Rudra and Sparda sat back on the edge of the overlook, sipping their drinks in easy silence while ignoring the absolute carnage tearing through the grounds below.
Sparda paused mid-sip, his sharp gaze catching a flash of motion amidst the chaotic melee. Down in the thick of it, a battered boy was weaving through incoming strikes with surprising fluidity, parrying heavy swings with a combat knife before planting a heavy pistol shot directly into a hulking, humanoid dragon.
"That kid fights remarkably well for his age," Sparda remarked, casually swirling the liquid in his glass.
Rudra took a long gulp, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and squinted down at the battlefield. "Who?"
"The one down there," Sparda said, pointing toward Romeo. "He has genuine potential. Smooth footwork, sharp instincts... he just lacks battlefield experience."
A broad, mischievous smirk spread across Rudra's face. "Well, of course he's good. Look who trained him."
Sparda turned his head slowly, raising a single, skeptical eyebrow. "And I suppose that master would be you?"
"Wow!" Rudra gasped, clutching his chest with theatrical wonder. "How could you possibly tell?!"
Choosing silence over feeding the boy's ego, Sparda let out a quiet, tired sigh and simply returned to his drink.
Rudra, however, turned toward the brawl and waved energetically. "Romeo! Over here!"
Romeo barely dodged a razor-sharp claw, glanced up, and froze. Catching sight of Rudra lounging alongside a white-haired stranger, his eyes lit up with instant relief. "Master! Help me out here!"
"You're doing fantastic, my boy!" Rudra called back cheerfully, ignoring the plea entirely. "Keep it up! You're making me proud!"
"I'm not asking for compliments, I'm asking for help!" Romeo yelled back, ducking beneath a swinging tail.
"Show those lizards what a servant—" Rudra caught himself, his grin widening, "—I mean, a disciple of Rudra can do!"
"Servant?" Romeo snapped, his head snapping toward them. "You almost said servant!"
He opened his mouth to scream at his master, but a heavy swipe forced him into a hard combat roll across the floor. Gritting his teeth, Romeo drove the barrel of his heavy pistol beneath the creature's lower jaw and pulled the trigger, shattering its skull in a burst of sparks and ash.
He landed heavily on his feet, panting as the dragon's corpse collapsed into dust behind him. Wiping a streak of grime from his forehead, Romeo holstered his gun and glared up at the balcony.
"Nonsense! A mere slip of the tongue, my brilliant pupil!" Rudra laughed off the accusation, taking another long swig from his tankard. "And look at that technique! Pure grace under pressure. See, Sparda? My mentorship works wonders."
Sparda set his glass down with a soft, deliberate tap, his gaze shifting from the bruised boy to Rudra. "If by mentorship you mean sitting on your hands while he bleeds, then yes. Truly stunning execution."
"It was a combat assessment, Sparda! A vital lesson in self-reliance," Rudra replied smoothly, leaning back with a grand, sweeping gesture. He turned to the boy, his voice dripping with pride. "And you passed, Romeo. With flying colors!"
"I'm bleeding from three different places!" Romeo barked, pressing a hand against his ribs.
"Minor details," Rudra waved a hand dismissively. "It builds character."
Sparda offered the exhausted young fighter a quiet, approving nod. "Ignore him, kid. Your footwork was sharp, and your reaction time kept you alive. Keep refining that, and you'll outgrow your 'master' in no time."
Romeo blinked, caught off guard by the stranger's calm, measured praise. He glanced between the two men before settling a narrow-eyed glare back on Rudra. "Who is this guy? At least he knows what real effort looks like."
"Oh, just a fellow connoisseur of fine drinks and unnecessary violence," Rudra chuckled, giving Sparda a firm clap on the shoulder. "Now, since you're done playing with the local wildlife, run over to the bar and grab us another round. A growing boy needs the exercise!"
"A bar?" Romeo muttered, looking around at the shattered stonework and burning debris of the ruined city. He let out a weary sigh, grumbling under his breath as he turned away. "I swear, one day I'm gonna kill him..." He paused, kicking a piece of rubble out of his path. "Now where in hell am I supposed to find an open bar in the middle of all this?"
