The air was thick with the scent of pulverized stone and burnt energy, the final, desperate struggle playing out in a ruin where a palace once stood.
Rorisang shouts, her voice amplified and distorted by the corruption of Sparta's power. Her black eyes locking onto Hakuna, who is struggling against the chains. "Hakuna Ntlamele, if I can't have you, no one can! This ends now, and my revenge is complete!"
"Huh?" Nolitha muttered, still reeling from the explosion and the sheer brutality of Rorisang's renewed onslaught.
"What? What is she planning?" Super stammers from the cage, his voice weak.
Rorisang, now moving at a speed that transcended simple velocity, flew toward Hakuna, her intent absolute. The Energy Saber forming on her right arm was a wicked, unstable blade of focused dark energy, guaranteed to sever the Prince's life force instantly.
"NOO!" Nolitha yells, the sound trapped in the temporal distortion. She knows, with absolute certainty, that she cannot get to Rorisang in time to block the attack.
Hakuna, chained and completely immobilized by the energy-sapping restraints, looked over to Super, offering a brief, almost serene smile—a final acknowledgment of their bond, an acceptance of his fate.
He then looked over to Nolitha, but his expression suddenly shifted to alarm. "Wait, where is she? She was yards away a millisecond ago." His mind struggled to process the spatial anomaly.
Nolitha had used her activated Divine Energy to warp space, jumping instantly in front of Hakuna. She faced him, her back now precisely aligned with Rorisang's incoming blade. She looked into his eyes; he looked into hers, and in that instant, the world stopped.
Everything moved slower and slower, the dust motes freezing mid-air, the sound of Rorisang's charging shriek fading to a silent, endless hiss, until it could not move anymore. Time was entirely still, held captive by the shared, symbiotic power of the Royal Tie, their destiny-bound connection.
All was frozen, but the two of them were able to speak to one another mentally, the complex exchange of a lifetime communicated without anything but a glance.[1]
"Huh? What are you doing, Nolitha? Get out of the way! Immediately!" Hakuna's frantic thoughts screamed into her mind, the mental words echoing with desperation.
Nolitha replied with calm finality. "Something stupid, pappie. Something incredibly reckless and utterly stupid. But something I would not hesitate to do again if given the chance. My choice is made."
Hakuna argued, his mental voice tearing at the fabric of his control. "No, you fool! Stop! I forbid you to do this! I don't want you to die for me! My life isn't worth this trade!"
Nolitha then continued, her thoughts flowing like a clear, painful stream of truth. "Tough luck, Baby Boy, because I don't want you to die either. My world cannot exist without your unpredictable light. Look, I know sometimes you don't feel loved by me. I know that you sometimes feel like I'm intentionally hiding our relationship from the world, that I'm ashamed. But, I need you to know that's not it. I've never been in a true relationship before—never allowed myself to be—and while I by no means use that inexperience as an excuse for my terrible behavior, you deserve to hear this now. We've argued, I've been awful, I called you a meaningless stain in my life in a moment of utter pride and fear. But Hakuna, I never, ever meant those words. You mean a thousand times more to me than you could ever possibly realize, and I need you to know that before the silence comes." Her final admission was a balm and a hammer to his soul.
Hakuna strained against the energy-siphoning chains binding him to the wall, his muscles bulging, the veins in his neck standing out in sharp relief. But the more he struggled, the more the dark material fed, rapidly sapping his remaining life force and the energy required for his own Divine breakthrough.
He grunted, the pain immense. "Ghaa, Nolitha, you don't have to do this! We can still find a way! We can win this together!"
Nolitha retorted, her will absolutely unshakable. "And you can't do anything to stop me, can you? I have you right where I want you. If I have to die to save your life, to ensure the world still has your hope, I would do it over, and over again, an infinite number of times, with a smile on my face and peace in my heart."
"But how would I carry on? How am I supposed to continue this war, this ridiculous life, without you by my side?" he asked, the desperate question hanging heavy in the infinite stillness of the frozen moment.
"You will. I believe that you are strong, infinitely stronger than you could ever imagine. That stubborn, foolish self-sacrificing heart of yours is a fortress. And I want you to stay strong—not for the world, but for me, please." She sealed the thought with the memory of their first kiss.
Hakuna focused every fiber of his being, trying again to set himself free, attempting to fracture the dark molecular structure of the chains with pure will. He failed. The material tightened, the sap becoming a crushing, searing pain.
He said, his mental voice breaking. "I can't. I won't accept this. There must be another way, Nolitha! If only I could reach you, if only I could break these… ghaa, grrr, urrgh…"
"Hakuna, stop. You are only killing yourself faster. Save your strength," Nolitha commanded.
Hakuna argued, ignoring the pain. "No! I can save you! I can stop her! Just give me one more second!"
Nolitha shouted, her mental command overriding his despair. "I said stop! Now!"
Hakuna's eyes, fixed on hers, began to tear up, the liquid remaining frozen on his face, a captured testament to his sorrow.
