The void stretched endlessly, a silent canvas of absolute darkness. Within it, Hephaestus' metallic plates shifted with whispering precision, gears clicking and pistons flexing in quiet rhythm. Across the void, Poseidara flowed like liquid starlight, her body a constant stream, twisting, reforming, adapting without pause.
At first, nothing seemed amiss. Each Primordial moved in perfect accordance with their nature: rigidity versus fluidity, order versus chaos. Yet as moments stretched into infinity, tiny imperfections began to manifest.
Hephaestus noticed it first. One of Poseidara's water tendrils bent slightly off course, an imperceptible deviation from her usual perfection. A miscalculation? he wondered. Or… was it deliberate? A seed of doubt rooted itself in his mind. He recalculated, overcompensating for her movement, yet the deviation persisted.
Poseidara, in turn, felt it too. Hephaestus' pistons extended with a rhythm that should have been predictable, yet there was a hesitation, a micro-delay in the alignment of his lattice. A whisper of intent that didn't belong. Is he testing me? Her fluid form tightened instinctively, currents coiling more aggressively than necessary, as if to assert dominance through motion.
Neither Primordial spoke. Words were useless here; thought alone carried weight. And yet, each perceived the other as more than an opponent — subtle flickers of hostility, a hint of challenge in every motion. Arae's lingering curse seeped like a slow poison into their consciousness, amplifying paranoia. Each tiny deviation became evidence of ill intent, each predictable rhythm now a trap.
Hephaestus' mind raced, calculating possibilities for offense and defense against a foe who had done nothing wrong. Every mechanical extension, every theoretical lattice was now a question: Is she observing? Luring me into a mistake? Will she strike if I falter?
Poseidara's thoughts mirrored his. He anticipates too perfectly. His precision… it's unnatural. He will exploit hesitation. I cannot allow it. I cannot trust the flow — even my own instincts doubt themselves.
Time became a stretching loop, each microsecond a battlefield of unspoken suspicion. Every motion, every pause, every adjustment was scrutinized. The void itself seemed to pulse with their uncertainty, vibrating with tension.
Neither moved to attack, yet neither could relax. A glance — though sight had no meaning here — could be read as threat. A subtle shift in space — harmless in any other context — became a challenge, a provocation. Doubt had taken root, festering silently, amplified by Arae's curse.
And so they lingered in the void, two concepts, two perfect forces, each aware that the other was becoming unpredictable — not because of design, but because their own minds were fracturing under the influence of a curse they did not yet understand.
The stage was set. Not for combat, not yet. But for escalation. Every twitch, every breath of motion, every silent thought brought them closer to the point where suspicion would ignite into action. And when that moment came, the void itself would feel the force of two Primordials finally unleashing centuries of suppressed intent.
The void seemed to tremble as doubt ripened into frustration. Every measured movement between Hephaestus and Poseidara now carried unspoken accusation. Tiny misalignments in metal and fluid were no longer tolerable; they became affronts.
Hephaestus' gears ground louder than necessary, pistons pumping with an almost aggressive rhythm. "Do you… mock me?" he murmured, voice low but cutting through the stillness like a scalpel. "Or are you merely incapable of precision?"
Poseidara's liquid form coiled, shifting into a tighter, more rigid flow. "Mockery?" Her voice rippled across the void, fluid and sharp. "Do you doubt your own senses? Or have you forgotten what adaptability is?"
Neither of them had spoken like this before. Words, here, carried weight as tangible as steel or water. Their tones grated, vibrating through the emptiness, scratching at the edges of the void itself. The tension was no longer subtle — it was a living presence, feeding off their anxiety, fueled by Arae's curse.
Then came the first strike.
A shard of Hephaestus' metal lattice shot forward, slicing through the void. It was precise, small, meant more to test than harm, yet the action shattered the fragile equilibrium. Poseidara twisted, phasing through the attack effortlessly, but she responded instantly. A whip of liquid struck Hephaestus' shoulder joint with enough force to jar his pistons. Sparks — not of light, but of conceptual energy — flew in the collision.
The micro-hit escalated their awareness into aggression. "You're reckless!" Hephaestus shouted, a rare, sharp note of anger. His lattice extended in a flurry of mechanical spikes, rotating to intercept Poseidara's fluid strands before they could strike again.