Back on the ledge, Sparda and Rudra slipped right back into quiet peace, sipping their drinks as the chaotic brawl raged on below.
Suddenly, a crisp, metallic chime echoed directly inside Rudra's mind.
'I apologize for interrupting, Host,' the System's voice resonated gently. 'However, I believe you are forgetting something important.'
Rudra pressed two fingers to his temple, his brow furrowing as he racked his brain. A second later, his eyes widened with sudden realization.
Without a word, he wove a quick hand seal. With a soft pop, an identical clone materialized right beside him. The clone gave Rudra a silent, knowing nod before instantly bursting into a swirling vortex of black crows, scattering into the sky.
Sparda tracked a stray feather as it drifted past his nose, casting a look of mild, silent confusion toward Rudra. After a brief pause, he simply shrugged, raised his glass, and took another slow, unbothered gulp.
____
On the far side of the city, Ultear sat among the crumbling ruins, her eyes fixed on the distant shadows of battle. As the wind swept through the debris, tears tracked silently down her dust-stained cheeks.
A single, terrifying thought consumed her: to stop this tragedy before it began, she had been prepared to murder Rogue—someone who was, right now, completely innocent.
"Even after everything…" she whispered, her voice trembling. "After leaving the Council, after turning my back on the dark guilds… nothing has changed."
Natsu's words echoed in her mind, sharp and unforgiving: He hasn't done anything yet. He's innocent.
She buried her face in her hands as the weight of it crushed her. She had wanted to save people, to atone, to prove she was no longer a monster. Yet here she was, contemplating the cold-blooded murder of a child just to rewrite a future that hadn't even happened. Her entire life felt like a farce—an endless cycle of sin disguised as good intentions.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze toward the giant clock tower in the distance. Its second hand ticked forward with unyielding precision, carrying the world toward ruin.
Then, a sudden stillness washed over her. A final, quiet realization took root.
If she couldn't redeem her past, she could at least buy them a future.
"If I reverse it…" she breathed, a fragile sense of peace touching her shattered heart. "If I turn back the clock to before the gate opened... none of this happens. Rogue stays innocent. No one dies."
She closed her eyes, letting the cold wind bite against her skin as her decision hardened into absolute resolve.
"If my life couldn't earn forgiveness," she whispered into the empty air, "let my end buy their tomorrow. It's the only way to wash these hands clean."
The magic hummed through her body, demanding her vitality as payment to tear open the seams of time.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Ultear."
The voice came from directly behind her—calm, steady, and unbothered by the surrounding carnage.
Ultear froze. The spell flickered in her palms, but she didn't turn around. She couldn't bring herself to face him.
"Are you going to stop me, Rudra?" she asked, her voice barely carrying over the wind.
Rudra stepped up beside her, his gaze sweeping lazily over the chaotic sky before settling on her face. "It's pointless. Trying to reverse time at the cost of your life won't fix what you think it will."
Ultear's throat tightened. "It's all I have left! The only way I can atone for everything I've done... for all my mistakes. Is it so wrong to want to fix them?"
"Wanting to fix them isn't wrong," Rudra said softly. "But even if you give up every second of your future right now... you'll only turn back time by a single minute."
The magic in her hands sputtered, dying down to a faint glow. Ultear went dead silent, the words hitting harder than any physical blow.
"One minute?" Her voice cracked, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. "So that's all my life is worth? A single minute?"
"That isn't what I meant," Rudra said, placing a firm, grounding hand on her shoulder. "Your life isn't a currency to burn out of guilt. There are better ways to make up for the past than dying for it. Live, Ultear. Fight to fix things tomorrow."
Ultear stared down at her trembling hands. Disbelief clashed with a stubborn, desperate resolve, but her silence made her answer clear—she wasn't ready to yield.
Rudra sighed, reading the grief etched into her face. "If you get your minute... will you stop? Will you promise me you won't throw your life away after that?"
