's feet joined Dark's.
He stepped into it without looking away from the battlefield.
Dark felt him enter.
The change passed through his bones before it reached his muscles. His hand tightened around Kyuketsu. For an instant, he became aware of every imperfect angle in his grip, every unnecessary tension holding his shoulder high.
His arm tried to correct them all at once.
Pain shot through the joint.
Vorax caught it.
Vorax: Slowly.
Dark exhaled.
Dark: I know.
Igor's voice came from within the stillness.
Igor: Knowing the movement is not the same as being able to bear it.
Dark lowered his shoulder by a fraction.
The pain eased.
Across the square, shadows began separating from the darkness around Dominion. Vel emerged first, looking toward the sky. Raz followed with blood along one arm. Malik stopped beside Tier's broken restraints and studied the marks they had left in the ground.
Clum, Cal, Syv, and Brak came behind them.
None asked what had happened.
Their eyes went to the platform inside Dominion, to the people gathered around it, and then to Dark.
Dark: I need you with me.
Raz looked at the sword in his hand.
Raz: We are.
Dark: Inside.
The Champions glanced toward the opening.
Sukojo descended beside them.
Sukojo: He means to see how much of us he can carry before something splits.
Dark looked at him.
Dark: You could help instead of enjoying that.
Sukojo: I can do both.
Vel entered first.
The shadow around Dark's left foot changed.
Raz followed.
Dark's heartbeat struck harder against his ribs. He felt a second rhythm inside it, then another, each distinct enough that his body could not immediately settle around them.
Malik disappeared into the black.
Dark's vision sharpened painfully.
Clum's arrival made the air around his hand twist. Cal's presence steadied it before Kyuketsu turned out of his grip.
Syv entered.
Dark swallowed against a sudden hunger that had nothing to do with food.
Brak's weight reached him last.
His knee struck the ground.
Leona moved.
Vorax spread an arm in front of her.
Vorax: Give him room.
Dark planted Kyuketsu against the stone.
Blood fell from his nose.
Inside Dominion, the Champions stood around him in the grey. He could see them without closing his eyes. Beyond them, the rescued civilians gathered on their protected ground, too far away to hear what he said.
Sukojo remained outside.
Sukojo: You're taking them as separate burdens.
Dark looked up.
Sukojo crouched in front of him.
Sukojo: You made them yours a long time ago. Stop behaving as though they have to force their way in.
Dark's fingers tightened against the hilt.
He remembered leaving Dominion after facing Sukojo. The power had moved with him then. He had not stood at its entrance trying to measure every part before accepting it.
He had walked.
Dark stood.
His knee trembled once.
Then it held.
Sukojo rose with him.
Dark: Your turn.
Sukojo looked down at the black surface.
For a moment, Dark thought he would make another joke.
Instead, Sukojo glanced toward One.
Sukojo: Don't finish before I get there.
He stepped forward.
Dark's chest seized.
The markings beneath Sukojo's skin crossed his own arms in a brief black flare. His teeth closed together hard enough to crack. Somewhere inside Dominion, a vast darkness moved, and the grey around the Champions deepened.
Vorax tightened around Dark's heart.
Vorax: Breathe.
Dark drew air.
The first breath failed halfway.
He tried again.
Sukojo's voice reached him from close behind his thoughts.
Sukojo: There.
Dark opened his eyes.
Biru emerged from the descending courtyard. Tier's devices had completed their enclosure, holding the people on a broad shelf of stone inside Dominion. Raith stood at its edge, keeping the frightened crowd away from the platform where Gilmuar lay.
Biru looked toward Tier.
Biru: They stay protected.
Tier: I'm staying with the readings.
Biru: That wasn't a question.
Tier met his gaze.
Tier: I know.
Biru entered Dark's shadow.
The strain in Dark's chest changed. He could feel the people inside Dominion with a clarity that nearly made him turn toward them. Hundreds of small movements. Hands gripping clothes. A child sitting down because his legs had begun shaking.
Dark kept looking at Sereon.
One was still fighting him.
Their exchange had carried them beyond the avenue. Suigōraku struck toward One's neck, reversed against his forearm, and came back beneath his elbow. One blocked the first cut, stepped over the second, and drove a short punch into Sereon's chest before the third could reach him.
The wound Kigen corrected seemed to close more quickly now.
Above them, the All Gyuro continued gathering.
Sereon: Let the last boundary—
One caught his jaw.
One: No.
Sereon cut through the wrist.
One's other hand struck the sword arm before the severed flesh could fall.
Dark moved.
He reached them as Suigōraku rose again.
Kyuketsu met it.
The impact threw dust out of every crack in the street.
One looked at Dark.
Dark: Go.
One stayed close enough to hold Sereon's free hand.
One: You're steady?
Dark's left arm shook.
He tightened his fingers.
Dark: Enough.
One released the hand and stepped backward into Dark's shadow.
Sereon thrust immediately.
Dark turned Kyuketsu.
The point passed his coat.
His free hand rose toward Sereon's face with the beginning of One's movement.
He stopped before completing it.
It was too familiar.
Suigōraku was already waiting beneath his wrist.
Dark struck with his shoulder instead.
Sereon moved back one step.
The sword between them rang.
Sereon: You brought their habits too.
Dark drew Kyuketsu down along the reflective edge.
Dark: Then you've got more to watch.
He cut toward the knee.
Sereon lowered Suigōraku, caught the strike, and returned toward Dark's throat. Dark stepped close enough that the cut met the reinforced material over his shoulder.
Vorax held.
Dark's fist struck Soul Ryūgu.
The armor caved.
This time, Dark felt the corrected body before it appeared beneath his knuckles. He changed the angle of the next blow, following the resistance through Sereon's returning chest.
Sereon bent under it.
Blood left his mouth.
Dark caught the sword guard with Kyuketsu and drove him backward.
Varek moved beside them.
Dark: I have this side.
Varek looked at the black material settling around his arm.
Varek: Then keep him there.
He crossed behind Sereon.
The free hand turned toward him.
Varek struck the wrist, opening the chest for Dark.
Kyuketsu entered.
Sereon stepped along it.
Dark saw Suigōraku approaching his jaw and brought his elbow down against the sword arm. The edge passed beneath his ear, close enough to cut the skin.
