"Let's end the battle for me,"
Mr. Fate said, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm.
"But before I depart, I shall leave you with a performance so gorgeous, so breathtaking, that it will be the best thing you ever come to see."
With a slow, deliberate grace, Fate knelt and pressed his left palm flat against the scorched soil. The earth beneath his fingers seemed to recoil.
"Summon."
The word was a low vibration, but the reaction was cataclysmic. A tremor began deep within the bowels of Balkan City. It wasn't a mere earthquake; it was as if the city itself was screaming in agony. The ground buckled and rolled like the surface of a stormy sea. Miles away, on the opposite end of the ruins, Bruno D. Vanguard felt the sudden shift in weight. Even at that distance, the vibration was enough to make him wonder about it, a dull, heavy thrum that signaled something ancient and hungry had been disturbed.
Back at the crater, the world literally tore apart. Massive fissures snaked across the pavement, and from the heart of the darkness beneath, the **Enigma** rose.
It was a nightmare forged in shadow, a monstrous fusion of a carrion crow and a prehistoric bat. Its wings were massive, draped in long, obsidian feathers that seemed to swallow the light around them. Its beak was a terrifying, curved scythe, longer than a full-grown man and honed to a razor's edge. Its claws, hooked and jagged, grew not just from its feet but from the very joints of its wings. It loomed over them, a titan of shadow that made the air itself feel cold and heavy.
"Let's begin the second round,"
Fate said, standing up with effortless grace.
There was no sign of the shattered leg or the cleaved shoulder. His body was pristine, his energy overflowing as if he had just stepped onto the battlefield for the first time. He reached into his vest, pulled out his pocket watch, and clicked the lid open.
"Uh! My apologies,"
He said, his tone mocking.
"It seems my time has expired. Duty calls me elsewhere."
He tucked the watch away and offered a casual, two-finger salute to his head.
"I suppose I should take my leave. Until our paths cross again."
A door materialized in the air before him, framed by swirling wreaths of ethereal, light-blue fog. It pulsed with a rhythmic, ghostly glow. Fate stepped toward the threshold, then paused, looking back one last time.
"Have a pleasant day. Do try to stay alive until our next encounter. And one more thing,"
He looked directly at Izochi, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"This one is a gift... a tribute for you to own, **Prince**."
With a flourish, he stepped through the gate. The blue fog collapsed inward, and the door vanished, leaving Marco and Izochi alone with the towering terror.
Izochi stood frozen. His breath hitched, trapped in his lungs as his eyes widened until the whites were visible all around his pupils. His body refused to move, locked in a paralysis of sheer, primal terror. Beside him, Marco struggled against the same crushing fear, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
The Enigma didn't wait. With a deafening rustle of feathers, it lashed out with a wing. Izochi snapped back to reality just in time, throwing himself backward. He avoided the razor-sharp nails, but lost his footing, tumbling onto the debris. Marco was there after a moment, gripping Izochi's shoulder and hauling him back to his feet.
"This time, you're the lucky one who gets to live,"
Marco grunted, his voice tight. It was a joke, but neither of them was laughing.
"What do you think you can do with those shattered bones?"
Marco asked, glancing at Izochi's ruined arm.
"Who knows!"
A thin, haunting smile spread across Izochi's face. Crimson rivulets of blood began to seep from the corners of his eyes, tracing hot, wet paths through the dust on his skin. He kept his eyes shut tight against the stinging blood, but the smile remained, eerie and misplaced.
"Let's die,"
Izochi whispered.
Marco stared at him, caught between two horrors. Before them stood a giant, unknown Enigma that could end them in a heartbeat, and beside him stood his comrade, smiling at the prospect of death as if it were a grand joke.
"Since we don't know what's waiting for us in the dark,"
Izochi continued, his voice steadying,
"We can die however we want. We might as well do what needs to be done."
"You really do have a cold mind,"
Marco praised, his own grip on his spear tightening.
"What should we call this thing? Since 'it' doesn't seem to have a name."
"A name? Huh... that's a difficult question,"
Marco mused. He shifted Izochi's weight, pulling the boy's left arm over his shoulder to keep him upright. He locked eyes with the beast. The creature's eyes, void-like and predatory, locked back onto his.
The silence between the three of them was a physical weight. Then, a smile finally tugged at the corners of Marco's mouth as well.
"Let's call it... **Enquisiter**."
"Uh! That's a grand name,"
Izochi chirped.
The creature didn't agree. The Enquisiter's eyes sharpened, glowing with a hateful intensity. It threw its head back toward the empty, vast void of the sky and let out a sound that shattered the silence.
KRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
The scream was a high-frequency assault, so thin and piercing it felt like needles being driven into the brain. Across the city, Bruno D. Vanguard collapsed to his knees, clutching his ears in agony. Blood began to leak from his nose and eyes; the sound was an invisible blade, threatening to tear his mind apart.
But at the epicenter of the sound, Marco and Izochi stood unmoved. They heard the scream, they felt the vibration in their marrow, yet they remained untouched. Marco blinked, wondering how he was still standing, how his eardrums hadn't burst into a bloody mess.
Izochi's smile only grew deeper. He looked up toward the sound, blood still staining his cheeks, his eyes closed but his spirit seemingly alight with a dark, twisted joy.
"What a shame,"
Izochi whispered, his voice mocking the giant beast.
"you really have to pull this out!"