The seventh floor was nothing.
A perfect sphere of white void.
No up.
No down.
No walls.
No horizon.
Only light—clean, merciless, absolute.
Sunny stepped off the staircase into it.
Nephis followed three paces behind, wings folded, expression unreadable.
SFX: THUMP—pulse of light expanding
The light pulsed once.
Then he was there.
The young man from the throne.
No longer a child.
Twenty-five. Twenty-seven, maybe.
Silver threading the black hair at his temples.
Eyes the same silver Sunny had once worn—before centuries of killing had turned them black.
He wore the black coat Sunny had taken the throne in.
Only pristine.
No blood.
No tears.
No scars.
He stood ten meters away, fists clenched.
Light bled from the edges of his silhouette like a star trying not to explode.
"You were supposed to fix things," he cracked across the void like a whip.
"Not crawl back into the same fucking cage!"
The words hit harder than any blow.
The young man stepped forward.
Light fractured around him, splitting into blades.
"I waited," he snarled.
"Four hundred years I kept your throne warm.
I watched the world heal.
I forgave every sin you were too cowardly to forgive yourself for.
And the moment it gets hard… you run straight back to her?"
He pointed at Nephis without looking.
Sunny's shadow stirred—restless, guilty.
"I'm trying to end this," he said, voice rough.
"By kneeling?" the young man shouted.
"By letting her burn everything again?
You think dying with her makes you clean?
You think joining her pyre fixes anything?"
Another step.
The void cracked beneath his foot.
Light poured through the fracture like molten glass.
"You promised me," he said, quieter now.
Worse for it.
"You promised you'd come back and get me.
And you did.
And now you're throwing it away."
Sunny's backwards fingers flexed.
"I'm not—"
"You are."
No warning.
One heartbeat, he was ten meters away.
The next, inside Sunny's guard.
Fist traveling faster than memory.
Sunny barely blocked—shadow arm crossing his chest.
Impact detonated.
White light met black shadow.
The void shattered.
SFX: CRASH—VOID FRACTURE
They were in free fall through a storm of broken reality.
Shards of floor spun around them—glass, starlight, shattered stars—blizzards of destruction.
The young man fought like Sunny had never allowed himself to fight:
No hesitation.
No mercy.
No lies.
Every strike—perfect. Economical. Brutal. Honest.
A knee to ribs cracked bone and sent Sunny spinning through the void.
An elbow to the temple burst his vision into white.
A palm strike to the sternum stopped his heart for one terrifying second.
Sunny answered with everything left.
Shadow exploded into seven colossal arms, each wearing a screaming face of the Cohort.
They wrapped the young man.
Crushed. Tore.
He shattered them like smoke.
Light poured from Sunny's fists.
From his eyes.
From his mouth.
He fought with the fury of every year the First Nightmare had trapped him.
With the grief of every time he had chosen survival over love.
With the rage of the child saved—only to watch his savior walk back into hell.
A punch tore the skin from Sunny's cheek to the bone.
He answered with a shadow blade, carving black fire across the young man's chest.
They bled starlight—silver and black intertwining.
Beautiful.
Terrible.
The fight destroyed half the floor.
Islands of white light shattered into dust.
Rivers of liquid starfire tore through the void.
Reality screamed as it tried—and failed—to contain them.
They fought until there was nothing left to destroy.
Until they were two broken things floating in a sea of light and shadow.
Until neither could lift a fist.
They hung there. Inches apart.
Breathing hard.
The young man's coat shredded.
His face bruised, bleeding silver.
Sunny was worse—half his shadow gone. Ribs stove in. Backwards fingers shattered.
The young man spoke first.
Voice raw.
"I will not let you do this."
Sunny tasted starlight and blood.
"I have to end it."
"Then end her. Not yourself."
Silence.
Then the young man reached out—slow, trembling.
Pressed his forehead to Sunny's.
"If you sit on her pyre," he whispered,
"I will drag you off it myself."
Sunny felt something cold and vast open inside his chest.
Fear.
Not of death.
Not of Nephis.
Of him.
Of the part of himself he had saved.
The part that stayed pure.
The part that had kept the throne.
The part that forgave him when no one else could.
For the first time in four centuries, Sunny was genuinely afraid of someone he loved.
The young man pulled back.
Light wrapped around him like wings.
He looked at Sunny one last time—angry, heartbroken, proud.
Then he was gone.
SFX: WHOOM—VOID RESTORED
The void healed.
The seventh floor rebuilt itself around Sunny—clean, white, empty.
Nephis stood at the far edge. Watching. Silent.
A staircase opened.
Sunny floated toward it, bleeding starlight.
He did not look back.
But he felt the warning burning in his chest like a second heart:
"If you sit on her pyre, I will drag you off it myself."
He was afraid.
For the first time in four hundred years, he wasn't sure who would win.