Sereon leaned nearer.
Sereon: All of them, and you still have to choose where to look.
Dark struck him with the hilt.
Sereon's head turned.
Shinryu's blade passed behind it.
The changing light caught a reflection forming over Dark's shoulder and cut it apart before its hand could reach him.
Shinryu: He has people for that.
Dark pulled Kyuketsu free.
For several exchanges, the three men kept Sereon between them.
Varek took the space he tried to leave. Shinryu met the attacks placed behind their sight. Dark pressed him through the center, learning how much of the strength inside him he could use without letting it choose his movements.
He failed once.
His hand reached too far.
Suigōraku entered beneath his ribs.
The pain went through Vorax.
Dark's breath broke.
Sereon turned the blade.
Sereon: Your body has not become all of theirs.
Dark closed his arm against the sword.
Dark: No.
He hit Sereon across the face.
Dark: It's still mine.
Black crossed the wound.
Suigōraku slid free against Sereon's pull, but the injury closed before the tip left Dark's side.
Sereon watched it.
Dark watched him watching.
Then Kenzo's gravity took the ground beneath Sereon's feet.
He dropped.
Dark followed with Kyuketsu.
Sereon blocked from one knee and pushed upward, the reflective edge shuddering against the black sword.
Kenzo came closer.
His face was pale beneath the blood.
Kenzo: Don't let him stand.
Dark pressed.
Sereon's other knee struck the stone.
For a moment, the sight caught all three of them.
Gilmuar had put him there.
Dark remembered the axe, the broken wrist, the voice insisting that he had really held him.
Sereon lifted his eyes.
Sereon: You remember this position.
Kenzo's hand opened.
Dark: Kenzo.
The explosion gathered beside his palm.
Dark: His sword.
Kenzo looked at the blade between them.
Suigōraku showed his own hand reaching past it toward Sereon's face.
He closed his fingers.
The explosion vanished inside his fist.
Then he seized Sereon's sword wrist.
Kenzo: I'm here.
Dark felt the pull settle.
He drew Kyuketsu back.
Sereon spoke before it moved again.
Sereon: Let the last boundary belong to no one.
The All Gyuro completed its first full breath.
Every visible fracture opened.
Kenzo's hold tore outward. Shinryu turned his blade toward the sky. Varek caught Dark by the shoulder as the ground between them and Sereon disappeared.
The impact reached the capital without crossing the air.
Dark felt it inside his teeth, inside the wound that had already closed, inside every shadow joining him to Dominion.
Tier's voice broke across the square.
Tier: Dark! The people inside you!
Dark turned inward.
The protected ground in Dominion had tilted.
A woman fell against a device. One of Tier's anchors bent beneath the impact. Raith caught two children and pushed them behind the nearest intact barrier.
Gilmuar's axe slid against his arm.
Dark saw it move.
Something in him became still.
He lifted his hand.
Inside Dominion, the ground levelled.
The civilians stumbled, recovered, and clung to one another. Tier's broken anchor stopped bending.
Dark kept his palm raised until the axe lay still.
Then he looked outward.
Sereon stood several paces away.
Suigōraku rested beside his leg.
His coat moved in the pressure of the completed technique. Above him, the broken sky opened onto distances Dark could not hold in a single view.
Sereon: You cannot keep a place untouched merely because you love what is inside it.
Dark's hand lowered.
The Champions stood within the grey around him.
Igor said nothing.
One watched Dark's face.
Biru kept his attention on the protected ground.
Sukojo's expression had changed. The amusement remained, but he had stopped looking for something to say.
Dark could hear the civilians. He could hear Tier checking each anchor. He could hear Leona asking Akira whether she could stand.
He could hear his own breath.
He let the power stop spilling from him.
The change began at his feet.
The shadow around Dominion drew inward, leaving the ruined stone exposed. Black climbed his boots and passed beneath the torn fabric at his knees. The obsidian along his arms softened, reshaping itself into a smooth layer that moved with his skin.
His shoulders lowered.
Kyuketsu altered in his hand.
The blade lengthened without becoming heavier. Its guard narrowed. A thin line appeared along the dark metal, red at first, then pale enough that he could no longer decide whether it carried light.
Kaelith stopped beside Shinryu.
Her fire drew close to her wrists.
Kaelith: I've seen that.
Shinryu did not turn.
Shinryu: What?
She watched Dark raise the sword.
The ruined capital fell away from her memory. Heat touched her face. For an instant she stood in the volcanic World again, looking at a man who had scarcely been able to remain upright.
She remembered the wound.
Kaelith: He never finished saying it.
Sereon moved.
Suigōraku came toward Dark's throat.
Dark raised Kyuketsu and caught it.
The contact was small. No burst of force followed. The swords rested against one another, edges trembling.
Dark: I.
Sereon turned the hilt.
Dark turned with him.
The reflective edge passed his shoulder, and Kyuketsu returned to the same raised position.
Sereon stepped outside his stance.
A second cut came toward his wrist.
Dark met it near the guard.
Dark: Am.
The black material reached his collar.
Vorax withdrew beneath it.
Dark felt the symbiote settle against his heart, close enough that their movements became difficult to separate. The Champions remained distinct inside Dominion. He could still feel each of them.
Their strength no longer arrived as separate blows against his body.
He breathed.
Sereon stopped.
Only for a moment.
His gaze moved from Dark's hand to his face.
Dark: The one.
Above the battlefield, Enra's fingers closed against his palm.
Lybel turned his head toward him.
Neither spoke.
Dark held Kyuketsu above his shoulder.
He remembered lifting it in the volcanic World without understanding why the strike had reached Kaelith. He had wanted to reach her so badly that everything between the wanting and the wound had disappeared.
Now he could feel that interval.
He could hold it.
Sereon drew Suigōraku across his chest.
Dark: Constellation World.
The pressure around the capital stopped moving.
It did not disappear.
Kenzo could still feel its weight against his law. Shinryu's sword still held the force descending toward Leona and Akira.
But the loose blood between Dark and Sereon hung without turning.
Dark: White Heaven.
Suigōraku lifted.
Sereon's eyes stayed on Kyuketsu.
Dark: Black Eternity.
A cut opened beneath Sereon's throat.