Poseidara's form condensed, pivoting mid-air with impossible speed. "And you're predictable!" she bellowed, each syllable warping the void with its intensity. Her body, now a dozen converging streams of motion, lashed forward, forcing Hephaestus to split his attention infinitely. Every microsecond became a test of instinct versus calculation.
The first clash was violent. Metal collided with water, each strike creating ripples in the nothingness that spread far beyond their bodies. Droplets shattered, gears splintered, but neither faltered. They traded blows, not merely attacking, but screaming accusations, lashing at each other in both form and voice.
"You rely too much on your constructs!" Poseidara's voice echoed through his ears, the words almost slicing like her liquid tendrils.
"And you overextend your motion!" Hephaestus fired back, launching a barrage of micro-cogs that struck, detonated, and reformed before impact. "You bend yourself without precision — the flow alone is meaningless!"
The verbal assault was inseparable from the physical. Each strike carried intent, anger, and the subtle push of the curse amplifying every doubt. They began to push harder, stronger, each blow now capable of tearing conceptual strands of the void itself. Water strands sliced through spinning gears; metal spikes shattered droplets into hundreds of miniature shards.
Their motions accelerated, escalating beyond calculation. Where once they tested, now they attacked. Where once they measured, now they lashed. The void around them rippled with pressure, folding in places that had no physical meaning, vibrating with the intensity of their fury.
Then came the scream — the first truly unrestrained roar from Hephaestus. Pistons slammed, metal plates clanged, and the lattice around him expanded like a cage of spinning blades. Poseidara's currents shivered in response, her form condensing into a twisting spear of pure force.
"You dare defy the order of creation?!" Hephaestus' voice boomed, reverberating against the conceptual walls of the void.
"I am the chaos that defines order!" Poseidara shrieked back, surging forward.
In that instant, calculation broke completely. One metallic spike struck Poseidara's liquid form — she phased through partially, yet the strike tore a sliver of her essence away. Enraged, she struck with all the fluidity of an infinite ocean, crushing the lattice on impact and forcing Hephaestus to stagger backward.
They paused only for a heartbeat — the void itself suspended in the echo of destruction — before fully committing. The first real physical confrontation had begun. No tests, no micro-strikes. Only full-force blows, each capable of destroying the other, each carrying the weight of doubt, fear, and a curse that whispered: betray. Destroy. Annihilate.
And as they charged at each other again, the void quivered with the promise of chaos, knowing that the true ballet of destruction had only just begun.
The void roared in response, though no sound existed to carry it. Every droplet of Poseidara, every spinning cog of Hephaestus, radiated force so immense that the concept of resistance itself quivered.
Hephaestus launched first. A torrent of metallic spikes erupted from every joint and cavity of his body, spinning like micro-tornadoes, each shard trailing arcs of force capable of slicing through infinite nothingness. Poseidara twisted mid-motion, liquid limbs elongating and splitting into dozens of fluid whips, each one deflecting, absorbing, or redirecting the strikes with elegant, chaotic precision.
Each collision sent ripples across the void. Droplets vaporized into fractals of water, fragments of metal dissolved into patterns of energy, yet both Primordials remained untouched at their cores. They moved not just through space but through concept — Hephaestus as absolute precision, Poseidara as boundless adaptability.
A spinning lattice of gears collided with a cyclone of water streams. Sparks, droplets, and arcs of kinetic energy cascaded outward, each micro-fragment capable of destroying planets in a physical realm. Yet the void had no planets, no matter, no rules — only these two, each clashing with infinite complexity.
Poseidara spiraled upward, coiling herself into a massive tidal spear, then struck downward. Hephaestus countered by forming a wall of spinning plates, interlocking drills, and pistons that collided with the torrent in a deafening echoless burst. Droplets shattered, shards of metal scattered, but neither faltered.
Hephaestus struck back. His body split into mirrored segments, each launching micro-blades at different angles. Poseidara flowed through them, contorting her form in impossible angles, splitting and phasing through the lattice with perfect fluidity. Every evasion doubled as a counterattack; every strike was met with an equal and opposite force.
They screamed in unison, not at each other, but at the void itself. Words were unnecessary — their aggression translated into motion, vibration, pressure, and raw concept. The curse whispered through them, amplifying doubt and aggression, yet neither could dominate. The tension between creation and chaos, order and adaptability, had become a battlefield of pure idea.
