Kagetori's charge, interrupted by the poisonous whisper of the "Eye of the Storm," became the turning point. Thrown back by the blow, he didn't rise immediately. He knelt, his chest heaving heavily, but the storm in his golden eyes subsided, replaced by a bottomless, polar silence. He raised his head and looked at Pseudo-Sorato.
And didn't see a friend. He saw a shell. A puppet jerking on invisible strings, desecrating the memory of who he had been. The burning, all-consuming rage evaporated, leaving behind only steel resolve. He would no longer strike the flesh. He would cut the strings themselves.
He rose. His aura changed. It no longer pulsed with wild power. It compressed, became sharper, more focused, like a blade held to a throat.
Pseudo-Sorato straightened up, rubbing his jaw. Something new sloshed in his violet eyes—not sorrow, but irritated, predatory interest.
"Finally cooled down?" his voice was sweet and poisonous again. "A pity. It was amusing to watch you thrash about."
Kagetori didn't answer. He moved forward. His attacks became different. He wasn't trying to break the defense. His strikes, fast and sharp, were aimed not at the body, but at the energy nodes around it, at the points where the Organizer's will must connect with the vessel. He used techniques no one knew—"Silent Rupture," "Whisper of Disembodiment." They didn't deal physical damage, but made Pseudo-Sorato's body jerk in unnatural convulsions, and for a moment, a mask of pure pain not belonging to Sorato appeared on his face.
The Organizer understood his game was exposed. And his response was vile. He didn't intensify the assault. He began to dig in the dirt.
Pseudo-Sorato retreated, and his techniques changed. He unleashed the "Curse of Rotten Longing"—a technique that didn't burn but injected the victim's mind with their darkest doubts and fears. He applied the "Dance of Defiled Memories," creating fleeting, distorted illusions of their past battles where Sorato looked betrayed and slandered.
"He believed in you until the end, Reiden," Pseudo-Sorato hissed hoarsely, dodging a slashing palm strike. "And you killed him. For what? For this pathetic world?"
Kagetori remained silent, his face a stone mask. But his attacks lost their surgical precision for a fraction of a second. Poison dripped through his defenses.
And then Pseudo-Sorato played his trump card. He stopped, his defenses weakening for an instant. His violet eyes filled not with alien intellect, but with familiar, bottomless pain and a plea. His lips moved, and the voice, the real, tormented voice of Sorato, broke through:
"Help... Re... den..."
It lasted one heartbeat. But it was enough.
Kagetori froze. His icy concentration cracked. Unbearable suffering flickered in his eyes; an old, unhealed wound was torn open anew. He gasped, staggering back, and his defenses collapsed.
Pseudo-Sorato immediately seized the opportunity. A blow saturated with the "Scar of Betrayal" plunged into Kagetori's chest, throwing him back with the crunch of breaking ribs. Pain, this time physical and deafening, pierced him.
He collapsed to his knees, blood gushing from his lips. He saw the triumphant smirk on the ghost's face. Saw him raising "Yami-No-Hara" for the final strike.
At this rate... I won't prevail... flashed through his clouded mind. He plays dirty... Then... I don't need precision. I need absolute, overwhelming force. Force that will sweep away any trick.
He raised his head. Blood streamed down his chin, but fire burned in his eyes again. Not rage. Acceptance.
"Kokuro: Storm of the Torn Sky!"
This wasn't summoning a storm. It was an awakening. A golden light, a thousand times brighter and fiercer than before, consumed him. His muscles tensed but didn't grow in size—they became denser, as if forged from solar alloy. Living lightning patterns crawled across his skin, and his golden eyes shone so brightly it was impossible to look at them. He didn't hover in the air. He simply was—an embodied earthquake clothed in flesh.
He vanished. Not with speed, but as a fact. He was already standing before Pseudo-Sorato. His first strike was a simple straight punch to the chest. No technique, just pure, unrefined might. Pseudo-Sorato barely managed to bring up "Yami-No-Hara." The blade absorbed part of the force, but the remainder of the blow hurled him across the entire clearing like a splinter.
Kagetori gave him no time to recover. He was everywhere. His blows rained down, each with the roar of real thunder. He left behind golden glowing trails, and the entire colony trembled with his steps. He dominated. Absolutely. Ruthlessly. Pseudo-Sorato parried, "Yami-No-Hara" absorbed techniques, but against this pure, untamed might, it was like an umbrella in a hurricane. He couldn't keep up, couldn't predict. His sophisticated techniques crumbled before they could form under the pressure of this tempest.
And then Kagetori decided to end it. He stepped back, raised his hand, and golden energy condensed in his palm, taking the form of a dragon's head made of pure light and thunder.
"Authority of the Thunder Dragon."
He didn't throw it. He didn't attack. He declared.
The Authority of the Thunder Dragon was a technique of a different order. It didn't attack the target in the present. It proclaimed a fact from the future: "The strike has already landed." It didn't matter where the target would dodge or how it would defend—it was predetermined. The only defense was possessing a force capable of canceling an already occurred fact.
Pseudo-Sorato, feeling the inevitability, leaped back, created a dozen barriers, tried to dissolve into space. It didn't matter.
The strike came from nowhere. The golden dragon appeared not before him, but inside his defenses, born from the very fact of his existence. A blinding flash consumed him, and a deafening roar echoed, mixing thunder and fury.
When the light dissipated, Pseudo-Sorato was on one knee. His dark purple kimono was torn to shreds, revealing a body covered in bruises and contusions. His face was smeared with blood from a split brow, and he breathed heavily, with a wheeze. "Yami-No-Hara" lay in the dust beside him, its glow dimmed.
He raised his head. His violet eyes, full of hatred and a strange, almost professional admiration, stared at Kagetori.
"Reiden Kagetori..." his voice was hoarse but held an icy sneer. "The strongest magus..."
His body began to lose form, blurring like an ink stain in water.
"Expect our next meeting."
And he dematerialized, leaving behind only a vortex of dark energy and a sinister promise hanging in the colony's heated air.