It travelled down the center of his chest, separating Soul Ryūgu between the pectorals and breaking through the sternum beneath. The opening widened as it descended, passing through his abdomen to the lower edge of the shattered armor.
Blood struck the street in a heavy sheet.
Sereon's free hand moved toward the wound.
Kyuketsu remained raised.
Then all nine hundred and three Worlds closed.
There was no expanding wall for anyone to follow.
The capital's sky turned white.
Across the enclosed Worlds, seas reflected the same light. Cities lost their horizons. Creatures moving through deep places stopped as their shadows lengthened against surfaces that had never known daylight.
Stars remained where they were.
The darkness between them rose.
On the battlefield, every shadow stood upright.
They extended from broken towers, from pieces of stone, from the fighters' own feet. Each became a black division running through the white distance, immense and impossibly thin.
Dark lowered Kyuketsu.
The divisions lowered with it.
Tier looked at his displays.
One showed the capital.
Another showed an enclosed World far beyond it.
Then more appeared, each reading fixed against the others with a precision his systems had never produced during the fight.
Tier: Nine hundred and three.
Raith heard him from inside Dominion.
Raith: What?
Tier checked the count.
Tier: Complete Worlds.
His fingers moved over the display.
Tier: They closed together.
Sereon drew a breath.
The wound reached its widest point.
Kigen answered.
His chest returned.
Blood remained on the ground.
For an instant, the armor lay whole over the new flesh.
Then the same cut opened beneath it.
Sereon's hand stopped.
Dark watched him.
The next condition arrived differently. The shoulder shifted before the chest returned, changing the body's position around the damage.
The cut followed.
Blood ran between Sereon's fingers.
Kenzo took one step forward.
Dark lifted his empty hand.
Kenzo stopped, breathing hard.
Sereon looked from that hand to Kyuketsu.
Sereon: You've attached it to the return.
Dark walked toward him.
Sereon raised Suigōraku.
The blades met.
This time, Dark swung.
Sereon caught the descending cut and turned it toward the ground. His foot moved outside Dark's, preparing the return beneath the arm.
Dark saw it.
He let the first attack go.
Kyuketsu remained against Suigōraku while his other hand closed around Sereon's coat.
He pulled.
The wound reopened under his fingers.
Sereon's breath left him.
Dark struck him across the face and released the coat before Suigōraku reached his wrist.
The reflective edge passed close enough to cut the black material.
A pale mark remained.
Sereon saw it.
His next attack went to the same place.
Dark caught it.
A second mark crossed his sleeve.
Sereon: There.
Dark drove him backward.
The black divisions moved with them.
Sereon stepped through one.
For a breath, Dark saw him standing elsewhere in the white distance.
Then blood fell at both positions.
The wound had opened in each.
Sereon returned to the street with Suigōraku already turning toward Dark's face.
Dark leaned aside.
The point crossed his cheek.
Blood ran down his jaw.
Sereon's gaze settled on it.
Sereon: You can still be reached.
Dark wiped nothing away.
Dark: You're standing close enough.
He struck.
Suigōraku met Kyuketsu beneath Sereon's jaw. The force drove his feet through the stone, but he kept the blade steady and turned the next blow toward Dark's shoulder.
Dark blocked.
The chest wound opened again.
Sereon staggered half a step.
Dark followed.
Above them, the All Gyuro pressed against the white sky.
The black divisions shuddered.
Tier looked up from his monitors.
Tier: It's still active!
Dark could feel it.
Every enclosed World pressed against his awareness. The Dominion Sphere remained within him, full of people whose lives depended on him keeping the two spaces separate.
The attack above was seeking that separation.
Sereon had felt it too.
His eyes moved toward Dark's chest.
Dark cut before he spoke.
Sereon blocked high.
The motionless wound opened beneath the moving swords.
For the first time, he gave up the exchange before Dark forced him out of it.
He stepped back.
Blood dripped from Suigōraku's guard.
Dark remained where he was.
Inside Dominion, Igor lifted his head.
Igor: He has stopped trying to leave your reach.
Dark watched Sereon straighten.
The man's hand rested against the split armor. He drew it away, looked at the blood across his fingers, and let the hand fall.
His breathing slowed.
Around them, the white distance began reflecting the ruined capital.
Sereon: You've shown me what holds it together.
Dark raised Kyuketsu again.
Sereon brought Suigōraku upright before his face.
The blood running down its edge stopped.
Every black division showed the same reflective eye.
Sereon: Now keep looking.
Dark kept his eyes on Sereon.
The reflections watched him back.
Each stood at a different distance inside the black divisions. Some held Suigōraku above the shoulder. Others had already lowered it. In the nearest, blood still ran from the wound Dark had opened. Farther away, the armor was whole.
Sereon turned his sword.
Every reflection chose a different angle.
Dark felt the movement waiting against his neck before any of them attacked.
Igor: Do not answer all of them.
Dark held Kyuketsu steady.
Dark: Which one?
Igor: That is what he wants you to ask.
Suigōraku struck.
Dark met the blade in front of him. A second edge entered his shoulder from behind. He turned into it, bringing the black material across the wound, and drove Sereon backward with his free hand.
The man beneath his palm broke into light.
The wound remained in Dark's shoulder.
Across the street, Sereon stood with his sword lowered.
Sereon: You have made everything connected answer together.
Dark pulled the edge from his shoulder.
It dissolved between his fingers.
Sereon: Including the answer you give to a mistake.
A cut opened across Dark's other shoulder.
Inside Dominion, Raz's head turned. Brak raised one hand as the grey beneath the Champions trembled.
Biru looked toward the civilians.
Biru: Keep it outside.
Dark closed his fingers.
The trembling stopped.
Sereon saw the effort pass through his face.
He approached.
His steps were unhurried, but Dark could feel each one testing a different part of the white ground. Suigōraku's point dragged through a shallow pool of blood without disturbing its surface.
Dark raised Kyuketsu.
The persistent wound opened across Sereon's chest.
He stopped.
Blood reached his belt.
For a moment, his breathing shortened. Then he placed his free hand against the split armor and pressed the two sides together.
Sereon: You have taught it to follow me.
Dark: It learns quickly.
Sereon looked up.
Sereon: Then let us see what you taught it to recognize.
The white sky darkened around his head.