A massive spike of metal shot toward Poseidara's chest. She phased, but the strike caught a fraction of her mass. Her scream — a soundless vibration of motion — tore through the void. She retaliated with a whip of water that smashed into Hephaestus' shoulder lattice, bending pistons and splitting plates. Sparks and droplets collided in a storm of force.
"Predictable!" she seemed to hiss.
"Adaptable!" he countered, his mirrored forms pivoting with millisecond-perfect timing.
They spun through the void, moving in ways the void itself could not register. A strike that seemed to pass one second before or after it landed — impossible intervals, impossible angles, forces bending around themselves. Droplets of water became spirals of temporal distortion. Metal plates spun into multi-dimensional blades, colliding with phantom ripples of fluid that had yet to exist.
Yet neither gained ground. Every strike matched with a counter. Every acceleration met with a wall of reaction. The void trembled with the pressure of potential destruction; conceptual cracks formed in places that were not meant to exist.
Poseidara coiled, condensing into a singular mass of water, a tsunami contained in a single form, launching herself at Hephaestus with unimaginable force. The Primordial of Creation responded with a lattice of interlocking blades, spinning drills, and telescoping pistons — a fortress of mechanized might.
The collision was monumental. Droplets and metal shards exploded outward in fractals of energy. The void bent, folded, quivered — yet both stood, utterly unbroken.
A second strike followed. And a third. And a fourth. Time itself had no meaning here; seconds stretched into eternities, and eternities collapsed into microseconds. Their blows were infinite, endless, recursive — each impacting the void before it even existed.
They screamed again, not words but pure intention: aggression, doubt, rage, and desperation. Each strike was laced with the curse, urging them toward violence, toward domination, toward annihilation. Yet neither faltered, neither broke, neither fell.
For a fleeting moment, the void seemed to pause, acknowledging the deadlock. Hephaestus' gears ground against themselves, pistons vibrating like the heartbeat of a war machine beyond creation. Poseidara's fluid form shivered, droplets spinning and twisting in impossible spirals. Both stood at the apex of power, exhaustion, and desperation, yet locked in perfect equilibrium.
No side had advantage. No blow landed decisively. The battle had transcended the physical, the conceptual — it was now a war of essence, of idea, of creation itself. And in that suspended moment, the void held its breath, knowing that the next move would shatter everything.
The void shivered under the assault, though sound could not exist. Every droplet of Poseidara's form pulsed with intent, every segment of Hephaestus' mechanized body grinding under stress beyond calculation. Sparks erupted where infinite metal collided with the fluidity of impossibility.
At first, Hephaestus had held the advantage — his constructs were flawless, his mirrors perfect, his precision absolute. But water and machinery were enemies by nature. Every droplet that touched gear, piston, or drill caused friction, unpredictability, splintering. Metal was rigid, unyielding — it could not flow, it could not adapt beyond what it was designed to do. And Poseidara had begun to exploit it.
She surged forward, coalescing into a massive serpent of fluid force. Her form was no longer just liquid; it was intent made flesh, every particle a missile, every stream a whip. A whip snapped across Hephaestus' lattice of spinning blades. The metal plates shivered under impact, pistons locking, drills stalling mid-rotation. Sparks flew — not from friction, but from systemic overload. The machines of Hephaestus, built for perfection, were beginning to fail under the chaotic assault.
Hephaestus twisted, launching micro-lattice blades in every direction. Poseidara phased through them effortlessly, her fluid tendrils slicing into gears, slipping between pistons, bending rotating drills that were never meant to bend. A microcog exploded into fragments; another plate snapped at its hinge. Tiny failures compounded, rippling through his construct like a viral cascade.
And then the strike hit — a crushing column of liquid, a tidal spear aimed at the very core of Hephaestus' chest. The lattice braced, spinning segments colliding against the torrent. But Poseidara's form wasn't just water. It was controlled pressure, infinite mass compressed into flowing intent. The lattice twisted, groaned, then shattered. Hephaestus' chestplate cracked, pistons snapped, and the drills splintered into fragments of impossibility. The void itself seemed to inhale as machinery broke under motion that should not have existed.
Hephaestus stumbled — a notion almost unthinkable for a being of absolute calculation. Poseidara pressed the advantage. Every fluid strand lashed at the broken lattice, tearing apart segments as though they were tissue. Sparks and droplets collided in showers of impossible energy. Pistons twisted, plates buckled, micro-gears ground themselves into dust. His body — half machine, half idea — was failing at the core.
