"When the body of a king moves without the will of the king, the throne is no longer a seat of power. It is a prison."
— Ancient Heavenly Proverb
The Plains of Eternity had forgotten how to breathe.
The armies were already gone, forced back by the King's earlier command, their footsteps fading into the distant corridors of Heaven. The soldiers who had marched to witness civil war now fled to their dormitories, carrying with them the memory of a single word that had stopped history itself.
Only the gods remained.
Fire.
Water.
Earth.
Wind.
Kaito.
Daniel.
Knowledge.
And Kanetaro.
Or what had once been Kanetaro.
His right arm hung before him, black from shoulder to fingertip, no longer flesh in any way Heaven understood. Jagged markings crawled across it like ancient curses written by living shadow. His fingers had lengthened into clawed points, and the white-violet aura that once surrounded him now recoiled from that arm as though terrified to touch it.
Knowledge stood motionless.
His cracked monocle reflected the darkness.
"Yami…" he whispered.
The name did not echo.
It sank.
Fire's jaw tightened. His flames gathered again around his fists, though they burned lower now, their crimson edges stained by faint black threads.
"So that's the thing hiding inside our King?" Fire growled.
Water's gaze sharpened. "Do not provoke it."
Fire ignored him.
He stepped forward.
"I don't care what ancient ghost wears his skin. If it stands in front of me—"
Kanetaro's head turned.
No.
Not Kanetaro.
The movement was wrong.
Too smooth.
Too empty.
His eyes settled upon Fire, and for one terrible moment, the battlefield seemed to darken around that gaze.
Fire stopped speaking.
Yami moved.
There was no burst of speed. No crack of thunder. No flash of energy.
One moment, he stood near the throne.
The next, his shadow-black hand covered Fire's face.
Fire's body froze.
Yami held him by the head as though the Fire God weighed nothing at all. His clawed fingers pressed over Fire's eyes, nose, and mouth, swallowing his features beneath blackened divine flesh.
Flames exploded from Fire's body on instinct.
They wrapped around Yami's arm, roaring with enough heat to melt celestial stone.
Yami did not release him.
The flames darkened.
Not extinguished.
Corrupted.
Black spread through the crimson like ink bleeding through water.
Fire's hands shot up, gripping Yami's wrist, trying to pull free. His boots carved trenches into the sacred stone as he struggled.
Yami tilted his head.
A voice came from Kanetaro's mouth.
Low.
Hollow.
Ancient.
"Small flame."
Fire screamed behind the hand covering his face.
Earth surged forward, hammer raised.
Water formed blades instantly.
Wind disappeared into the gaps between motion.
Knowledge slammed his staff into the ground.
"FLEE!"
The command cracked across the battlefield like divine judgment.
All four gods froze.
Knowledge's voice lost every trace of amusement.
"All of thee! Away from this field! Now!"
Earth's eyes widened. "Knowledge—"
"Now!" Knowledge roared.
The old god lifted his staff. Bronze gears unfolded around him, spinning violently, forming a circular sigil beneath Yami's feet. For a fraction of a second, the shadow holding Fire flickered.
Fire dropped.
He hit the ground hard, gasping, one hand pressed to his face. Black marks crawled across his cheek where Yami's fingers had touched him, smoking faintly.
Water moved first, grabbing Fire by the arm and dragging him back.
Earth hesitated only once before stepping between them and Yami, then retreating with heavy, reluctant steps.
Wind reappeared beside Water, her usual calm gone. Her fingers trembled.
"There are no gaps around him," she whispered.
Knowledge did not look away from Yami.
"That is why thou must run."
Water's eyes narrowed, but he obeyed. He pulled Fire back. Earth followed. Wind vanished into silent motion, retreating toward the fractured horizon.
Only Kaito and Daniel remained.
Knowledge sensed them before he turned.
"Didst thou not hear me?"
Daniel adjusted his hat, though his hand was shaking. "He's our friend."
Kaito lifted his spear. "He is my brother."
Knowledge's expression hardened with grief.
"Then stay behind me," he said quietly. "And pray thou never needest move."
Yami lifted his arm slowly.
The black markings spread from his shoulder across Kanetaro's chest. Midnight veins crawled beneath his armor, cracking the royal blue plates. His left eye remained bright with Sky energy for a moment, fighting, trembling.
Then it darkened.
Kanetaro's body arched.
A sound escaped his throat.
Not a scream.
A growl from something buried before Heaven learned to speak.
Shadow spilled from his back like torn wings.
The transformation did not complete fully, but it was enough.