Dark struck before the change could spread.
Kyuketsu crossed the place where Sereon's neck had been. Suigōraku rose beneath it, turning the cut above both men.
Sereon stepped inside Dark's reach.
His palm struck the wound in Dark's shoulder.
Pain travelled through every black division.
Dark's knees bent.
He caught Sereon's wrist before the second touch reached his chest and drove his forehead into the reflective eye.
Bone broke.
Sereon's hand remained open.
Sereon: Constellation World.
Shinryu lifted his head.
Varek moved toward them.
The street vanished beneath his next step.
He landed where he had begun.
Varek looked down, then toward Dark.
The distance between them contained the same ruined street repeated so many times that its buildings became a thin grey band.
Sereon: The Unwritten Verdict.
The black divisions opened like mirrors turning toward one another.
Dark saw himself standing at their centers.
In one, he had already struck.
In another, Sereon had fallen.
In another, Kyuketsu lay broken beside his own hand.
The wound across Sereon's chest appeared in every reflection, then disappeared from some, remained in others, and opened across Dark instead.
He felt his sternum separate.
Vorax caught the injury from within.
Vorax: Dark!
Dark pressed a hand against his chest.
Blood covered his fingers.
Sereon stood before him with the wound still open in his own body.
Both men were bleeding.
Sereon: You reached me.
His voice remained quiet.
Sereon: You have not decided what reaching me means.
Dark swung.
The swords collided.
Around them, the reflections completed the exchange differently.
Dark saw his own hand slip from Kyuketsu.
He tightened it.
The blade struck Sereon's ribs.
A matching impact entered Dark's side.
He staggered, caught himself, and struck again.
This time, Sereon blocked.
Nothing happened to Dark.
Sereon's eyes stayed on him.
Sereon: There. You understand.
Inside Dominion, One stepped nearer.
One: He's making you choose between the results.
Dark: I can feel them.
One: That does not make the choice yours.
Dark drew a breath.
Outside the joined Domains, Tier watched his displays lose agreement.
The same exchange appeared across all three, but each recorded a different wound. His internal systems marked Sereon standing before Dark, then Dark standing before Sereon, then both men occupying the point where their swords met.
Tier removed the display nearest his face.
Tier: Rykaou. Tell me what you feel.
Rykaou had one hand against the ground.
His fingers were bleeding.
Rykaou: Two of them.
Tier: I know there are two of them.
Rykaou looked up.
Rykaou: No. Two centers. Same place.
Kenzo turned toward him.
Rykaou: Dark's holding everything together. Sereon's making every part give a different answer.
Kenzo lifted his hand.
Gravity entered the grey band between them and Dark.
The repeated streets crushed into one another.
For an instant, Dark saw him beyond Sereon's shoulder.
Kenzo: Keep him looking at you!
Dark attacked.
Suigōraku caught the first strike.
The second cut opened Sereon's arm.
Dark felt the same wound begin beneath his own sleeve.
He stopped feeding the connection.
The black division beside him went pale.
His arm remained whole.
Sereon's eyes moved toward it.
Dark drove his knee into the open chest.
Sereon bent.
Kyuketsu struck the guard and forced his sword outward.
Dark: You needed me to keep holding that.
Sereon straightened.
Sereon: And you need to know which ones to release.
The reflections changed.
Gilmuar stood in three of them.
Dark saw the axe against his shoulder.
He did not look away quickly enough.
Gilmuar: Dark.
Something inside Dominion moved toward the voice.
One caught Dark by the shoulder in the grey.
Outside, Dark's body stopped before completing the step.
One: Stay here.
Dark looked at him.
For a moment, the battlefield and Dominion lay over one another. One's hand rested on his shoulder while Suigōraku approached his throat.
Igor: Down.
Dark lowered Kyuketsu.
The black blade met the attack.
He pushed Sereon away and let the three reflections stand.
Gilmuar watched him from each.
Dark's breath shook.
Dark: I heard you.
Sereon's mouth moved slightly.
Dark looked at the man in front of him.
Dark: I'm still here.
He cut through the nearest black division.
The reflection disappeared.
Nothing opened in his own flesh.
Inside Dominion, the Champions felt the change.
Dark had stopped trying to hold every connection at once.
He kept the ones that answered the pressure of his blade. He released the ones that existed only because he had looked at them.
Sereon moved immediately.
Suigōraku struck toward Dark's eyes, turned against Kyuketsu, and slid down toward the fingers around the hilt.
Dark withdrew his hand.
The point opened his forearm.
He let the wound close.
Sereon brought the sword back toward his chest.
Dark caught the edge against Kyuketsu's guard and stepped closer.
Their shoulders struck.
The persistent cut opened between them.
Sereon lost a breath.
Dark heard it.
He remembered how many times Gilmuar had tried to take one.
His grip tightened.
Sukojo: Careful.
Dark did not answer.
Sukojo: You are about to give him the same thing again.
Dark drove Sereon backward.
One step.
Another.
The white ground rippled beneath their feet.
Above them, the All Gyuro struck the joined Domains.
Sereon had not released it.
The pressure entered his reflections and spread through their surfaces, carrying the compressed techniques into the places Dark had left unclaimed.
The black divisions began breaking.
Tier looked toward the sky.
Tier: Varek! Above Dark!
Varek had already moved.
He caught the first descending pressure with both hands.
The flesh across his palms opened. New tissue grew through the injury while he turned the force away from the grey band.
Shinryu's blade crossed beside him.
The changing light separated a thin part of the attack.
Varek seized it.
Varek: Again.
Shinryu cut.
The Grand Regent pulled.
A seam opened between the two Constellation Worlds.
Dark heard Varek through it.
Varek: He is putting the attack through his own Domain!
Dark saw the pressure travelling inside the reflections.
Sereon brought Suigōraku across his face.
Dark blocked.
Varek: Make him carry it!
Dark's eyes shifted.
Sereon saw the understanding arrive.
For the first time since invoking his Constellation World, he tried to widen the distance.
Dark followed.
Kyuketsu entered the returning wound.
He left the sword there.
Sereon caught Dark's wrist.
The reflections offered him a hundred different bodies around the blade.
Dark closed his eyes.
Igor's voice came from the grey.
Igor: You have contact.
Dark could feel the resistance.
