Akashi never celebrated the moment he gained the advantage.
There existed no triumphant declaration, no arrogant laughter.
The Asura State had become Akashi's natural state of existence, Four powerful arms moved with absolute independence while remaining perfectly synchronized, each one carrying its own rhythm, each one reading the differently. Two intercepted. One redirected. One attacked. None competed with the others. It resembled observing four masters inhabiting the same body.
Enazumi immediately understood the danger. Akashi no longer met those techniques as the same opponent who had stood before him only moments earlier.
Every movement Enazumi revealed became another piece of information Omega consumed with frightening efficiency before returning a more refined answer. Akashi adapt.
His evolution occurred simultaneously with observation, as though each strike rewritten reality just enough for the next strike to belong to someone stronger. The twenty or thirty percent difference that had separated them only minutes before dissolved rapidly beneath a exponential growth curve.
Enazumi's crimson blades became rivers of light flowing through impossible trajectories, tracing elegant circles capable of redirecting enough force to split mountains apart.
Every feint concealed another layer of intent beneath it, every defensive posture naturally becoming another offensive sequence before ordinary perception could distinguish where one movement ended and another began.
Yet Akashi continued finding answers hidden inside questions, One upper pair of arms absorbed the momentum of a descending strike while the lower pair rotated beneath it, transforming the redirected force into another attack before Enazumi had even recovered his stance.
Kanji remained frozen despite finally regaining enough strength to stand. His legs trembled violently beneath the accumulated injuries, but he no longer noticed the pain. Every instinct inside him focused entirely upon the impossible spectacle unfolding above.
He had always believed there existed a summit where technique reached perfection, where growth naturally slowed close to the peak. Akashi erased that belief before his eyes. There seemed to exist no ceiling above him. Every second spent fighting Enazumi simply revealed another horizon waiting beyond the last.
Recognizing that conventional methods no longer sufficed, Enazumi abandoned the elegant restraint that had characterized his swordsmanship. Crimson Yin flooded outward in enormous spirals before condensing high above the battlefield into a colossal war hammer whose head stretched nearly a kilometer across, every surface engraved with ancient patterns glowing like molten iron fresh from a divine forge.
The atmosphere bent beneath its impossible weight long before it began descending, and behind that weapon another manifestation emerged. The crimson dragon answered once again, though no longer as a body waiting to fuse with its master. It appeared only as an immense aura coiling around the hammer itself, its enormous tail striking the weapon with majestic force. The impact multiplied its momentum, transforming the falling hammer into a fragment of the heavens collapsing toward the earth.
Akashi looked upward.
The four arms slowly came together.
Every fragment of Omega converging into one forward fist while the remaining three stabilized the unimaginable pressure flowing through his body. The Asura State reached a quiet harmony.
When Akashi finally stepped forward, the motion carried astonishing simplicity. One punch rose to meet the descending hammer.
The collision illuminated the night.
The crimson construct fractured from its center outward in perfectly symmetrical lines before dissolving into countless fragments of fading light, the dragon aura dispersing with it as though the concept sustaining both manifestations had simply never existed. The shockwave continued climbing through the atmosphere, scattering clouds across half the visible sky before disappearing into the darkness beyond.
Yet the true impact had never been aimed at the hammer.
Akashi's fist completed its path.
It stopped against Enazumi's chest.
Nothing visible happened.
Enazumi's body remained standing.
The sorrow that had rested quietly within his eyes throughout the entire battle suddenly surfaced without restraint, as though a door sealed for decades had quietly opened.
He had reached the place where Enazumi had hidden himself from his own grief.
The strongest Yin user in history slowly descended from the sky.
He landed upon the shattered earth with remarkable gentleness, knees touching fractured stone before his hands followed almost absentmindedly. Tears escaped both eyes in steady silence, tracing clean paths through the ash covering his face. Strangely, his expression did not resemble sorrow. It had become almost empty, as though the emotions themselves had drained away while the tears continued falling out of habit.
Kanji watched in complete silence.
