The dragon lowered its enormous head beside Kanji.
Their eyes met.
Kanji – "EVEN IF I HAVE TO DIE..."
Golden lightning erupted through every scale covering his armor.
The dragon answered with another impossible roar.
Kanji – "...I WILL AVENGE MY EXISTENCE!"
The heavens shook.
Kanji – "...MY TRUE FAMILY!"
Then...
Kanji – "POWER MODE..."
Kanji – "...FIVE HUNDRED TIMES!!"
The six-kilometer dragon opened its jaws.
Inside...
A sphere began forming.
Golden lightning compressed into itself over and over again until the resulting sphere exceeded even the dragon's own colossal body.
It continued growing without restraint, swallowing the surrounding sky beneath impossible radiance until its diameter rivaled one of Yggdrasil's greatest branches. Every nearby cloud evaporated. Mountains dozens of kilometers away crumbled beneath the accumulated pressure. The exclusion zone became brighter than noon despite the arrival of night.
The dragon lowered its head.
The sphere descended beside Kanji.
Kanji looked toward Enazumi.
The crimson figure remained perfectly still.
From every memory he had carried since childhood.
Kanji – "DIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
The dragon unleashed everything.
The impossible sphere surged across reality itself, dragging continents of atmosphere behind it while the earth collapsed beneath its passage. The attack occupied almost the entire visible horizon, a golden sun rolling directly toward Enazumi with enough condensed Yin to erase mountain ranges merely through proximity.
Inside Kanji's pocket...
A small crucifix rested quietly against his chest.
For a brief instant...
It caught the light.
Kanji felt warmth.
The sphere doubled.
Its already impossible dimensions expanded once more until the battlefield itself seemed far too small to contain what he had created.
Then...
Enazumi moved.
Less than a pentasecond passed.
No observer alive could have perceived what happened.
One instant the golden sphere consumed the world.
The next...
The heavens opened.
A razor-thin crimson arc stretched from earth into the infinite darkness beyond the atmosphere, carrying the entirety of Kanji's ultimate attack with it. The colossal golden dragon froze.
A single crimson line crossed its neck.
Silently.
Its immense body separated into two perfect halves before dissolving into countless particles of fading light.
Far beyond Earth's atmosphere...
The redirected sphere reached space.
The resulting explosion bloomed silently in the vacuum of space.
A golden flower of annihilation unfolded across the darkness, expanding until its diameter similar to the Moon before gradually fading into countless fragments of radiant dust visible from every continent beneath the night sky.
Back on Earth...
Silence.
Kanji's claw dissolved.
His legs finally surrendered.
He fell forward.
Every reserve inside his body had vanished.
The ground rushed toward him.
Then stopped.
Two arms caught him before he struck the shattered bedrock.
Kanji struggled to lift his head through blurred vision.
A familiar grin greeted him.
Wild.
Akashi supported Kanji's weight effortlessly while keeping his own eyes fixed entirely upon the crimson figure standing in the distance. Unlike Kanji's exhausted gaze, Akashi's expression carried something almost childlike.
Wonder.
He laughed quietly.
Akashi – "...You two really couldn't wait for me."
Kanji remained conscious.
Barely.
His breathing came in uneven, painful rhythm as blood continued dripping from the ruined remains of his armor. Yet despite every injury, despite the overwhelming defeat, despite seeing his greatest attack cast into space as though it had been nothing more than an inconvenience...
He smiled.
Kanji – "K-kill him for me!"
"Sure"
Akashi barely had enough time to lower Kanji carefully against a fractured slab of bedrock before the fight settled into silence.
Yet the instant Enazumi eyes settled completely upon the newcomer standing protectively before Kanji, something inside that composure shifted almost imperceptibly. sudden reopening of an old wound. His shoulders lowered ever so slightly beneath the burning crimson aura, his gaze lingering upon Akashi's face with a painful familiarity that seemed to transcend context.