One: Keep it.
Biru's presence settled beneath the strain running through his chest. Cal steadied the pressure gathering along his arm. The other Champions held with them, their strength entering the same act without becoming the same will.
Dark opened his eyes.
Sereon was still in front of him.
Blood ran over the hands between them.
Dark: There.
He drew every connection he had kept toward Kyuketsu.
The black divisions turned.
Across the enclosed Worlds, shadows changed direction.
Sereon's reflections began bleeding together.
The All Gyuro continued through them.
Its force reached the wound.
Sereon's shoulders tightened.
Dark felt the resistance increase so sharply that the bones in his sword hand began cracking.
Vorax wrapped the wrist.
Dark held.
Sereon: You cannot contain that here.
Dark: Neither can you.
He pulled Kyuketsu free.
The cut remained.
Pressure entered Sereon's chest through every reflection still carrying his technique. Soul Ryūgu split farther down the middle. The white ground beneath his feet broke into rings that rose around his knees.
He lifted Suigōraku.
Dark met it.
The strike threw both men apart.
Sereon landed first.
He drove his sword into the ground and placed his free hand against the opening in his chest.
The Unwritten Verdict folded around him.
For a moment, Dark saw the wound close.
Then the blood returned.
Sereon lowered his hand.
The All Gyuro had stopped descending toward the capital.
It gathered around him instead.
Outside, Kenzo's arms dropped.
The sudden absence of weight nearly put him on his knees.
Cron caught his elbow.
Kenzo stayed upright, staring through the widening seam.
Kenzo: Dark!
Dark walked toward Sereon.
Kyuketsu hung beside his leg.
The sword's pale line had become red again.
Behind him, the black divisions bent inward, drawing the released force through their joined surfaces. The white sky narrowed until it seemed to rest against the sword's edge.
Tier's monitors filled with warnings.
Tier: Dark, don't release all of that toward the ground!
Dark heard him.
He could feel the people inside Dominion. He could feel the surviving fighters beyond the seam.
He pulled the attack away from both.
Farther.
Beyond the enclosed Worlds.
Beyond the fractures Sereon had opened.
He found distance and sent the force toward it.
He did not know everything that distance contained.
Sereon stood.
Suigōraku came out of the ground with him.
His chest had returned around the pressure, but the wound remained a dark line from throat to lower abdomen. Each breath opened it slightly.
He looked at Kyuketsu.
Then at Dark.
Sereon: You are still looking for somewhere else to put the cost.
Dark stopped.
The words reached him clearly.
For one moment, he saw the white sky for what it was holding.
Then Sereon attacked.
Suigōraku came toward his throat.
Dark raised Kyuketsu.
The blades met, and the last reflections shattered around them.
Sereon turned the hilt, trying to carry the black sword outward.
Dark stayed close.
He struck the wrist with his free hand.
The grip opened.
Suigōraku slipped.
Sereon caught it with his other hand before it fell.
Dark's next blow broke the elbow.
The sword left him.
It struck the ground between them.
Sereon stepped back.
Dark raised Kyuketsu above his head.
Kenzo saw it through the seam.
He stopped moving.
Leona's hand closed around Cron's arm.
Dark could see the place beneath Sereon's jaw where the blade would enter.
He had cut the man there before.
He had broken him, burned him, watched him return.
This time, the wound would follow.
Sereon looked up at the sword.
He did not speak.
Dark brought it down.
The motion pulled the white sky with it.
Every black division joined the edge.
Inside Dominion, the Champions felt the attack leave.
Dark saw Gilmuar's hand slipping from his wrist.
He saw Leona wiping blood away with a sleeve that would not take it cleanly.
He saw Kenzo kneeling beside the axe.
The blade descended.
Then Dark stopped.
His left hand caught his right wrist.
Every muscle in his arms tightened.
Kyuketsu halted one inch from Sereon's neck.
Blood ran from Dark's nose.
The edge trembled.
Sereon remained still beneath it.
Behind him, the released force struck the ground.
A thin line opened between his heels.
It crossed the ruined avenue, the foundations beneath it, the deep body of the planet, and the far surface beyond.
The ground did not immediately fall apart.
The two sides remained together for a moment, held in the last shape they had known.
Then the horizon shifted.
Tier's nearest monitor went dark.
The next showed the planet separating.
Dantero opened both hands and caught the fighters through a chain of portals before the street beneath them divided.
Varek seized Shinryu's shoulder.
Kenzo dragged Leona and Cron clear with gravity.
Dark stood inside the narrow place he had kept untouched, his sword still one inch from Sereon's throat.
Beyond the planet, the slash continued.
The boundaries of the nine hundred and three Worlds opened along the black divisions. White Heaven, Black Eternity discharged through them, carrying the force of the descending arc into structures beyond the Domain's enclosure.
The cut reached the first Xetaverse.
It crossed the second before the first had finished separating.
Across the distance Dark had chosen, immense civilizations lost their skies.
Beings who had never heard his name turned toward a line that gave them no time to understand it. Some raised defenses powerful enough to survive the ruin of Worlds. Some reached for places outside the structures they inhabited.
The cutting surface reached them together.
A man standing in a doorway disappeared before he could pull his child inside.
Far beyond him, a creature whose sleeping body sustained inhabited expanses opened one eye. The line crossed that eye and continued through the lives resting beneath its protection.
Armies vanished.
Sanctuaries split.
Creatures too small to understand the light died beside beings who had thought themselves beyond the need to fear it.
The attack did not choose among them.
Eight thousand nine hundred and thirty seven Xetaverses lay across its completed reach.
The silence afterward entered places that had never shared a silence before.
Dark felt the force leave his hand.
His sword stopped trembling.
Sereon looked past him.
For several seconds, neither man spoke.
Then Varek appeared beside them.
He looked at the blade, at the inch beneath it, and at Dark's face.
Varek: Lower it.
Dark did not move.
Varek put one hand around Kyuketsu's flat, close to the guard.
Varek: It has finished.
Dark's eyes shifted toward him.
Varek took none of the sword's weight until Dark began releasing it.
Together, they lowered the blade.
The Constellation Worlds came apart.
Black receded from white.
The broken capital returned around a narrow shelf of surviving ground, suspended over the wound through the planet. Far above, the fractures Sereon had made remained visible, but the pressures moving through them had gone quiet.