Her lips trembled before she gave a slow, barely perceptible nod. "I promise."
"Good enough."
Before she could question him, the roar of the battlefield cut out. Floating dust motes froze in mid-air, and the wind died instantly as the world ground to a sudden halt.
Reality snapped backward. Above them, the giant clock spun violently in reverse, ticking back thirty seconds... forty... fifty... until it shuddered to a stop at exactly one minute.
Time slammed back into motion.
"There," Rudra said casually beside her, unbothered by the temporal shift. "There's your minute. Now don't go doing anything stupid."
Ultear spun around to face him—and the breath caught in her throat.
Rudra stood with his arms casually crossed, completely relaxed, save for a single thin line of blood trickling down his right cheek from his Mangekyō Sharingan. His left eye, a pale purple Rinnegan, remained calm and untouched.
Panic surged through her, sweeping away her lingering despair. Scrambling forward, Ultear cupped his face in both hands, her eyes wide with worry.
"Rudra! Your eye—it's bleeding!" Her voice trembled as she gently wiped the crimson streak away. "Are you okay?! What did you just do?"
Rudra didn't flinch. He just blinked slowly and offered a mild, nonchalant shrug.
"It's fine. A visual jutsu on this scale just strains the right eye a bit—nothing to panic about," he said, taking her wrists and gently easing her hands down. "You got your minute, Ultear. A promise is a promise."
Before she could demand a real answer, his body dispersed with a sharp pop, leaving behind nothing but a fading cloud of white smoke.
Ultear stood alone in the quiet clearing, staring at the empty space where his shadow clone had been. Looking up at the sky, her hands still carried his warmth, and the heavy, suffocating urge to die was finally gone.
Miles away, the real Rudra lowered his drink. A sharp, sudden ache throbbed behind his right socket, and a single droplet of blood welled up in his Mangekyō Sharingan, trailing down his cheek.
Beside him, resting a massive sword against his shoulder with a bottle in hand, Sparda tilted his head. He watched the crimson drop fall before turning his gaze toward the horizon, where time itself had briefly shuddered.
"Reversing time... that was your doing, wasn't it?" Sparda asked, taking a quiet sip.
Rudra reached up, casually wiping the blood away with the back of his hand. "Yeah."
Sparda smirked, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Altering the flow of time isn't a light matter. Are you sure that was a wise choice? Tampering with the timeline tends to draw unwanted eyes."
"It was worth it," Rudra replied, staring at his stained knuckles.
Inwardly, he knew the truth: if he hadn't stepped in with Jikan no Kami, Ultear would have traded her entire existence for that single minute. Out loud, he just offered a nonchalant shrug.
"Besides, hardly anyone will even notice. To most, it'll just feel like a fleeting moment of déjà vu—a bad dream they can't quite place."
True to his word, across the continent, millions blinked in sudden confusion, shaking off a lingering chill. But for the wizards fighting on the dragon-ravaged battlefield, that single stolen minute changed everything. Fatal strikes were dodged, desperate parries landed, and lives meant to end were saved in an instant.
Sparda took another quiet drink, sensing the sudden shift in fate. "Well then... I have nothing more to say."
A violent BOOM rattled the earth beneath them as a pillar of magic erupted into the sky from the Eclipse Gate.
Rudra's eyes narrowed as the shockwave whipped past. "Looks like it's time."
He turned toward Sparda. The Dark Knight's form was fading, glowing with a soft, golden warmth as light began to fragment from his edges.
Sparda let out a low, satisfied hum, looking down at his fading hands.
"It was good meeting you..." Rudra paused, a faint smile touching his lips. "...grandfather. Or great-grandfather. Honestly, I've lost track."
Sparda burst into a hearty laugh, the sound carrying over the wind.
"Me too, kid," he replied, his voice full of quiet pride. "Me too."
With a final smile, Sparda dissolved into glowing embers, scattering on the breeze and leaving Rudra alone to face the coming storm.