Enazumi's lips parted slowly, though the words appeared reluctant to leave them, as if even speaking them aloud granted reality to something he desperately wished remained impossible.
His eyes wandered across Akashi's face, lingering upon details neither Kanji nor anyone else could possibly understand, before finally resting upon the unmistakable crimson glow beginning to awaken inside Omega. When he eventually spoke, his voice possessed none of the authority expected from the strongest Yin user alive. It sounded weary. Heavy. Almost frightened by its own conclusion.
Enazumi – "...Why are you here... son?"
For several long seconds, Akashi simply stared back without saying anything, genuinely convinced he had misunderstood what he had just heard. Then, almost comically, he lifted one hand and pointed directly toward himself.
Akashi – "Me? Your son?"
He scratched the back of his head while looking Enazumi up and down with exaggerated consideration, as though genuinely attempting to solve an unexpectedly amusing puzzle.
Akashi – "I mean..."
His smile widened.
Akashi – "...now that you mention it, we kind of do look alike."
Enazumi – "...This couldn't become any more painful... could it..."
Akashi's grin softened, though it never disappeared entirely. Unlike Kanji, who interpreted almost everything through years of accumulated suffering, Akashi viewed the world with a startling simplicity that often allowed him to understand emotions other people buried beneath.
He glanced briefly over his shoulder toward Kanji, noticing the exhausted young man still breathing despite every wound covering his body, before returning his attention toward Enazumi with an almost reassuring confidence.
Akashi – "Don't look so down."
He shrugged lightly, as though attempting to comfort someone after an awkward misunderstanding rather than preparing for the greatest battle of his life.
Akashi – "Kanji's still alive. He's stubborn enough to survive worse than this."
The warmth vanished from his voice almost immediately afterward. Excitement slowly occupied its place, that unmistakable hunger for growth awakening behind eyes whose irises gradually dissolved into absolute blackness while their centers ignited with brilliant crimson light.
Thin streams of red radiance escaped his pupils like focused beams cutting through the evening air, Omega responding instinctively to the overwhelming existence standing before it. The pressure surrounding Akashi increased without violence.
Akashi – "But if you think you're killing me today..."
His smile returned.
Broader.
More genuine than before.
Akashi – "...you couldn't be more wrong."
The instant those words left his mouth, Omega answered.
The black and crimson aura surrounding Akashi no longer erupted wildly as it once had during his battle against Kanji. It fused, folding endlessly.
The fractured ground beneath him imploded, Dust refused to settle.
Watching it from the ground, Kanji immediately recognized something, Omega was changing. Not growing stronger through another multiplier or another technique, but evolving naturally in response to Enazumi's existence.
Without another word, both vanished.
The collision that followed never reached human ears before its consequences reached the landscape itself.
A hemisphere of compressed atmosphere expanded outward from the point where crimson and black first met, flattening everything remaining within several kilometers, Yggdrasil's colossal roots shuddered beneath transmitted force powerful enough to echo through the enormous tree, while the clouds stretching across the Japanese sky split apart once again in perfectly circular formations extending far beyond the visible horizon.
The pressure released by that single exchange rivaled the detonation of the most destructive weapons humanity had ever conceived, yet neither combatant appeared remotely affected by it. Their bodies had already moved dozens of times before the expanding shockwave completed its journey across the exclusion zone.
Kanji forced trembling fingers deeper into the broken earth, every instinct screaming for him to remain where Akashi had left him. His body had already exhausted reserves no physician would have believed possible.
Still, he refused to remain lying down. Every collision unfolding overhead demanded witnesses, and despite the agony threatening to drag him back into unconsciousness, he slowly forced one knee beneath himself before pushing upward through nothing but stubborn determination. Around him, winds generated by the ongoing battle swept across the battlefield with such overwhelming violence that entire cliffs vanished into the horizon, while fragments of molten stone rained endlessly through the darkened sky like the remains of a dying world.