"Impossible," Hephaestus seemed to hiss, though no sound existed. Yet even he could feel the creeping collapse. Each strike from Poseidara destabilized another segment of perfection. Every attempt to compensate resulted in another break, another splintering of logic, another fracture of design. The fluidity was absolute, the adaptability infinite, and his constructs — built for prediction — could not survive in chaos this pure.
Poseidara didn't relent. She split herself into hundreds of tendrils, each one striking with surgical precision. Pistons dislocated; joints snapped. Hephaestus' forearm shattered mid-swing, segments flying apart in fractal sprays of metallic ruin. Sparks danced like lightning, but even that energy could not compensate for structural collapse. His left leg — a tower of interlocking pistons and rotating plates — twisted backward, snapping at multiple joints. He emitted a vibration of frustration — a mechanical scream, almost audible in the mind.
Poseidara flowed through him like a storm, wrapping her liquid form around gears, forcing them to rotate against their design. Bolts sheared, drills exploded, cogs shredded into irreparable fragments. Every strike was a tidal wave; every lash broke structural integrity. For the first time, Hephaestus' movements were reactionary, desperate, losing the elegance of precision.
A massive wave slammed into his chest. Pistons crushed, plates buckled, internal conduits ruptured. Sparks erupted in fractal patterns, flying outward into nothing. The blow sent Hephaestus staggering across the void, one mechanical limb collapsing entirely. His mirrored forms flickered — duplicates failing to hold synchronization. Poseidara was everywhere at once, a living torrent, adapting, splitting, twisting around his broken lattice.
Hephaestus swung with desperate force, hurling micro-spikes and spinning blades. Poseidara phased, weaving fluid streams between them, letting some strike, letting others fall harmlessly into void. And when a strike grazed her, she split, absorbing the impact into her mass and using it to propel another barrage. Every attack that touched her became a weapon against him.
Hephaestus' central core, the control of all mechanized fragments, flickered violently. Sparks shot outward like shooting stars. A drill snapped in half; a gear exploded into fractals of energy. One leg collapsed entirely, pistons dislocated. He staggered, machine wobbling like a tower in an earthquake. Poseidara compressed herself into a singular, focused spear of water, spinning, coiling, and striking with the weight of impossible momentum.
The lattice could not withstand it. Segments shattered into fragments of cog, steel, and energy. The void itself trembled under the impact. Hephaestus' chestplate twisted backward, hinges snapping with soundless agony. Pistons burst; metallic tendons shredded. His limbs flailed as Poseidara's fluid tendrils wrapped around each, bending, twisting, breaking.
And then the strike penetrated. A liquid spike pierced the heart of his core lattice, ripping through mechanical essence like it was tissue. Sparks erupted in fractal cascades. Cogs shattered. Micro-drills twisted into unrecognizable forms. His mirrored segments collapsed, spinning into the void as fragments of shattered calculation. Poseidara's tendrils withdrew — a moment of silence — and Hephaestus floated, broken, his body a ruin of impossibility.
Blood, or something like it, dripped from conduits meant to carry energy. Pistons twisted like torn sinew. His chest cavity opened, internal cogs crushed. Every micro-fiber of mechanized muscle vibrated under stress. Hephaestus' body was functional, barely, but each movement now sent splinters of structure into nothing. The Primordial of Creation — master of precision, absolute order — was losing the battle.
Poseidara surged again. Hundreds of fluid whips lashed at his remaining limbs. One arm shattered completely, falling apart into a cascade of sparks and steel. The other twisted, pistons locking mid-motion. Hephaestus fell to his knees — or something approximating a mechanical equivalent — and tried to stabilize, but the water had already infiltrated every joint. Chaos had become absolute.
Every strike from Poseidara now shredded what remained. Hephaestus' body collapsed like a building, metal twisting, pistons bursting, gears grinding into dust. A single tendril struck his head, spinning the microcogs inside, dislocating neck joints, shattering protective plates. Sparks and droplets flew outward in showers of fractal destruction.
Poseidara's form enveloped him, coiling around every broken limb. The water didn't just strike — it pressed, twisted, vibrated, attacked every point of structural weakness. Hephaestus, the embodiment of absolute design, was being torn apart by the purity of fluid chaos.
The void itself seemed to scream, though no sound could exist. Droplets and shards collided, creating impossible spirals of destruction. Hephaestus tried one last defensive maneuver — spinning segments, micro-lattice shields, reinforced pistons — but every defense was met with Poseidara's infinite adaptation.