Sereon bent.
His knees touched the stone.
He placed one hand against the wound in his chest.
Kigen answered.
The wound opened again.
Dark watched the blood reach his fingers.
Shinryu landed beside Suigōraku and put his changing blade across it.
Tier's Field Frame struck the stone a moment later.
He looked at Dark.
Tier: What did you do?
Dark opened his mouth.
No answer came.
Varek looked toward the distance.
Varek: Eight thousand nine hundred and thirty seven.
Tier turned to him.
Varek's expression had not changed.
Varek: Xetaverses. Along the cutting surface.
Dark's hand tightened around Kyuketsu.
Dark: People?
Varek looked back at him.
Varek: Yes.
Dark waited.
Varek did not give him a smaller answer.
Sereon drew a rough breath.
Sereon: And I am alive.
Dark looked down at him.
The reflective eye held his gaze.
For a moment, the old calm returned to Sereon's face. Then the wound opened beneath his hand, and he had to lean forward to remain upright.
Dark stepped closer.
Varek moved with him.
Dark stopped.
Dark: You are.
Kenzo landed hard enough to crack the surviving stone.
He saw Sereon kneeling.
He saw Kyuketsu lowered.
His face changed.
Kenzo: Why?
Dark turned.
Kenzo: Don't tell me he's finished. I can see him breathing.
Dark: I stopped.
Kenzo walked toward him.
Kenzo: I saw.
Cron came through Dantero's portal behind Leona.
Neither approached quickly enough to stand between them.
Kenzo caught Dark by the front of his coat.
Kenzo: He put that sword through my brother.
Dark did not pull away.
Kenzo: You held him. You heard him.
Dark: Yes.
Kenzo's grip tightened.
Dark: I heard him.
For a moment, Kenzo looked as though he would strike.
Dark stood still.
Kenzo: Then explain it.
Dark looked past him at the opening where Dominion waited.
He could feel Gilmuar's body inside it.
Dark: I wanted to kill him.
Kenzo: So did I.
Dark: I still do.
Kenzo's eyes narrowed.
Dark looked down at his own hand.
Dark: I stopped because I could still decide what happened to the man in front of me.
Kenzo: You decided he gets another day.
Dark: In a prison.
Kenzo: My brother doesn't get a grave with another day inside it.
Dark had no answer to that.
Leona came beside them.
Her face was pale.
Leona: Let him go, Kenzo.
Kenzo did not look at her.
Leona: I'm not telling you he's right.
His fingers loosened slightly.
Leona looked at Dark.
Leona: Don't ask us to make this feel better for you.
Dark: I won't.
Kenzo released the coat.
He stepped past Dark and crouched in front of Sereon.
Sereon looked at him.
Kenzo placed one hand against the ground beside his knee.
The stone compressed.
Kenzo: You remember his name.
Sereon said nothing.
Kenzo: You remember what he did to you before you put the sword through him.
The pressure deepened beneath his palm.
Kenzo: And if you ever say it to me like that again, Dark won't get between us quickly enough.
He stood.
Dark did not challenge him.
Varek moved into the place Kenzo had left.
Varek: Edrassan.
Sereon lifted his head.
Varek: You have heard enough about it.
Sereon looked toward Suigōraku beneath Shinryu's blade.
Sereon: And if I refuse?
Varek: Then you travel unconscious.
Dark crouched before him.
The wound between Sereon's hands continued returning.
Dark looked at it, then at the sword beside Shinryu.
Dark: Stop trying to leave the injury.
Sereon's eye returned to him.
Dark: Every time you do, you give it another part of you to follow.
For several seconds, Sereon remained still.
Then the movement beneath his skin slowed.
The wound stopped widening.
Tier brought a restraint across the wrist.
Shinryu changed the light around Suigōraku.
Akira knelt beside Tier, her damaged fingers steady as she held the instant in which Sereon might try to move before the cuff closed.
Sereon watched them work.
Sereon: You expect imprisonment to change what I know.
Dark: I expect it to stop you choosing what everyone else has to suffer for it.
Sereon's gaze moved toward the fractures.
Dark followed it.
Dark: That includes me.
Sereon looked back.
The words seemed to interest him more than the restraint.
Dark: You can keep telling yourself nothing else was possible. Or you can live long enough to do something different.
Sereon glanced toward Varek.
Sereon: Under his hand.
Dark: Under mine too.
Dark stood.
Dark: You don't get forgiveness because I stopped a sword.
Sereon remained kneeling.
Then he opened his restrained hand.
Sereon: Take me to Edrassan.
Varek lifted him.
There was no flourish in the movement. He took Suigōraku inside Shinryu's changing light, gathered the marked connections Tier had fixed around the body, and opened the distance to his Empire.
Before he left, he looked at Dark.
Varek: You will tell me what your cut leaves behind.
Dark nodded.
Varek: All of it.
Dark: Yes.
The Grand Regent disappeared with Sereon.
The space he left stayed empty.
Tier watched it until his eyes began hurting.
Then he lowered his hand.
Tier: He's gone.
No one cheered.
Dark opened Dominion.
Biru emerged first and took the protected ground from Tier's anchors. One followed, going directly to the people he had promised to return to. The girl who had held his sleeve ran toward him before he could reach her.
He knelt.
She put both arms around his neck.
One closed his eyes for a moment, then stood with her in his arms.
The other Champions came out in silence.
Igor looked toward Dark's lowered sword.
He did not comment on the stopped edge.
Sukojo stood at the opening for longer than the rest.
His gaze travelled toward the distant damage.
Then he looked at Dark.
Sukojo: Now you know what it feels like when the distance stops being empty.
Dark met his eyes.
Sukojo did not smile.
He walked away.
Raith brought the platform out last.
Gilmuar lay where they had left him.
The coat beneath him had shifted during the battle. One corner had folded under his shoulder, raising it slightly higher than the other.
Kenzo went to him.
He put the axe down, lifted his brother enough to straighten the coat, and lowered him again.
Leona stood beside the platform.
Her hands hung at her sides.
Dark approached.
Kenzo did not look up.
Dark stopped several paces away.
For a while, the only sounds came from the people Biru was helping and the quiet movements of Tier's machines.
