PALKIA!" Akari's voice didn't just reach; it commanded. As Palkia fully stepped through the violet seam in reality, the suffocating weight of the timeline began to lift.
"Kishin, boost up—Swords Dance." I whispered. The Aegislash hummed, his blade glowing with a sharp, lethal violet aura. "We'll strike the joints. Akari, keep him pinned!"
"With pleasure!" Akari snarled. She raised a hand, her eyes locked on Origin Dialga. "Palkia! Spacial Rend!"
Palkia didn't roar; it simply swept a massive, pearlescent arm through the air. A blade of distorted space tore across the temple, slamming into Dialga's armored flank.
The god of time shrieked, its cobalt plates groaning as the sheer force of the spatial collapse forced it to its knees.
Now!
I dashed forward. My ribs were still screaming, but the burning rush of adrenaline had turned the pain into a dull, distant throb. As Dialga struggled to regain its footing, I moved in a blur. Kishin didn't just swing; he flowed.
Agile Style. Sacred Sword!
I delivered three rapid, pinpoint slashes to the gaps in Dialga's leg armor—small, biting attacks that didn't fell the god, but bit deep enough to draw glowing, temporal energy. Dialga lashed out with a Flash Cannon, but I didn't retreat.
"Kishin! King's Shield!"
The barrier flickered into existence. Instead of absorbing the hit, Kishin angled the pauldron, deflecting the beam harmlessly into the sky. The recoil of the blocked attack sent a surge of energy back into Kishin's blade.
"Palkia! Again!" Akari commanded.
The Pearl God shifted forward, its massive weight grounding the erratic time-glitches. It grabbed Dialga by its jagged crest, smashing it into the temple's ground, forcing its head down.
I didn't miss the opening. I vaulted off Palkia's leg, Kishin trailing a streak of ghostly fire behind me.
I drove the blade into the glowing crystal at Dialga's neck—not a killing blow, but a Strong Style, Spectral Draw.
The red aura of the Strong Style collided with the spectral violet of the Ghost energy, sending a violent shockwave rippling through the god's frame. The impact felt like hitting a mountain of solid diamond.
Dialga staggered, its Roar of Time fizzling in its throat as the sheer density of the strike disrupted its connection to the timeline.
For a moment, we had it.
The combined pressure of a god and a mortal swordsman had the Origin Form retreating, its cobalt armor cracked and its aura fading.
"We're winning," Akari breathed, her face lit up. "Corvin, we're actually—"
Then, the silence broke.
Dialga's eyes smoldered with rage. The air between the two gods tore apart.
The tide had turned, but the universe was screaming under the strain of two gods occupying the same sliver of reality.
Dialga was pinned, its front legs buckling under the crushing gravitational weight of Palkia's presence. I saw my opening—a jagged crack in the diamond-like plating of its chest.
"Now, Kishin! Give it everything!"
I lunged, my boots finding purchase on the slick, ancient stone. Kishin's blade didn't just glow; it roared with a spectral, violet flame that seemed to drink the surrounding light.
"SPECTRAL DRAW!"
Once more, I buried the tip of the blade into the fissure, and for a moment, I felt the heartbeat of time itself—a frantic, irregular thud against the steel. Dialga let out a sound that wasn't a roar, but a temporal shriek.
"PALKIA! SPACIAL REND! END THIS!" Akari's voice was a clarion call, her arm outstretched as if she were personally guiding the strike.
Palkia's shoulder pearls reached a blinding, white-hot intensity. It swept its arm down, the very fabric of the atmosphere parting before its claw like paper.
At the same moment, Dialga's chest crystal erupted with a desperate, final Roar of Time.
The two forces didn't just collide. They annihilated one another.
The point of impact was inches from where I stood. I saw the pearlescent wave of space meet the jagged, violet wall of time, and the result was a vacuum that turned the world void.
The color drained from the sky. The stones beneath my feet became translucent.
The collision erased reality.
As Dialga's Roar of Time smashed into Palkia's Spacial Rend, the laws of the universe simply gave up. The point where the two cosmic attacks met didn't explode—it imploded, tearing a jagged, violet hole in the very fabric of the Temple of Sinnoh.
The suction was instantaneous. It wasn't just wind; it was the vacuum of a void that shouldn't exist, pulling at my soul, my very existence.
"Akari!"
I saw her being dragged toward the rift, her boots skidding helplessly against the shattered stone. She was desperately reaching for the Origin Ball, her eyes wide with a terror I'd never seen before.
I didn't think. I threw myself, my broken ribs screaming as I threw my body between her and the singularity. I grabbed her shoulders.
And with guttural cry, using every ounce of my remaining strength, I hurled her back towards the stable stone of the temple.
For a heartbeat, we were inches apart. I saw the reflection of the dying rift in her eyes, and the matching Red Chain shard around my neck pulsed with a final, desperate heat.
Then the void claimed me.
"Corvin!"
The pull was absolute. I felt my feet leave the ground. I reached out, my fingers brushing against the cold steel of Kishin.
The Aegislash didn't hesitate—his cloth-like arm wrapped tight around my wrist, his spectral eye glowing with a determined, loyal violet as he was dragged into the dark with me.
The light of the temple began to shrink. The sky swallowed by a jagged, violet seam.
The last thing I saw was her—reaching for me.
Akari scrambling to her feet, her hand outstretched toward the void that was swallowing me whole. Her face was twisted in a mask of agonizing horror and grief, her voice tearing through the roar of the collapsing dimensions.
"CORVIN!"
Then, the jaws of the rift closed around me, and there was only the eternal, silent dark.