The world had gone silent — that strange kind of stillness that only arrives when two storms are about to collide.
A low hum vibrated through the ruins of Shambhala. Fragments of ancient stone floated in the air, suspended by some invisible current of tension. Aryan's boots ground against the cracked tiles, his shadow merging with the broken geometry of the courtyard. Across from him, Virak rolled his shoulders, dust sliding off his armor like shed skin. The air between them was thin, heavy — one breath away from rupture.
Then impact.
Virak lunged first — a thunderclap of motion. His fist tore through the space where Aryan had been a heartbeat ago, smashing into a marble pillar and shattering it into a cloud of shards. Aryan twisted, body coiled low, every movement precise, balanced, the strategist's rhythm already forming in his head — timing, trajectory, counter.
He drove a hook into Virak's ribs.
The sound — bone against steel, a dull crack swallowed by the ruin's vast emptiness. Virak grunted, staggered back a step, then grinned — that kind of grin that belonged to a predator that's just been cut and is more amused than wounded.
"You still dance like you're afraid to break something," he growled.
Aryan didn't respond. His breath came slow. Measured. He took a half step to the left, weight on his back foot, eyes locked — reading the tilt of Virak's shoulders, the shift in his hips, the subtle draw of air before the next attack. Virak charged again, each footfall pounding the earth like a war drum. Aryan ducked under a wide swing, pivoted, and slammed his elbow into Virak's spine.
Virak roared — twisted — caught Aryan's arm mid-strike and hurled him across the courtyard.
Stone dust exploded around Aryan as he rolled, using the impact to spring back to his feet. His right arm trembled from the shock, but his eyes — calm, calculating — hadn't lost focus. The strategist was dissecting the beast.
"Still fast," Virak spat, flexing his neck. "But not fast enough."
He lunged again, this time feinting low. Aryan anticipated the bait, but the follow-up was a brutal knee to the chest — air rushed out of him in a choked gasp. He stumbled back, coughed blood, and barely dodged the next strike, which crushed a slab of stone into dust.
Camera cuts — close-up on Aryan's breath, ragged; then to Virak's knuckles, raw and bleeding; then a wide sweep — the whole courtyard framed like a battlefield of ghosts. The moonlight burned pale across the broken floor, glinting off the streaks of blood and the scattering ash.
Virak's voice rumbled through the smoke. "You think your brother would've done better?"
Aryan froze — only for an instant, but it was enough. Virak slammed into him, a shoulder like a battering ram, sending him skidding across the floor. Aryan caught himself on a fractured step, exhaled sharply, fury barely leashed.
The silence after that sentence was heavier than any blow.
Aryan straightened, spit blood, and smiled — a cold, precise kind of smile. "You should've kept his name out of your mouth."
Then he charged.
This time there was no pause, no hesitation. The world blurred — feet scraped, arms locked, the sound of flesh striking flesh. Every blow carved the air; every dodge left echoes. Aryan drove his fists into Virak's abdomen, three quick hits — bam, bam, bam — then a rising knee. Virak countered with a brutal elbow to the temple, stars flaring behind Aryan's eyes. The two collided again — locked, struggling for leverage, muscles trembling, teeth gritted.
Stone cracked beneath their boots. Dust spiraled around them like smoke.
A slow-motion moment — Aryan's hand gripping Virak's arm, pulling him off balance; his knee rising into Virak's chest, Virak's fist finding Aryan's jaw at the same time. Both reeled back — both bleeding — both smiling.
The courtyard was no longer just ruins. It had become a memory battlefield — haunted by the ghosts of everyone they'd lost. The stones remembered blood. The wind carried echoes of Siddharth's laughter, faint and cruel in the distance of their minds.
They circled again. Breathing heavier now. Every second another war inside their chests.
And somewhere above, unseen, the air began to pulse — faint, rhythmic — like the heartbeat of something vast and waiting. Neither noticed it yet. That would come later.
For now, only two remained.
A strategist with a heart full of ghosts.
A monster who thought pain was proof of life.
Their next step shattered the world into motion again.
The rhythm of the fight had shifted — not toward balance, but toward revelation.
Every blow now carried something personal.
Virak swung with both hands clasped together, a hammer's strike that could crush a ribcage. Aryan ducked, slid on his knees through the grit, drove an open palm into Virak's sternum, and used the recoil to spin behind him. The strategist's movements were crisp — no wasted motion — each step tracing geometry on the floor, each strike an equation answered in flesh.
But Virak didn't fight with geometry.
He fought like wildfire.
He let the hits land — pain was just rhythm to him — and then returned double. His elbow caught Aryan's shoulder, dislocating it with a sickening snap. Aryan hissed, grabbed his arm, slammed it back into socket with a wince, and rolled forward to block the next strike with his forearm. The sound of bone meeting bone echoed like a gunshot.
Dust and sweat blurred together.
The ruins trembled again.
"You always wanted to save them," Virak said between swings, his voice almost conversational. "That orphanage… your sanctuary. Did you really think a few broken kids could change the world?"
Aryan's guard wavered for half a breath — just half — but it was enough for Virak to seize his throat and hurl him into a collapsed archway. Stone splintered. The strategist hit the ground hard, coughing blood, one hand pressed to his ribs.
Virak stalked forward through the haze, the moonlight catching on the scars across his jaw. "I saw their faces, Aryan. When the flames took them. You screamed so loud that day it almost sounded like music."
Aryan froze.
The words hit harder than any fist.
His breathing slowed — then deepened.
Not in fear. In control.
He rose again, posture straighter, shoulders back. There was no anger in his expression — not yet. Only stillness. His eyes, though — they burned with a cold, steady light.
"You talk too much," he said quietly.
Then he vanished — motion so fast it blurred. His heel caught Virak's jaw from the side — a perfect counterstrike, all precision and fury. Virak reeled, spat blood, laughed through cracked teeth, and swung wildly. Aryan blocked, countered with a backfist, ducked, pivoted — every move faster, sharper.
They were no longer exchanging blows; they were speaking in violence.
Every strike said something that words never could.
The earth beneath them began to fracture — subtle, at first, like stress lines in glass. Threads of faint golden light traced across the ground, pulsing with each heartbeat. Neither man noticed — not yet — the Aether was responding to emotion, bleeding through the cracks of control.
Aryan's mind drifted for half a second — a flash of memory: Siddharth standing in the orphanage courtyard, sunlight on his face, telling him that anger wasn't strength, that purpose was.
Then that same courtyard — burning.
Children's laughter turns into screams.
Virak's silhouette in the firelight.
He snapped back to the present with a sound between a breath and a growl. The golden light flickered again — brighter.
Virak caught it this time. He stepped back, wiping blood from his lip, eyes narrowing. "Oh. There it is," he muttered. "The spark."
Aryan didn't reply. His fists clenched; the Aether pulsed faintly around his knuckles, a whisper of energy outlining him like a ghost flame.
Virak smiled — cruel and triumphant. "Let's see if it burns bright enough to matter."
He surged forward — faster, heavier — a blur of muscle and intent. Aryan met him halfway. The air cracked like thunder as their fists collided — pure kinetic rage, raw Aether bleeding through the impact point.
The shockwave rippled outward — through the courtyard, through the broken towers, through the ash that had long since stopped falling. For a heartbeat, time itself seemed to hold its breath.
Camera pull-back — the entire battlefield framed in that frozen instant:
Two figures locked in collision, light and shadow bursting between them,
The ruins around them crumble into a storm of stone and memory.
Then, silence.
A slow exhale.
The faint hum of something ancient stirring beneath the surface.