Yami had control.
Knowledge raised his staff.
The gears around its head rotated with frantic precision.
"Kanetaro," he said softly. "If any part of thee heareth me…"
Yami smiled.
It was Kanetaro's face.
That made it worse.
"Your student is beneath silence."
Then Yami attacked.
Knowledge barely raised his staff in time.
A black blade formed from Yami's arm and struck downward. The impact rang across the empty plains, sending a shockwave through the sacred stone. Knowledge slid back several meters, sandals carving twin lines into the ground.
Kaito's eyes widened.
Daniel's hand went to his revolver.
Knowledge lifted one hand sharply.
"Do not interfere!"
Yami vanished into shadow.
Knowledge spun, staff raised behind him.
The next strike landed against the clockwork staff with enough force to fracture the air. A crack spread down the golden wood.
Knowledge's gaze sharpened.
"Already cracking? Most discourteous."
Yami pressed harder.
Shadow crawled along the staff, trying to devour the gears.
Knowledge twisted the weapon and struck the ground.
"Chronos Sutra: Reversed Second."
Time buckled.
For one heartbeat, Yami's attack rewound three steps.
Knowledge moved through that stolen instant, appearing beside Yami and striking his chest with two fingers.
A bronze sigil flashed.
"Sleep."
The sigil sank into Kanetaro's armor.
For a fraction of a second, the darkness paused.
Then Yami looked down at it.
The sigil turned black.
It shattered.
Knowledge's eyes narrowed.
Yami grabbed him by the robe and hurled him across the battlefield.
Knowledge struck the ground, rolled once, and landed on one knee. Blood touched his lip. He wiped it away with a faint sigh.
"Thou art as unpleasant as old scripture suggested."
Yami extended his hand.
The air screamed.
A wave of shadow-energy tore forward, not cutting space, but hollowing it. Wherever it passed, sound vanished. Light vanished. The runes beneath the battlefield dimmed as if forgetting their purpose.
Knowledge planted his staff before him.
"Archive Wall."
Pages of glowing scripture burst from the air, forming layered barriers of gold and bronze. The shadow wave crashed into them, devouring one page after another.
Knowledge pushed forward, teeth clenched.
The last barrier shattered.
The wave struck his staff.
Crack.
The sound was small.
But Kaito heard it.
A deep fracture ran from the head of Knowledge's staff halfway down the shaft.
"Master…" Kaito whispered.
Knowledge did not turn.
"Remain where thou art."
Yami stepped forward.
With each step, Kanetaro's body changed further. His fingers sharpened. His armor blackened. The Sky aura still flickered around him, but now it looked trapped, like lightning inside a sealed jar.
Knowledge attacked first.
He moved faster than thought, appearing above Yami with his staff raised.
"Wheel of Ten Thousand Lessons."
Bronze gears erupted around Yami from every direction, each engraved with symbols of forgotten techniques. Blades of light, chains of logic, and seals of memory descended together.
Yami lifted his demonic arm.
The gears stopped.
Not all at once.
One by one.
As though a shadow had entered their mechanisms.
Then they reversed.
Knowledge's own technique turned against him.
His eyes widened.
He twisted midair, dodging the first gear, deflecting the second, breaking the third with his staff. The fourth struck his shoulder. The fifth cut across his side.
He landed heavily.
Yami appeared before him instantly.
Knowledge raised the staff.
Yami punched it.
Crack.
The fracture spread further.
Another punch.
Crack.
A third.
The clockwork head bent.
Knowledge staggered back, blood now running down his temple. Still, his face remained calm.
Too calm.
Yami tilted his head. "You refuse to harm the vessel."
Knowledge inhaled slowly.
"A teacher doth not shatter his student to defeat the lesson."
"Then lose."
Yami's shadow spread beneath them.
Hands rose from the darkness, hundreds of them, clawed and silent. They seized Knowledge's ankles, wrists, robe, staff. He slammed the butt of his weapon down, gears spinning wildly.
"Chronos Sutra: Moment Divide."
The world split into fragments of time.
For Daniel and Kaito, the battlefield became impossible to follow. Knowledge appeared in twenty places at once, each version striking, sealing, dodging, calculating. Yami stood at the center, surrounded by echoes of the old god.
For a moment, Knowledge gained ground.
A seal struck Yami's shoulder.
Another struck his chest.
A third reached Kanetaro's forehead.
Yami's body stiffened.
Kaito stepped forward. "It's working."
Daniel's eyes narrowed. "No…"
The seals turned black.