Even struggling merely to stand felt like resisting the aftermath of countless hydrogen detonations occurring simultaneously in every direction.
High above the shattered landscape, Akashi laughed.
Every punch he threw carried the exhilaration of someone discovering a universe larger than he had imagined possible.
Omega flowed naturally through every movement, the pure expression of his own existence. He darted between Enazumi's twin crimson blades with impossible recklessness, allowing strikes to pass so close they carved through strands of his hair before answering with punches whose shockwaves folded the atmosphere into visible rings expanding across the heavens. Every failed attack delighted him. Every successful exchange delighted him even more. Defeat had never frightened Akashi.
Standing before Enazumi guaranteed one thing above all else. There would be no stagnation today.
Enazumi answered every assault with flawless economy, his massive crimson blades tracing elegant arcs through the air while burning Yin continuously reshaped itself around his body like living fire. Yet despite the terrifying precision defining each counterattack, the sadness upon his face never disappeared.
He fought with the composure of a master whose body remembered countless centuries of battle, but his eyes belonged to someone mourning every strike, Whenever his blades met Akashi's fists, no satisfaction ever accompanied those exchanges. If Akashi climbed joyfully toward greater heights with every collision, Enazumi descended further into silent resignation, each movement carrying the weight of choices whose consequences had long since escaped his control.
At first, the difference between them remained unmistakable. Enazumi's strikes reached their mark first. His reactions remained cleaner. Every exchange ended with Akashi forced backward through kilometers of shattered terrain before immediately launching himself forward again.
The margin separating them was not overwhelming, perhaps twenty or thirty percent by Kanji's exhausted estimation, yet at this level that difference felt absolute. A single additional fraction of speed meant entire combinations landed uninterrupted. Slightly greater strength transformed successful blocks into devastating impacts that launched mountains of debris into the atmosphere. Experience favored Enazumi completely. He anticipated angles before Akashi fully committed to them.
Kanji noticed that this would prove to be wrong.
At first he believed exhaustion had begun distorting his perception, but the pattern repeated itself too consistently to ignore. Every exchange lasting more than a heartbeat ended differently from the one before it.
Akashi no longer flew backward quite as far. The time required for him to recover shortened almost imperceptibly. His punches, once intercepted cleanly by Enazumi's crimson blades, gradually forced subtle adjustments rather than effortless deflections. He began slipping through openings that had not existed only moments earlier, adapting not over hours of battle nor even minutes, but across individual exchanges. It resembled watching someone learn an entirely new martial art at the exact speed another person demonstrated it.
Enazumi recognized it as well.
His eyes narrowed as another exchange unfolded, only to find Akashi's fist arriving from an angle Omega had never attempted before. The strike connected against Enazumi's shoulder, not deeply enough to cause injury.
Watching from below, Kanji felt the full weight of that realization settle upon him. Throughout his journey he had believed growth demanded sacrifice. Endless training. Faith. Discipline. Defeat. Every step toward greater strength required time enough to transform the soul alongside the body. Akashi seemed untouched by those rules.
Battle itself became his teacher, every impossible opponent feeding Omega exactly what it hungered for. The stronger the enemy standing before him, the faster he evolved to meet them. Kanji could only watch, breathless, while the impossible unfolded overhead. The gap that had separated Akashi from Enazumi only moments earlier was still present.
But it was shrinking
Akashi's laughter gradually subsided.
He allowed the momentum of the previous collision to carry him backward through the devastated battlefield before gently planting both feet upon a massive fragment of exposed Yggdrasil root beside Kanji.
The landing generated another violent shockwave that swept away countless tons of dust, yet Akashi paid almost no attention to the destruction surrounding him. his gaze abandoned Enazumi entirely. Instead, he slowly lowered his eyes toward his own body, studying it with genuine curiosity. Blood dripped steadily from the corner of his mouth before falling onto the fractured earth beneath him, while the knuckles of his right hand had split open from repeated collisions against Enazumi's impossible defenses.