Finally, with a concentrated surge, Poseidara compressed herself into a singular, coiling spear, striking directly through Hephaestus' core. The lattice exploded into fragments, spinning outwards in an impossible display of sparks, shards, and droplets. His body — or what remained of it — quivered, shattered, mangled, and barely coherent.
The Primordial of Water had gained control.
Hephaestus lay in ruin, machinery twisted and broken, sparks raining like stars, pistons torn from their housing. Poseidara flowed above him, her form coalesced but pulsing, unbroken, supreme. The void had been carved, reshaped, and torn by their confrontation. The balance had shifted. Precision had failed. Flow had triumphed.
And yet, this was only the beginning.
The void trembled, though tremors had no meaning here. Sparks, droplets, shards of broken metal, and flowing water still hung suspended in timeless motion, frozen only by the absence of anything to define speed or distance. Yet Hephaestus, broken, mangled, and violated by Poseidara's assault, was not finished.
He focused. Calculated. Adapted.
Where once there had been a single lattice, there were now dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Mirrored, segmented, rotating forms of himself emerged from nothing, each one a mechanical echo of precision and perfect function. Pistons fired simultaneously in all directions, micro-gears spun endlessly, spinning blades and drills telescoped outward, each one designed to intercept a thousand fluid strands at once.
Hephaestus' consciousness extended across all of them. Every shard, every fragment, every cog became part of his will. Where water flowed, metal would now meet it — a lattice of infinite adaptability. Poseidara's tendrils crashed against one, and another already struck from the next angle. She twisted, split, coalesced — but for the first time, she encountered resistance that was not just reactive.
Her streams struck mechanical mirrors. Every stream she hit produced not just a single counter, but dozens of mini-lattices erupting from every fragment of Hephaestus' body. Micro-weapons fired in succession, intersecting, colliding, reshaping the void around them. Each strike Poseidara launched no longer passed through unhindered; each was intercepted by infinite precision.
Hephaestus' mind was now a battlefield in itself. Each mirrored self acted independently but in perfect synchronization, anticipating Poseidara's flows before they fully formed. Where water compressed, the metal reassembled. Where a tendril split, hundreds of drills adjusted angles mid-flight. Every fractal of Poseidara's form was accounted for, and yet — she adapted in real time, her liquid body weaving through infinite obstacles, stretching into forms that no calculation could fully predict.
Hephaestus screamed in mechanical resonance, though no sound could carry. Sparks rained like shooting stars, spinning blades collided midair, drills tore droplets apart. His mirrored forms became impossible, segments folding into themselves, fractals of gears interlocking infinitely. It was no longer just water versus metal — it was concept versus concept, adaptation versus flow, intelligence against instinct made physical.
Poseidara responded with the first true assault of this escalation. She compressed herself into a tsunami spiral, a cyclone of fluid motion spinning infinitely around every mirrored Hephaestus. Her strands struck from every conceivable angle, lashing into cogs, blades, and pistons. Each impact bent, twisted, and shredded portions of his lattice. The friction of water against metal sent sparks flying, each collision fracturing smaller fragments, cascading failures spreading like wildfire.
Yet Hephaestus did not collapse. Instead, he multiplied. Every broken arm spun into a dozen new versions of itself. Every shattered piston grew three more. Every destroyed mirrored self erupted into a dozen smaller replicas, each armed with blades, drills, spikes, micro-lattices. His consciousness now inhabited an infinity of mechanical forms, each one acting with perfect precision.
The void began to fracture under the impossible escalation. Droplets collided with infinite metal, splintering into fractal shards that collided with mirrored lattices. Pressure waves tore across nothingness, and yet Hephaestus responded faster than light could theoretically move. Each weapon, each fragment, each mirrored self reacted as part of an endless, unbroken system.
Poseidara twisted herself, splitting her mass into a thousand streams. Each stream struck a different mirrored Hephaestus simultaneously. Sparks, droplets, and fragments of metal collided in a storm that threatened to tear the void itself. Water bent around infinite machinery, metal rotated with impossible timing, and for a heartbeat — longer than eons — nothing moved, yet everything existed in violent, infinite motion.