Yami broke them by breathing.
A pulse of primordial shadow exploded outward.
Every time-fragment shattered.
Knowledge flew backward, crashing through the throne Kanetaro had summoned earlier. White crystal and gold splintered around him.
His staff struck the ground beside him.
It was nearly broken now.
The entire shaft was cracked from top to bottom, held together only by thin lines of bronze light. The gears at its head spun unevenly, some missing teeth, others jammed beneath shadow stains.
Knowledge pushed himself up slowly.
His robe was torn. Blood darkened one sleeve. His breathing was no longer steady.
Yami walked toward him.
Kaito lifted his spear, golden light blazing.
Daniel drew both revolvers.
Knowledge turned his head just enough to look at them.
"Do not."
Kaito's voice broke. "He'll kill you."
Knowledge smiled faintly.
"Aye."
Daniel's jaw tightened. "That is not funny, old man."
"Humor," Knowledge whispered, forcing himself upright, "is most valuable when least appropriate."
Yami stopped.
His demonic arm rose.
Above his palm, energy began to gather.
Not pure darkness.
Not Sky power.
Both.
A corrupted star formed in his hand, black at its center, white-violet at its edges. The air folded inward around it. The sacred runes beneath the battlefield cracked one after another, unable to endure the pressure.
Knowledge raised his broken staff.
The staff trembled.
Another crack split through it.
The bronze gears sparked.
Kaito and Daniel both moved.
This time Knowledge did not stop them with words.
He stopped them with a barrier.
A wall of clockwork light rose between them and the battlefield.
Kaito slammed his fist against it. "Master!"
Daniel fired three lunar rounds into the barrier. They vanished harmlessly.
Knowledge stood alone before Yami.
Injured.
Exhausted.
Staff breaking.
Yami's blast grew brighter.
Larger.
Hungrier.
Knowledge looked up at Kanetaro's face and smiled with unbearable sadness.
"Forgive me, child," he whispered. "I have not yet found the answer."
Yami's fingers curled.
The blast reached completion.
And then—
Far away from the Plains of Eternity, deep beneath the Verdant Hall, within the ancient cave known as the Old Roots, Mother Nature stopped breathing.
She had been standing before the petrified arch, her hand hovering near the place where Heaven's oldest memory had first awakened. The roots around her had been silent for hours, listening to something she could not yet name.
Then she felt it.
Kanetaro.
Not outside.
Not on the battlefield.
Here.
Inside the Old Roots.
Mother Nature's eyes widened.
"My child?"
The roots beneath her feet pulsed faintly.
A thread of sky-blue light moved through them, thin and weak, like a heartbeat carried through soil.
Then another presence crashed across her senses from far above.
Yami.
Mother Nature staggered.
For one impossible moment, she felt both.
Yami outside.
Kanetaro inside.
Her face paled.
"No…"
She turned and ran deeper into the cave.
Roots shifted aside for her, opening paths that had not existed moments before. Ancient vines uncoiled from the ceiling. The petrified walls glowed with faint blue veins, guiding her toward the source of the presence.
The deeper she went, the stronger Kanetaro's signal became.
Not physical.
Spiritual.
A spark.
She entered a chamber hidden beneath the Old Roots, a place round and silent, its walls woven with living wood and ancient crystal. At its center floated a small sphere of sky-blue light.
The Sky Spark.
Inside it, faint and flickering, stood the shape of Kanetaro.
Not the king from the battlefield.
Not the shadow wearing his body.
Her child.
His form was translucent, cracked with lines of white and black energy, but his eyes were still his.
Mother Nature stepped forward slowly.
"Kanetaro…"
The figure inside the spark lifted his head.
His voice reached her not through air, but through the roots themselves.
"Mother."
The word nearly broke her.
She reached toward the spark, but stopped before touching it.
"What happened to you?" she whispered. "Why do I feel Yami wearing your body?"
Kanetaro's expression darkened.
The Sky Spark trembled.
"I tried to keep him sealed."
Mother Nature's eyes sharpened. "Yami?"
Kanetaro nodded faintly.
"But while I was mastering my techniques…"
His gaze lowered.
"…Elyndor came."
The Old Roots grew silent.
Even the ancient cave seemed to listen.
Mother Nature took one slow breath.
"Show me."
Kanetaro closed his eyes.
The Sky Spark cracked open with a soft pulse of blue light.
"Then watch carefully, Mother."
His voice became heavy.
"This is where I lost myself."
The roots around them darkened.
The chamber dissolved.
And the memory began.