Then Kenzo spoke.
Kenzo: He hated being carried.
Dark's throat tightened.
Dark: I know.
Kenzo slid one arm beneath Gilmuar's shoulders.
Leona moved to help.
Kenzo shook his head.
Kenzo: I have him.
He lifted his brother.
The axe remained on the platform.
Dark picked it up.
Kenzo looked at the weapon in his hands, then at his face.
He said nothing.
They carried Gilmuar to the ground Biru had preserved.
A woman moved aside when she saw them. Another covered a child's eyes, then lowered her hand when the child asked why.
Kenzo sat with his brother across his arms.
Leona knelt beside him.
Cron stood behind them with both hands closed.
Dark placed the axe within Kenzo's reach.
Lara's bell remained in his other hand.
He gave it to Leona.
She took it without looking at him.
Above the broken capital, the True Emperors still stood together.
Dark looked up.
Enra met his gaze.
Dark remained beside Gilmuar for another moment.
Then he turned toward Raiku.
Dark: Come down.
Raiku looked at him.
The distance between them disappeared.
He stood on the preserved ground, a few paces from the people gathered around Gilmuar.
Dark walked toward him.
Dark: You said it would take less time than the conversation.
Raiku: Yes.
Dark: He asked for one second.
Raiku looked toward the body.
Dark: You had it.
Raiku's eyes returned to him.
Dark: You had more than that.
The people nearest them went quiet.
Raiku did not ask Dark to lower his voice.
Dark: And now there are people out there who died because I couldn't hold what I used. You saw that too.
Raiku: I did.
Dark's jaw tightened.
Dark: I want to speak to Shou.
Enra had come down behind Raiku.
He looked toward Lybel.
Lybel's gaze moved to Archanos.
For several seconds, none of them spoke.
Then they all looked at Raiku.
He watched Dark.
Dark: Don't tell me to rest.
Raiku: I wasn't going to.
Dark waited.
Raiku looked once toward Kenzo and Leona.
Then back at him.
Raiku: All right.
The capital disappeared.
Dark found himself standing in nothing.
There was no floor beneath his boots, but his weight remained. No stars. No distant light. No darkness with an edge he could follow.
The True Emperors stood around him.
Enra lowered himself first.
One knee touched what Dark could not see.
Larthax followed.
Lybel looked into the empty distance for a moment, then knelt. Archanos inclined his head and did the same.
Raiku remained standing beside Dark.
Dark looked from them to the emptiness.
Shou: Dark.
The voice came from no direction.
He did not feel it enter his ears. It was simply there, as clear as a person speaking beside him.
Dark's fingers tightened around Kyuketsu.
Dark: You know why I'm here.
Shou: I know.
Dark waited.
The silence continued.
Dark: That's all?
Shou: You have more to say.
Dark looked down at the blood on his hands.
Some of it had dried before the final attack.
Some had not.
Dark: People can do anything.
No one moved.
Dark: They can take a child. Hurt them for years. Kill someone who never even knew their name. Build an entire life out of what they took from other people.
His voice grew steadier as he spoke.
Dark: And sometimes nothing happens to them.
Shou remained silent.
Dark: They sleep. They eat. They get old. Someone cries at their grave. The people they ruined spend the rest of their lives carrying it, and the person who did it never has to feel a fucking thing.
Enra lifted his head slightly.
Dark looked into the nothing ahead of him.
Dark: Good people can spend everything they have trying to help. They can give up their safety, their homes, their lives. And sometimes that changes nothing either. No one comes. No one even remembers.
His grip tightened.
Dark: Gilmuar went down there because someone needed time.
Shou: I know what he chose.
Dark: Then you know what it cost him.
Shou: Yes.
Dark drew a breath through his nose.
Dark: Sereon said you all watched.
The emptiness offered no sign of a face.
Dark: He was using it. I know he was. He put a sword through my friend and then talked about everyone else's responsibility.
His mouth tightened.
Dark: But he didn't invent the part where you watched.
Shou: No.
Dark stared ahead.
He had expected denial. An explanation. Something so large and complicated that he would have to spend the rest of the conversation trying to understand it.
The answer was one word.
Dark: You know about all of it.
Shou: Yes.
Dark: Every place.
Shou: Yes.
Dark: Every person.
Shou: Yes.
Dark's eyes closed.
He saw the girl holding One's sleeve.
He saw places beyond the cutting surface where there would be no One returning.
Dark: Then fuck you.
Enra's gaze moved toward him.
Larthax turned his head.
Lybel looked up fully.
Archanos remained kneeling, but one corner of his mouth shifted.
Dark opened his eyes.
Dark: Don't look at me like that.
Enra: I am listening.
Dark faced the emptiness again.
Dark: I'm not asking you to give everyone a perfect life. I'm not asking you to make every good person rich or stop every argument before someone cries.
He lifted his bloodstained hand.
Dark: I'm asking why there can be nothing. Why someone can knowingly destroy a life and walk away with less pain than the person they did it to.
Shou: You stopped your sword before Sereon's neck.
Dark's hand lowered.
Shou: Beyond the battlefield, the attack continued.
Dark swallowed.
Dark: I know.
Shou: Many of those it reached were protecting others when they died.
The words entered him without force.
He had no way to push them back.
Dark: I know that now.
Shou: Would you place yourself outside the consequence you ask for?
Dark looked at the dried blood beneath his nails.
Then he lifted his head.
Dark: No.
Enra watched him.
Dark: I asked Varek how many people. He couldn't give me a number. I don't get to turn that into permission to stop asking.
Shou: And what would you have done if you had known?
Dark's mouth opened.
He could have said he would have stopped sooner.
He could have said he would never have used it.
Gilmuar had been dead. Sereon had been standing in front of him. He remembered the force gathering along Kyuketsu and how desperately he had wanted to make it enough.
Dark: I don't know.
The admission hurt more than the questions.
Dark: I want to tell you I would've stopped. I don't know.
Raiku looked at him.
Dark's hand shook.
Dark: That's why it can't depend on whether the person who did it feels like admitting it afterward.
For a while, nothing answered.
Then Enra spoke.
Enra: He has a point.
Dark turned toward him.
Enra remained on one knee.