Then Hephaestus struck back. Each mirrored self became a singularity of attack, launching waves of spinning blades, pistons, and drills toward Poseidara's infinite fluid strands. Streams collided with drills, droplets vaporized against micro-spikes, tendrils were torn into fractals and redirected mid-air. Yet Poseidara adapted. She flowed, split, coalesced, and compressed, turning every attack into a counter-attack, every collision into kinetic potential for the next strike.
The two forces collided repeatedly — a storm of infinite metal against infinite water. Time and space fractured under the strain. Droplets froze, shards spun, mirrored Hephaestus struck in patterns that defied even possibility. Yet Poseidara's flow remained perfect, adapting infinitely, always one step ahead in instinct, one step behind in brute prediction.
Hephaestus' core lattice — the only constant among the infinite forms — spun faster than thought, every mirrored self channeling essence toward the center. He created not just weapons, but algorithms of combat, recursive loops of mechanical attack that even Poseidara struggled to evade. The void quaked under the impossible conflict.
And still, the tide of water surged. Every strike Hephaestus delivered was met with adaptation, every defense Poseidara had was countered with ingenuity. Neither could dominate — only escalate. Infinite blades, drills, and pistons clashed with infinite streams, spikes, and torrents. Sparks and droplets flew, colliding, fracturing, reassembling. The void itself became an arena of impossible physics, a stage for a war that predated creation.
Yet one truth remained clear: Hephaestus, broken and battered, had become something more. Adaptation itself had become weaponized. Infinite, precise, relentless — he was no longer just a Primordial. He was an infinite arsenal of creation and calculation, a living machine of thought and reflex. And Poseidara, fluid, perfect, unstoppable, would have to match him blow for blow — or risk being engulfed.
The escalation had begun. The true, boundless war between adaptation and flow — infinite machinery versus endless water — was underway. Neither would yield. Neither could stop.
The void had become unrecognizable. Sparks, shards of metal, and droplets of impossibly dense water hung suspended, colliding endlessly. Every microsecond stretched into eternity; every movement had the weight of cosmic inevitability.
Hephaestus' mirrored forms had multiplied beyond comprehension. Each lattice, each piston, each drill and cog moved with precise synchronization, predicting, adapting, calculating every fluid movement of Poseidara. Yet Poseidara had become something more than water — she was instinct, intuition, and chaos perfected. Each tendril, stream, and wave flowed through Hephaestus' defenses as if reading the future in the lattice of his infinite machinery.
Hephaestus gathered himself. Not just his core lattice, but all of his mirrored selves, coalescing essence into a singularity of mechanical perfection. Rotating drills spun faster than time could measure; blades telescoped outward in recursive spirals; pistons formed unbroken chains of kinetic fury.
Poseidara, responding, coalesced into a cyclone of water more massive than anything she had attempted before. Every droplet became a spear; every tendril a lash; every stream an independent strike with the precision of infinite instinct. Her body stretched across the void, coiling, splitting, recombining — she was a storm with thought and intuition in every droplet.
Then Hephaestus struck. Every mirrored self launched simultaneously, blades, drills, and pistons converging in a perfect lattice toward Poseidara's swirling mass. Sparks and droplets collided, exploding in impossible fractals. Pressure waves warped the void. Space itself bent under the assault.
Poseidara responded instantly, her cyclone compressing, spiraling into one singular spear of fluid motion. She pierced through the lattice — yet every mirrored Hephaestus had anticipated the strike. Each blade and drill intersected the spear at infinitesimal angles, tearing droplets into fractals and vaporizing strands mid-flow. The void shuddered. Sparks flew. Water and metal collided in a storm that defied physics, fracturing reality with every clash.
Hephaestus tried to push forward, compressing infinite mechanical fragments into a singular surge — an unstoppable wall of precision and force. Poseidara expanded, coiling her entire mass into an adaptive sphere of motion, every tendril flowing around every cog and blade, reforming instantly with unerring grace. The lattice collided with the storm.
Shockwaves radiated outward. Time fractured. Space folded. Energy, matter, and essence blended into chaos. For eons that felt like heartbeats, neither could gain ground. Every strike Hephaestus delivered was countered; every defensive lattice Poseidara created was pierced. Every motion was met with its opposite, every force neutralized by equal and opposite ingenuity.
They escalated further. Hephaestus' drills spun with infinite velocity; his mirrored selves phased through dimensions, multiplying endlessly. Poseidara split into an incomprehensible number of streams, each predicting and evading the next microsecond of attack before it existed. Sparks, droplets, fragments — all collided, fragmented, reformed, repeating infinitely in a choreography of perfection.