"Why do you have to go? Why does it have to be you? Why not me?!" He asked, the ultimate question of the condemned.
Nolitha then spoke, her final words infused with a serene, terrifying acceptance. "I don't know, pappie. I wish I did. But the fact that you are willing to do the exact same for me right now gives me so much peace. It tells me everything I ever needed to know about you, about us. I guess it's really because, some questions don't have answers. This is the moment destiny chose. It is, what it is. Please, live."
Hakuna yelled, a silent, desperate plea trapped in the void. "No! Wait! Wait, noo! Don't leave me!"
As time violently resumed its natural flow, the change was instantaneous and devastating. Hakuna was seen in utter, frozen disbelief, his eyes wide, the sudden sensory input of the world rushing back overwhelming him. However, Nolitha was seen smiling at the boy with a heartbreaking, triumphant serenity. A single, perfect tear fell down her left cheek, finally freed from the temporal distortion, as she spoke her final truth:
"I… love… you…"
The moment ended as Rorisang's unstable Energy Saber impaled her instead of Hakuna, piercing Nolitha's body completely. The dark, serrated arm of pure destructive energy poked through her chest, erupting from her back. The bright, crimson blood, impossibly warm, splattered across Hakuna's face and chest, a terrible confirmation of the event.
Rorisang's face, a second ago twisted with lethal focus, crumpled into shocked confusion. "Ah, that wasn't supposed to happen! That was not the target! Haha…" she said, chuckling nervously, the sound high-pitched and entirely unhinged. She slowly, sickeningly, removed her arm from Nolitha's now lifeless, still-standing body.
Rorisang attempted to speak, trying to rationalize the mistake, her voice wavering. "You saw that right, Hakuna? She… she jumped in front of it. That's her choice, not mine. I mean, she uh…"
The dark chains binding Hakuna to the wall suddenly disintegrated. He didn't break them; they simply shattered, vaporized by the colossal, uncontrollable energy now surging through him. A palpable, suffocating dark atmosphere, dense and heavy, instantly enveloped the entire area of the castle ruins, pushing Rorisang back several feet.
Hakuna, his body rigid, then crawled forward, oblivious to Rorisang, oblivious to everything but the figure collapsing onto the ground. He gently caught Nolitha's body, holding her close, and hugged her one final time, kissing her forehead with agonizing tenderness before placing her down gently on the cold, ruined stone.
Rorisang, watching the devastating display of pure grief, recoiled further, a toxic jealousy gripping her heart. She thought to herself, her mind spinning into full madness. "Are you kidding me? Even in her death, even as a martyr, he still loves her more than me! This is preposterous! Unacceptable!"
The ground began to shake violently, not from kinetic force, but from the raw, destabilizing output of a cosmic amount of power being unleashed. Purple steam, thick and acrid, like vaporized rage, poured out of Hakuna's mouth and skin.
He slowly stood up. His eyes were no longer yellow, but a blinding, furious purple, glowing with the raw, untamed signature of his power. The entire area was shaking due to the massive, impossible influx of energy taking place—no, the whole world, the entire crust of the planet, began to tremble. In the far reaches of space, observers would note that the gravity wells of the entire solar system shook violently due to Hakuna's newfound power.
He had done it. He had transcended the previously defined limits of his own strength. He had unlocked, in a catastrophic burst of emotional pain and grief, true Divine Energy.
The words Arkhagos had previously spoken, a prophecy We barely understood, now echo: "This power, astounding as it may be, is only a minor fluke. The boy will not be able to access it again, unless in dire situations or, the loss of a loved one. The price of this form is always the highest."
The purple steam emanating from his body condensed, forming together to make a colossal, beaming tower of unstable, scorching energy, a silent testament to his uncontrollable sorrow and rage. The heat alone was enough to almost scorch Rorisang from a distance.
Super, still trapped but terrified, thought to himself. "This is a lot more power than before. It dwarfs everything we've ever seen him do. What is the source of his strength? This is no longer just anger; this is existential fury."
Rorisang, for the first time, felt genuine, paralyzing fear. She attempted to reason, to placate the entity he had become. "Hey, Hakuna? Y-you said you don't hit girls, right? That's what you said! You have rules!" she stammered, backing away slowly, her Divine Energy flickering in terror.
Hakuna offered no response, only a cold, deafening silence. This was an extended, permanent, and utterly perfected version of Mode: KILL. The concept of rules, morality, and even gender discrimination had been annihilated by the sheer, devastating force of his grief. Hakuna had only one objective, encoded into his soul: DESTROY.
"Kihimurra!"
The word was not spoken; it was detonated. A massive, purple-hued explosion, a silent, all-consuming wave of energy, instantly destroyed the cage holding the rest of the BBC members. The concussive force annihilated the remaining vicinity around Hakuna as he sets his new, terrifyingly focused eyes on killing the Tswana Princess.
Fade out…
End of Episode 37.
[1] This was the silent, devastating interpretation of the Royal Tie’s final activation—a conversation held outside the bounds of reality.