Enra: Power permits too many of us to make the cost disappear from our own sight. It continues elsewhere. We call that order because it is quiet where we stand.
Lybel looked at him.
Enra's gaze stayed forward.
Enra: Dark's failure does not make that observation false.
Lybel let out a slow breath.
Lybel: I agree with part of it.
Dark stared at him.
Lybel noticed.
Lybel: Do not look so pleased. You should have understood your own attack.
Dark's expression hardened.
Dark: I'm not pleased.
Lybel faced the emptiness.
Lybel: There are beings who have mistaken the absence of resistance for acquittal. They have done it for so long that they no longer recognize a difference.
Archanos' small smile remained.
Archanos: A crown hath never made a clean hand of the one beneath it.
He glanced at Dark.
Archanos: Nor shall fury.
Dark nodded once.
Raiku had not moved.
He stood beside Dark with his hands relaxed at his sides.
He looked at the man's torn coat, the blood along his neck, the sword he had not put away because his fingers seemed to have forgotten how to release it.
There had been a human beneath all the changes.
There still was.
A human who had wanted enough strength to stop people being hurt in front of him. Who had reached farther than the life he began with should have allowed, then found another distance waiting.
Dark had not asked Raiku to make him stronger.
He had not asked to be excused.
He stood there wanting to change what lay beyond him, even with the evidence of his own failure drying on his hands.
A faint smile touched Raiku's mouth.
He looked ahead.
Raiku: He is correct in certain ways.
The others stayed silent.
Raiku: He has not understood everything he is asking to change. He has understood something that power makes easy to ignore.
Dark looked at him.
Raiku: Those are different things.
Shou did not answer immediately.
Dark could not tell how long the silence lasted. There was nothing around them by which to measure it.
Eventually, he spoke again.
Dark: If you're beyond everything, then this isn't something you couldn't see coming.
Shou: No.
Dark: If you can create all of it, end all of it, change what any of it means, then don't tell me this is the only way it can be.
Shou: I have not told you that.
Dark stepped forward.
There was no distance to shorten.
He did it anyway.
Dark: Then you don't deserve what you are.
Larthax's head turned.
Enra stayed still.
Dark's voice did not rise.
Dark: Having the power doesn't make you deserving of it. Being the first thing above everything else doesn't make everything below you acceptable.
Shou: What would make you deserving?
Dark looked down at Kyuketsu.
Slowly, he released the hilt.
The sword dissolved from his hand.
Dark: Doing better.
Shou: You have just seen what you can do while intending to.
Dark: Yes.
He lifted his eyes.
Dark: And I'm still going to try.
Raiku's expression softened by a fraction.
Dark: I'm going to become stronger than I am now. Then stronger than that. However far this goes.
He looked into the emptiness as though there were someone there he could force to meet his gaze.
Dark: Worlds. Spheres. Everything beyond them. I don't mean one country where my friends get to be safe while everyone else suffers somewhere I never look.
His voice roughened.
Dark: I mean all of it.
Shou listened.
Dark: And one day, I'm going to stand higher than you.
No one interrupted him.
Dark: When I get there, I'll still remember what it felt like to be the person underneath. I'll still want to fix it.
Shou: Remembering does not guarantee that.
Dark: Then I'll have people who remind me.
He thought of Leona telling him not to ask them to make it feel better.
Kenzo's hand on his coat.
Varek demanding all of the damage.
Dark: People who don't have to agree with me just because I can hurt them.
The silence returned.
Dark stood through it.
Then his shoulders lowered.
Dark: Until then, do something.
The words came more quietly.
Dark: Something small. Something they can't buy their way out of. Can't cut out of another person and make them carry instead.
Shou: What do you ask to remain with them?
Dark looked at his hands.
Dark: The truth of what they did.
Enra raised his head.
Dark: If someone chooses to hurt another person, let it belong to them. Even if nobody else finds out. Even if they get stronger. Even if they convince a whole world to call it right.
He drew a breath.
Dark: Don't let power make it never have happened to the one who chose it.
Shou: Even when that person is you.
Dark: Yes.
This time, the answer came without hesitation.
Dark: Especially if I ever try to say it shouldn't be.
Shou remained silent for a long while.
When the voice returned, it was unchanged.
Shou: Then deliberate harm will leave something that power alone cannot remove.
Dark did not move.
Shou: Not every injury is cruelty. Not every person who believes themselves righteous is innocent. The consequence will not depend on the names they give their acts.
Lybel's eyes narrowed slightly.
Shou: What they knowingly impose will remain with them. They may conceal it from others. They will not erase it by becoming too great to answer.
Dark's fingers curled.
Dark: And the people already carrying what was done to them?
Shou: This does not restore them.
Dark closed his eyes.
Shou: It does not return Gilmuar.
He opened them again.
Dark: I heard you.
Shou: Nor does it finish what you have said you intend to do.
Dark looked into the nothing.
Dark: I wasn't asking you to finish it for me.
For the first time, something like warmth entered the voice.
Shou: I know.
The emptiness changed.
There was no light to mark the change, no shape appearing within it.
Dark simply felt the place beginning to release him.
Shou spoke once more.
Shou: Keep the people who will tell you when you are wrong.
Dark thought of the ground waiting beneath the broken sky.
Dark: I have them.
The capital returned.
He stood where he had left it, with Raiku beside him and the True Emperors behind.
Kenzo still sat with Gilmuar across his arms.
Leona looked up.
Dark met her eyes.
She searched his face, then looked toward Raiku.
Leona: Did he answer?
Dark nodded.
Leona waited.
Dark looked at Gilmuar.
Dark: It doesn't bring him back.
Her gaze lowered.
Leona: I know.
Dark went to them.
For a while, he stood beside Kenzo without speaking.
Then he sat on the ground.
Kenzo did not look at him.
Beyond the preserved stone, the planet remained divided. Tier was working with Biru and Dantero to find somewhere the civilians could stand without another promise depending on damaged ground.
There would be names to learn.
Places to reach.
Damage Dark did not yet know how to face.
He stayed beside Kenzo.
After a long time, Kenzo spoke.
Kenzo: He asked you not to leave me alone.
Dark looked at the axe between them.
Dark: Yes.
Kenzo adjusted his brother's weight against his arms.
Dark remained where he was.
End of Arc 4 Chapter 20.