Kairo's figure landed with both feet onto the Titan's arm. But because of the moving Titan, he fell left and right, unable to keep his movement straight.
"I have spent an entire life trying to free them from their own deception, but they would never listen. This wasn't my fault. I had to take away their choice." Selis waved as she spoke, her left arm went into her hair almost aggressively. "Magnus took away your freedom from the very day you were born. I couldn't allow them to do the same with me. You more than anyone should understand something so simple."
"My father did make some choices for me. But does that mean he took away my freedom? Even if it was the case, so what?"
Kairo replied, buckling his fist to the point where veins could be seen on his neck. "You might believe I wasn't given choice, but you're wrong, Selis. It was the natural course of things for me to enter the card mage police knowing who my father was. In that sense, it looks like I never had the choice from the moment I was born. But you're far from the real truth. I might have been naturally guided into the card mage police. But I was the one who chose." Kairo pointed at her. The protector armor igniting with sparkles of lightning. "I was the one who chose to stay."
Then he was gone. Leaving behind him an arc of thunder in the sky. In that brief instant, Kairo finally pushed the power of fusion cards to its peak. Combining the durability of the Protector with the speed of the ember sky. Unlocking its full power for the very first time.
"Die, you fool." Selis waved outward, her chains coiling and singing a chorus of anger around her. They swept and slammed forward. While the Titan of Ortega lifted its free arm, slamming above to seal his path.
Kairo's heart rose and fell, the very scene slowing down. The anger in Selis's expression became clear. Slayer blocking the descent of Nyx from above even more. The Titan's arm changing course of direction alone as if it had received a different order.
"Now I will give you the choice, Selis. The choice to end all of this. The choice that you have never been given. The choice to be free."
Kairo stretched the protector armor, carving its way along the chorus of singing chains that slammed one into his arm one after another. With every impact, the protector armor trembled, his entire frame turned into a moving firework. Marks drawn on his exposed frame. The protector armor, which had been indestructible until now, started having faint cracks with each impact, letting faint parts of it dust away.
Yet Kairo could see nothing more than his target. His palm clasped around her coat and then the duo fell forward. The moment the ground sank beneath them, there was a shockwave of energy that spread all over the coliseum and this time.
Carrying with it all the effects of the Monarch Rule. One after another, the card mages stopped on their track. Some falling to their knees. Others already unconscious, moving slightly.
In the settling dust, Kairo could be seen still in a holding position above Selis, who now lay in the crater, a faint trace of blood in the corner of her lips. "This shall not end like this. Not like this. I refuse to be defeated by someone like you. I refuse, I refuse." Selis beat her fist again, aiming at Kairo's fist, causing it to tilt left and right in quick succession.
Each impact held barely any strength. But Kairo let her be. The blood in his mouth accumulating. The persona of the grade six criminal had fully cracked in that instant. For all of them to see. As the crowd was slowly regaining their consciousness, Selis screamed once more. "Listen to this last order, my friends. Listen to the Monarch Rule. One last time. Take Mirelle's life."
Before Kairo could react, he saw the circuitry of the void spread below Selis, coming to life as if it had been summoned by a card. But there was no card active around her. Kairo's eyes flashed wide open. "The mage awakening," he gasped in shock. Shifting his attention to the side, still holding Selis on the ground.
Among all the card mages that had been freed, Ortega was the last whose magic had not disappeared. The Titan around him clasped almost instinctively after Selis's order. Coiling around Mirelle's unguarded figure. In its titanic frame, the figure of Mirelle was crushed into its unforgiving grip.
"Slayer!" Kairo screamed, his voice echoing with fear like he had never shown before. His very being pleaded in his vocal cords, but Slayer stood motionless in the void. "I told you, Kairo. I can only protect the Deck of Origin. This is the only thing my abilities can be used against."
"Someone do something!" Kairo's voice thundered in the coliseum once more. But none of them could move. Felix and Sam were unconscious. Danzan and Card Zero had been left far behind. Fabian was paralyzed, exhausted from overusing his aura. It wasn't the lack of sympathy that held them in place but the simple fact that they had given it all and could not use card magic anymore.
"Do something!" Kairo had tears trickling down his face. His heart debated. Letting Selis go and saving his mother, or keeping her in place and letting Ortega complete the last request of the Monarch Rule. "You say I am a hypocrite to control people while asking for freedom. Are you not a hypocrite too, Kairo? You claim your friends and family are more important than the mission. Is that really who you are, or does it depend on who is on the other side of the guillotine?" Selis's face was distorted with delight. It wasn't that of someone who had accepted her era was gone, but that of someone who wanted to prove she was right till the very end.
"Kairo, it doesn't make you weak, my son. You have to stay strong for the greater good of everyone. This is who you are. That's why you wear the protector armor with so much efficiency. Never forget it. My... son..." Mirelle's voice was dying with every word she gave out. Her motherly love sparing the last ray of love she could to Kairo, her eyes slowly closing down.
"Mother, please!" Kairo screamed to the point where his vocal cords hurt. Hands slowly releasing and trembling around Selis's frame. "I..." Kairo's lips trembled, about to say something.
A pair of wings flapped in the sky. Rising like a brasier fighting to reach the sky. The figure curved and shot out. Its descent mimicking the falling comet from the sky. Sword held in both hands, it traced open the space and swung downward.
The Titan's arm was sliced into two. The swing so powerful that the figure continued downward, the sword ending its course deep into the coliseum ground. The impact curved and blew the entire area around them, sending massive debris of rocks flying like leaves in the sky. And amidst the broken shards and the shocked faces.
Nyx's eyes lost all form of life as she stumbled forward.
"How... how? She couldn't move. She has no more aura..." Selis's lips moved up and down, unable to form fully comprehensible phrases. Kairo's eyes were dull, reframed shadows. In them, a depth of blood so deep it leaked out of his aura.
"Kairo, you shouldn't do that," Fabian dragged his body in their direction. Worry edged on his face.
"Yes, Kairo, stop before it's too late." The other card mage officers continued. "Kairo, please stop." Sorel and the others joined too.
But Kairo's fist was floating dangerously above Selis's face. Cracking with the lightning of the ember sky. In those upending lights was the volatile desire for blood that animated him at the moment.