Tiny crimson drops rolled lazily across skin that, only minutes earlier, had appeared completely untouched. Rather than frustrating him, however, those injuries seemed to fascinate him.
He slowly lifted the bleeding hand before his face.
Flexed it once.
Twice.
He wiped the blood from his lips using the back of his wrist before quietly rubbing his injured knuckles together, almost as though confirming they truly belonged to him. Around him, Omega had not weakened in the slightest. Quite the opposite. Every heartbeat compressed greater and greater quantities of Yin into his body.
Kanji, still kneeling several meters away while desperately forcing himself back onto unsteady legs, watched in silence. He had seen Akashi smile countless times before.
It carried reverence.
Akashi slowly lifted his head toward the heavens, where the shredded clouds still drifted apart from the countless impacts exchanged throughout the battle. His voice rose with startling clarity, echoing across the exclusion zone.
Akashi – "YOU..."
Another breath.
His crimson eyes burned brighter.
Akashi – "WHO PROCLAIMS YOURSELF TO BE MY FATHER..."
Akashi – "YOU CAN ONLY BE CORRECT."
Wonderfully.
Akashi – "THAT'S THE ONLY EXPLANATION FOR THIS STRENGTH!"
He slowly lowered his hand before clenching it into a fist.
Blood flowed freely between his fingers.
Akashi – "THEN..."
His grin widened.
Akashi – "...I SHALL GIVE YOU..."
Akashi – "...EVERYTHING I HAVE."
Enazumi did not move.
He hesitated.
His sorrowful expression slowly transformed into genuine bewilderment as he watched Yin compress beyond logic.
That shouldn't be possible.
His crimson eyes narrowed.
...What could possibly exist above this...?
Akashi answered.
Quietly.
Almost joyfully.
The blackness flowing across his body spread like liquid night beneath his skin before erupting outward into countless intricate markings resembling living calligraphy carved directly into his muscles. Crimson veins illuminated those markings from within, each pulse resembling molten light racing through an endless labyrinth of impossible geometry. His hair, once merely dark, rose weightlessly around his head as though gravity itself had forgotten its purpose, while countless crimson embers drifted upward from his body despite there being no fire to create them.
4 Arms.
His eyes changed last.
The sclera vanished completely.
Only absolute darkness remained.
Within that darkness floated two perfectly circular crimson irises, brighter than any star visible above them, each surrounded by countless microscopic rings rotating continuously inward, like galaxies collapsing into singularities.
Nothing...
Nothing resembled this.
Behind Enazumi, the immense crimson dragon wings folded against his back suddenly expanded to their full span, each one stretching across the battlefield like burning banners woven from living flame. Crimson fire erupted violently.
Enazumi – "Light Mode..."
Enazumi – "...Three times."
The pressure doubled.
Then tripled.
He continued.
Enazumi – "Power Mode..."
Enazumi – "...Three times."
He felt it.
Pain.
Real pain.
The combined burden exceeded what even his own body naturally accepted.
Too much...
The realization crossed his mind immediately.
Even for me...
Yet alongside that pain...
Power.
His body accelerated with such overwhelming violence that every layer of atmosphere between himself and Akashi ignited into a continuous corridor of crimson light. Millions of times faster than light, he crossed the land before the expanding shockwave of his own movement had even begun catching up behind him. One fist, reinforced by both Light and Power simultaneously, drove directly toward Akashi's chest with enough concentrated force to threaten everything standing beyond it.
Kanji never saw the punch.
Akashi raised one hand.
The pressure stopped.
The crimson inferno surrounding Enazumi detonated outward in every direction, carving enormous valleys through the exclusion zone while Yggdrasil's nearest roots bent violently beneath the expanding force. Yet at the exact center of that impossible destruction...
Akashi hadn't moved.
Not even a single step.
He simply stood there, one hand wrapped firmly around the fist that moments earlier had carried enough force to overwhelm even Kanji's greatest attacks.
His smile never disappeared.