The darkness held for one heartbeat.
*THOOM—*
Then it caught fire.
Black fire—shadow braided with the stolen heart of a dead god—rose from Sunny's chest in slow, spiral coils. It did not consume.
It claimed.
The cavern that once held the dying star lay empty now.
Shattered chains drifted like broken halos.
Light was gone.
Only two figures remained.
Nephis stood ten meters away, wings of living flame unfurled to their full, terrible span. Her eyes burned—not with wrath, but with grief sharpened into purpose.
Sunny stood opposite her—one-armed, coatless, chest aglow with three interlocked flames: white, gold, black.
A second heart.
A burden.
A choice.
Silence stretched.
The kind that exists the moment before a universe ends.
Then Nephis moved.
Not with violence.
With sorrow.
She raised her hand.
*CHHHHNNNNGG—*
A coronation made of dying divinity:
The Crown of Dawn formed above her palm—reconstructed from the broken chains, whole once more. Seven rays of divine metal, glowing with the last pure light of the star she had tended for four centuries.
She offered it to him.
"Wear it," she said.
Her voice was soft as falling ash.
"One last time. For me."
Sunny stared at the crown.
At her.
He shook his head.
"No."
The word was quiet.
It hit her like a blade.
Nephis's fingers trembled.
The crown flickered.
"You would rather let it all burn?" she asked.
"I would rather let it be free."
Her smile broke—clean, complete.
The first true break in four hundred years.
"Then you leave me no choice."
She placed the crown on her own head.
The top floor answered.
*FWOOOOOOOM—!!*
White fire erupted outward in a perfect expanding sphere—warm, gentle, absolute.
It rushed toward him.
Sunny didn't move.
The fire struck—
*B A N G—!!*
—and stopped.
A wall of black shadow rose at his feet, solid as memory, ancient as night.
White flame met black shadow.
They did not mix.
They did not yield.
They held.
Nephis's eyes narrowed, the air around her distorting with heat.
"You took my star," she said softly. "You think that makes you its master?"
Sunny's shadow thickened around him like armor.
"I took your burden," he answered. "I'm done letting you carry it alone."
The flames pressed harder.
The shadows pushed back.
*KRK—KRK—KRK—*
Red stone split beneath their feet, fractures spreading in clean, geometric lines.
Then came words.
Not spoken.
Ripped.
Every accusation they had buried.
Every regret unspoken.
Every truth they refused to look at.
They became weapons.
Dual Combat: Words as Blades, Truth as Flame
Nephis struck first.
"You left me to die."
Her words condensed into a lance of white fire, sharp enough to shear eternity.
*SHHHHRRAAACK—!!*
It pierced Sunny's shadow wall—
—and him.
Chest to spine.
He staggered back, breath torn from his throat.
Blood—black, gold, and white—hit the floor in slow, heavy droplets.
Sunny stood.
Answered.
"You asked me to live."
His words became a blade of pure shadow.
*KRRRRRSH—!!*
It sliced through Nephis's armor, her chest, and the bone-skeleton throne fused behind her.
A line of molten light opened down her sternum.
She did not flinch.
"You lied when I asked you to stand with me."
Another lance.
Another burst of white flame.
*FWAAAASH—!!*
It took his remaining arm.
He fell to one knee, breath shaking.
Sunny responded.
"You burned yourself to save a world that hated you."
His shadow cut again.
*SKRITCH—!!*
It severed her left wing at the root.
Flame sprayed like arterial blood.
They kept going.
Every word a wound.
Every wound a truth.
Every truth a catastrophe.
"You watched me burn and did nothing."
"You forgave me before I ever asked."
"You carried my flame for four centuries and never once said thank you."
"You waited four hundred years to offer me peace at the price of everything else."
*RUMMMMBLLLLE—*
The top floor cracked wide open—slabs of red stone falling upward into the bleeding sky like reversed gravity.
The throne exploded behind her.
White fire burst into the air like dying stars.
Shadow cracked under his feet like black lightning.
The battlefield existed in three layers—
body, flame, memory—
each one killing them in different ways.
When the Fighting Became the Truth
Nephis stepped through the swirling storm.
Sunny rose to meet her.
They met in the center.
No weapons.
No magic.
Only fists.
Only truth.
She struck first.
Open palm.
Direct to his chest—
right where the merged flames burned.
*KRA-KOOM—!!*
A sun-blast detonated through him.
He answered.
Fist to her sternum—
shadow laced with god-fire erupting on impact.
*BOOOOM—!!*
A shockwave split the air.
They did not fall.
They held.
Locked together.
Equal.
Opposite.
Fire poured into him.
Shadow poured into her.
Their flames braided in the air, twisting into spirals of impossible color—white, gold, black, grey.
The Spire screamed.
Cracks spider-webbed outward in perfect circles, as though reality were shattering on a symmetrical blueprint.
Nephis leaned forward until their foreheads touched.
Her breath trembled.
Her voice was raw.
Human.
Ancient.
"I hate you," she whispered.
Sunny swallowed.
Did not look away.
"I know."
"I love you."
His voice cracked—
the first time in centuries.
"I know."
The flames roared higher.
The shadows pressed deeper.
The top floor split in half, collapsing into impossible directions.
And they stood on its breaking edge—
holding each other up.
Breaking each other apart.
Saving each other in all the wrong ways.
Neither let go.
Neither yielded.
The war of fire and shadow became something else—
something unshaped, unnamed, terrifying, necessary.
Something neither of them had ever allowed themselves to imagine.