Slowly, one careful step at a time, Kanji began walking across the ruined battlefield toward Enazumi, every footfall carrying the weight of questions.
Kanji walked.
The air still trembled beneath lingering currents of Yin, Entire mountains surrounding Yggdrasil had been carved away, and enormous roots of the World Tree lay exposed beneath kilometers of shattered earth. Every few seconds another delayed shockwave echoed somewhere beyond the horizon as fragments of collapsing cliffs finally surrendered to gravity.
Yet none of it reached Kanji anymore. His hearing had become strangely selective, leaving only the steady rhythm of his own footsteps and the solitary figure kneeling ahead. Every memory, every wound, every unanswered prayer compressed into that single destination. Nothing else existed.
Akashi quietly watched him pass.
The overwhelming pressure surrounding him had almost completely disappeared. The four additional arms dissolved into black particles drifting harmlessly into the evening wind while the terrifying crimson light inside his eyes gradually softened until only faint traces remained beneath ordinary pupils.
His breathing stayed calm despite the fight that had happen. As Kanji reached his side, Akashi extended one hand and rested it gently upon the younger man's shoulder. The gesture contained neither command nor consolation. It was simply acknowledgement.
Akashi – "He's yours now."
A brief silence settled between them.
Akashi's gaze never left Enazumi.
Akashi – "Do whatever you think you need to."
His voice remained quiet.
Almost detached.
Akashi – "I really don't care."
Kanji stopped only long enough to glance sideways.
Their eyes met.
Within that single moment, gratitude required no words. Relief mixed with respect in a way Kanji had never expected to feel toward another person. Had Akashi not arrived, this fight would already have become his grave.
Whatever happened now existed only because someone else had chosen to stand beside him without demanding anything in return. Kanji lowered his head ever so slightly before continuing forward. It was the closest thing to thanks his exhausted body still possessed.
Enazumi remained where he had fallen.
His knees rested upon the fractured earth while both hands hung loosely before him, fingers relaxed, head lowered so deeply that his face disappeared beneath loose strands of dark hair. From a distance, he no longer resembled the overwhelming being who had moments earlier commanded dragons and shattered mountains. Instead, he looked almost like someone kneeling in prayer before an unseen altar. The tears had stopped, though the faint trails they left across his face remained visible beneath the ash. His breathing continued steadily. His body had not surrendered.
Kanji stopped directly before him.
Several long seconds passed.
Neither spoke.
The wind alone moved between them.
Finally...
Kanji's voice emerged.
trembling.
Kanji – "Look up."
Enazumi obeyed.
Slowly.
The instant their eyes met...
Kanji struck.
His fist connected squarely against Enazumi's face with every fragment of strength still remaining inside his ruined body. The impact echoed, yet Enazumi never moved. His head turned slightly from the force before naturally returning to its original position. Kanji struck again. Then again. Every blow carried years of grief, but the man before him remained almost impossibly still. It was not resistance born from pride. Nor defiance. His body simply refused to yield, held upright by strength.
Kanji continued punching.
His knuckles split open.
Blood stained the front of Enazumi's clothing.
Still...
Nothing changed.
Each impact only deepened the silence surrounding them.
Kanji – "WHY?!"
Another punch.
Kanji – "WHY, GOD?!"
Another.
His voice broke beneath years of restrained suffering.
Kanji – "WHY DID EVERYTHING HAVE TO END LIKE THIS?!"
countless memories rushed forward with unbearable clarity. Maru smiling beneath the afternoon sun. Her hand resting quietly within his own. Two children laughing as they chased a football across an ordinary field, A small home filled with voices that had once convinced him peace could become permanent. Every image carried warmth. Every image ended the same way. They disappeared, leaving only the man standing motionless before him.
Yet...
Every instinct inside Kanji screamed that Enazumi had orchestrated every tragedy leading to this moment.
He had admitted it.
He had accepted responsibility.
So why...
Why did his face no longer resemble that of a victor?
Why did he look like someone mourning alongside him?
The contradiction tore at Kanji more violently than hatred itself.
