From within that dream I saw red.
It was not a single color, nor even a single sensation, but a vast and unending sea that pressed against my awareness from all sides.
The red moved like a tide, thick and pulsing, carrying with it rage and fervor so dense that it weighed on thought itself.
I could feel it trying to drown memory, trying to smother identity, until even the concept of distance felt meaningless.
Then I saw black.
It did not flow like the red. It spun. Sharp spikes of it rotated with deliberate malice, cutting through the space of the dream as though hatred itself had learned precision.
There was glee in it, not joy but satisfaction, the kind that comes from certainty that suffering will follow.
It circled an unseen center with mocking confidence, as if it already knew the outcome.
White followed, and its arrival felt wrong.
Snowlike and luminous, it glowed with a fragile arrogance, sparkling as though daring the darkness to acknowledge it.
It carried a purity that felt performative rather than sincere, a cleanliness that sang too loudly, as if volume alone could substitute for meaning.
It did not oppose the dark so much as pretend it was above it, and in doing so revealed its own weakness.
Then there was black again, but not the same black as before.
This one was refined and enveloping, massive like a cloak draped over something far too large to be contained.
Its surface was uneven, immense, marked by shapes too sharp and too wrong to fully comprehend.
Looking at it felt like staring at a truth reality itself had failed to finish smoothing over.
This was the man.
The one who drank blood. The noble who claimed royalty.
Madikai Molotov.
The Blood Emperor.
A tremor ran through the dream, not fear, but recognition, the kind that settles deep in the chest and refuses to be dismissed.
The colors twisted together and collapsed inward, bleeding into one another until the vision became a mirror.
In it I saw not only him, but myself, stripped of excuses. Every compromise I had justified. Every doubt I had buried.
Every flaw I had decided was necessary for survival.
Then he spoke.
"Boo."
The word cut through the vision with surgical precision, and in that instant I understood something that should have been obvious from the start.
He was not entering the dream.
He had always been there.
"Malachi," he said, his voice carrying amusement without warmth, "you seemed lost in thought. Did you truly believe my future could be modeled?"
His sword was already raised, not in threat, not in display, but with inevitability, as though violence was simply the next step in a logical sequence.
There was nothing theatrical about it, and that alone made it dangerous.
"Do you wish to see the rain of blood that comes from death and life?"
Kivana appeared beside me, her arms draping loosely over my shoulders, her presence familiar enough to hurt.
There was comfort there, and accusation, and something like farewell.
"I will not help this time."
Before Madikai could react, before his eyes could even settle on her, she dissolved into a calm purplish white mist that swept across the plane and vanished entirely.
I exhaled slowly, more tired than afraid. "I never liked death," I said. "I never liked much of anything, if I am being honest. There was only one thing I ever truly cared for."
The words sounded reverent, almost sacred, and I hated that they did.
Madikai snarled, blood seeping from his gums as he bared his teeth. "Bite your tongue, Little Darkness. You are going to die here."
I rubbed the back of my neck, irritation slipping through despite myself. "I hated that name," I replied. "It is one of the few things in this world I genuinely hate."
His blade moved.
Not swung. Not thrust.
It simply arrived closer.
Space folded around the strike, time politely ignored, and heat brushed my skin with an intimacy that promised death without yet committing to it.
I ducked, drove my palm into his chest, and felt the armor give as darkness flooded the fractures.
I swept his legs and followed through, bringing my blade down hard enough to shatter the plating and expose the chainmail beneath.
With a flick of my hand I hurled darkness forward, blasting him across the battlefield.
He skidded toward the edge and stopped only at the last possible instant before the depths claimed him entirely.
He wiped blood from his teeth and flung it outward. The blood twisted midair, forging itself into daggers that curved toward me like crimson serpents, each one alive with intent.
A poor choice.
Dark tendrils coiled around me and lashed outward, seizing each dagger and snapping them apart one by one.
Even then, he did not retreat. He never did. Yielding was not a concept he respected.
A massive blade of condensed blood formed above me and tore through the air, aiming not for my body but for my existence itself.
I stepped aside easily, sensing the spell before it took shape, yet still feeling its intent sink deeper than flesh.
Each strike called to the Depths, and the Darkness answered, clouding the Light entirely and shaping a world where all things could exist and all things could end without contradiction.
"Is this all you are, Madikai," I asked, "dread and madness dressed as purpose?"
He advanced with deliberate steps, each one heavy with certainty. "I am nothing compared to your darkness."
Annoyingly, he was right, and I hated that he understood me so well.
"Razing Darkness."
The beam tore through space and struck him, deflected once, then curved back again, refusing to end. It demanded resolution.
He split it in two with his blood blade, cleaving the impossible as though it were mundane.
Fire erupted around him, painting the sky red as blood spiraled into fanged shapes that lunged and screamed for my life. Wolves.
Serpents. Winged things that should not have existed. I released my aura and shattered them as I moved forward, our blades colliding with a force that rippled through the air and into my bones.
His eyes flickered.
He must have seen something on my face.
"Would you fight this hard," he asked, "if you knew the outcome?"
I laughed softly. "I would reject it."
His expression hardened. "You toy with rejection."
I stepped back and opened my arms. "Should I not reject all losses?"
Madikai pressed his blade against my chest and spoke a vow layered with fury and desperation, rejecting the world, its power, its futures, and even the grace of God who had forsaken humanity.
His voice shook, not with weakness, but with the strain of holding that much denial together.
I breathed once, steady. "We are creatures of contingency," I said. "Shaped by accidents. Raised by misfortune. Bound by desires we never chose. That does not free us. It binds us. And I choose my binding."
He struck.
I faded into darkness and reappeared behind him, but the event was fixed, and his blade still found me.
Pain bloomed across my chest as I fell to my knees, blood spilling freely while my sword slipped from my grasp.
"I reject that life you have," he declared. "I reject it all."
Light drained away.
I reached outward, desperate, until images flooded my mind, all of them her, my cause, the one thread that had never broken no matter how much else had.
I let go of everything.
I died.
And yet I stood, this world was many things unholy, I am one of them.
My sword flew back into my hand as I wiped blood from my mouth, meeting his stare without hesitation.
"This," I said calmly, "is the power of love. The curse of attraction. The Mark of Lust."