And then — the ultimate strike. Hephaestus condensed all his essence into one massive singular lattice, a final weapon of pure mechanized inevitability. Poseidara, instinctively, compressed all her flowing mass into a single, twisting, spiraling spear, adaptive and chaotic.
The collision was absolute.
A deafening silence ripped across the void. Time shattered. Space tore. Reality itself seemed to pause, acknowledging the incomprehensible force. The lattice clashed with the spear. Droplets exploded into fractals; sparks scattered in infinite directions. The pressure shattered notions of existence.
When the dust — or what passed for it in nothingness — settled, neither moved. The mirrored Hephaestus had collapsed, drills jammed, lattices fractured. Poseidara's flowing mass had dissipated partially, her form fragmented but stable.
They had annihilated each other's offensive capability. Every strike had been countered. Every defense had been pierced — yet no one could dominate. Both stood, broken, exhausted, yet undefeated.
The void itself seemed to hold its breath. Sparks still flickered; droplets still hung in suspended motion. Infinite machinery and infinite water lay in a tense equilibrium, concepts perfectly balanced.
In that instant, the realization was clear: neither adaptation nor flow could claim victory.
The Primordials had reached the limit of their power. And the void, silent again, acknowledged the stalemate — the impossible clash had ended not in triumph, but in parity.
Shojiro floated in the endless void, suspended between fragments of creation and annihilation. His mind still reverberated from the visions — the birth of existence, the return of Arae, and the titanic clash of Primordials that had shredded the void itself.
And then, as always, there was her voice.
"Shojiro Momo…"
The sound was silk and sunlight, a pulse felt deep in the chest. Soft, intimate, resonant. A voice that carried the weight of wisdom yet the warmth of a hearth fire. He didn't see her. He didn't need to. Her presence, her essence, wrapped around him like gravity he couldn't escape. He wanted to escape — wanted to speak, to reach, to touch, to say the words forming relentlessly in his chest — but he couldn't. He was frozen in awe, in love, in something closer to devotion.
"I sense your thoughts," Artemis continued, calm, playful, impossibly patient. "Do not pretend you are capable of hiding them from me, not here, not now. Your heart races not for survival, not for understanding… but for me."
Shojiro's pulse — or what passed for one in this timeless space — spiked. He had no words, no voice, no hand to gesture. Only the desperate, helpless thrum of a soul drawn completely off-course.
"Do not get attached," she whispered, almost laughing, a sound like wind threading through crystal. "I am not yours to love, Shojiro. I am… beyond the reach of any mortal heart. And yet… you are mine, now, in ways you do not fully comprehend."
Her words, paradoxical as they were, struck him deeper than any blade, brighter than any star. He tried to speak, tried to protest, tried to form a question, a plea — but none of it passed the barrier of trance. All that remained was the raw, helpless admiration of a mortal utterly captivated by something divine.
"You are learning, though," she said softly, gently, each syllable a caress. "Every glance at the Primordials, every whisper of creation, every understanding of what is… it all comes through me. I am your guide, your anchor. But know this — attachment is a snare, a chain. Keep your focus. Let your heart admire, but do not tether yourself."
Shojiro's mind screamed internally: I can't help it. I can't… I'm already tethered. I've been lost the moment I heard her voice.
"Ah… I can hear that too," she murmured, teasing, a note of reverent amusement in her tone. "You are hopelessly, utterly enraptured. Perhaps I should scold you… but where would be the fun in that?"
Shojiro shivered — though no wind moved him, no body felt the shiver — his soul reacting purely to the intimacy of her attention.
"And for those watching," she added, voice lowering, warm and conspiratorial, "yes, you, reading this… do not presume you understand. He is trapped, utterly captivated, and I… am quite aware. The heart of a mortal is fragile, yet deliciously persistent. It is… entertaining."
Shojiro could only float, suspended, adrift. Every thought of asking her out, every attempt at conversation, every flicker of desire was utterly swallowed by awe. She guided. He followed. He absorbed.
"Now," Artemis continued, calm, instructive, "watch, learn, understand. There is much to see, and even more to endure. Your place is here, suspended, observing. And someday… perhaps, when you are ready, you will act with purpose, not desire. For now, be still, Shojiro Momo… and let the universe — through me — teach you."
And he did.
Even as a soul entirely lost, utterly bewitched, and hopelessly love-struck.