His fist rose once more.
This time...
Enazumi moved.
He shifted barely half a step before driving his forehead gently but decisively into Kanji's abdomen. The impact stole every remaining breath from Kanji's lungs, sending him stumbling backward across broken stone.
His exhausted body nearly collapsed entirely before stubbornness alone forced him upright once again. He coughed violently, blood staining his lips, yet his eyes never left Enazumi.
Light gathered instinctively within his trembling hand.
No conscious technique.
No elaborate preparation.
Only one final expression of the conviction that had carried him this far.
A blade of pure golden light formed along his arm, brilliant enough to illuminate the darkness surrounding them.
Kanji's tears flowed freely now.
Without restraint.
He no longer knew whether they belonged to hatred, grief, relief, or all three at once.
With a cry that seemed to tear itself from the deepest part of his soul, he surged forward one final time.
The battlefield flashed with gold.
Then...
Silence returned.
When the light faded, Enazumi's body remained standing for the briefest of moments before slowly losing its balance. The luminous blade had passed cleanly through him in a single decisive arc, ending the battle without spectacle. His form gently separated as the remaining crimson aura dissolved into countless fading embers that drifted upward like fireflies disappearing into the night. There was no explosion. No triumphant roar. Only the quiet conclusion of a life.
Kanji stood frozen.
The blade dissolved from his hand.
He stared ahead as though unable to recognize what his own eyes had witnessed.
For several endless seconds, nothing inside him moved.
A broken cry echoed across the devastated landscape while tears scattered behind him like rain. He climbed only until the last fragments of strength abandoned him, his body finally surrendering beneath wounds that should have claimed him long ago. Gravity reclaimed him gently, and he fell back toward the earth, striking the shattered ground with little more than a dull sound.
His lips moved.
Barely.
Kanji – "...I... did it..."
A long breath.
Kanji – "...for you..."
Another.
Almost inaudible.
Kanji – "...Maru..."
Akashi remained exactly where he had stood throughout the entire exchange.
He watched the fallen Kanji with empathy, The wind carried away the last remnants of crimson and gold alike, leaving only the silence of an ending.
Then...
Another presence entered the place.
A man
He appeared to be no older than his early thirties, dressed in an ordinary black business suit whose loosened tie swayed gently beneath the quiet evening wind.
His short dark hair remained untouched despite the destruction surrounding him, while faint stubble framed an otherwise unremarkable face that would have disappeared effortlessly within any crowded street. Only his eyes refused to belong to the rest of him. They were impossibly dark, almost hollow, carrying the unsettling impression that no light wished to remain inside them for long.
His hands rested comfortably inside his pockets as he looked down toward Enazumi's body, neither sadness nor satisfaction visible anywhere upon his expression.
Akashi immediately noticed him.
Every instinct sharpened.
Neither spoke.
The stranger never acknowledged Kanji.
Never acknowledged Akashi.
Never even looked toward either of them.
His attention remained fixed entirely upon Enazumi.
Several seconds passed beneath complete silence.
Then...
Without warning...
Both disappeared.
The place where Enazumi's body had rested simply became empty, as though neither he nor the silent man had ever occupied that portion of reality to begin with. No flash followed. No ripple spread across the battlefield. Even the fractured dust lying beneath them remained perfectly undisturbed, preserving no footprint, no lingering energy, not even the faintest suggestion that two people had vanished.
Akashi remained perfectly still.
His eyes slowly wandered across the empty ground.
Then farther outward.
Nothing.
He walked toward the exact place where the stranger had stood, every step slower than the last. Upon arriving, he crouched carefully, placing one hand against the broken bedrock.
No residual Yin.
It was...
clean.
He slowly lifted his gaze toward the endless branches of Yggdrasil stretching across the heavens before continuing farther still, toward the stars hanging silently beyond them.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
Akashi – "...This world..."
The wind gently moved through his hair.
His crimson eyes gradually returned to normal.
Akashi – "...is far more complex than I ever imagined."
He continued staring upward.