Sylthéra struggled in Bakuzan's grasp. Her arms were caught by a force no longer physical — it was as if the world itself had closed in on her. The air vibrated, reality groaned. Around them, the ruins still smoked, scars of a battle lost before it even began.
Sylthéra's former subordinates, now reduced to mere mortals, rushed over nonetheless, driven by a lingering sense of honor.
— Don't move!!!
Sylthéra's voice cracked like a spiritual wave.
— Stay where you are! It's too risky!
Their hesitation showed in their eyes: obey, or die trying to save their mistress?
But already, Bakuzan slowly turned his head toward them. That single movement was enough to freeze the air. Silence fell like a verdict.
He leaned toward Sylthéra, his gaze with a sickly gleam:
— I still can't believe you had the audacity to come face me… even to claim you wanted to kill me.
Sylthéra remained silent. Behind her mask, no word, no breath.
One might have thought she had stopped thinking.
Bakuzan smirked.
— I will kill you all. Your souls will serve me forever. As for you... you haven't been demoted yet, right?
At these words, Sylthéra's body began to tremble.
At first, Bakuzan thought it was fear. He was wrong.
It was neither fear, nor regret, nor weakness.
It was... disappointment.
But not his own. It came from farther away, from higher up — a diffuse, almost divine echo that pierced the veil of the world.
The Black Grief felt this disappointment through her, as if the universe itself was mourning what Bakuzan had become.
The monster frowned, intrigued.
Sylthéra slowly raised her head. Under the mask, a tear slid down hesitantly, then fell on her chin before vanishing into the dust.
Bakuzan stayed still for a moment, surprised despite himself.
This emotion, so pure, so sincere, seemed to dissolve his malevolent aura for a breath's length.
— I wonder, he said in a lower, almost human voice,
— who hides behind this mask...
As Bakuzan reached out to remove the golden mask, Sylthéra freed herself with a sharp, almost animal gesture.
A breath of energy sliced the air, and in a split second, she darted backward, her pale coat floating like a silver comet.
Without giving time for astonishment, she launched again.
Her fists and feet struck with deadly precision, fast enough to distort space itself.
Each impact echoed like a detonation, each movement traced luminous scars in the air.
Bakuzan, impassive, parried the blows without apparent effort.
But something in the young woman's intent disturbed his confidence.
There was a strange restraint in her rage — a will not to kill, but to stop him.
Her attacks screamed anger... but whispered pain.
The duel became lightning-fast, almost invisible to mere mortals below.
The mountains trembled under shockwaves, and the survivors' cries of astonishment were lost in the fury of the wind.
Then, in a brief retreat, Bakuzan raised his hand.
An ocean of black mana sprang from his palm, a cursed sea swallowing light.
— Tsk...
Sylthéra formed a shield of pure light, but the wave shattered it instantly like cracked glass.
She teleported back, gasping, before sensing a breath behind her.
— It's over, Bakuzan said calmly, his voice resonating like a verdict.
— Who are you, in the end?
He struck. Not to kill — just a sharp, precise blow.
The golden mask shattered into a thousand fragments sparkling in the air like star shards.
Sylthéra staggered but held firm.
Silence fell.
Under the mask, Bakuzan finally saw her face—
One half burned, twisted by scars; the left eye veiled in a spectral gray.
But the other half... intact, beautiful, alive.
A golden eye gleamed, vibrating with an ancient, familiar light.
Bakuzan froze.
His expression vanished, replaced by something almost human—
A memory rising from the depths.
Sylthéra slowly raised her head, lips trembling:
— So... how does it feel to see me again after all this time?
The wind rose, carrying the golden mask fragments like ashes.
And in the Black Grief's gaze, for the first time, one thought they saw a shadow of hesitation.
Bakuzan stood motionless, his gaze fixed in the woman's eyes.
His lips barely moved.
A breath, a name.
A remnant of the past.
— … Yuhida.
The word fell like a forgotten prayer.
Sylthéra—or rather, Yuhida—smiled sadly through her tears.
Her voice, both trembling and firm, broke the silence:
— At least you remember. That's something.
After all the harm you did to me, it's almost reassuring.
Her gray and gold eyes stared at him with disarming intensity.
— So tell me, Bakuzan... Black Grief, Ebon Woe…
Are you proud of what you've become? Of what you left behind?
Bakuzan did not answer.
The wind whistled between the stones.
Even the battlefield's shadows seemed to hold their breath.
— Why do you stay silent?! she suddenly shouted, her voice broken by too-old anger.
Speak, Bakuzan! Say something!
You took everything from me!
Her voice cracked.
— I gave you all my love…
And you... abandoned me.
The day I needed you most, you chose the void over me.
She clenched her fists so hard that blood ran down her gloves.
— And yet... every time I heard your name,
the Black Grief, the Devourer of Worlds,
I wanted to hate you — God alone knows how much I wanted to hate you.
Her shoulders shook.
Tears streamed down the scars of her face, clinging to the burned grooves of her skin.
But her words continued, sincere and painful:
— …But I couldn't.
I never could hate you.
Bakuzan slowly lifted his eyes.
He saw not the anger of an enemy, but the sadness of a mutilated love.
Yuhida resumed, in an almost whisper:
— You know why? Because I know how much you suffer.
How much your pain has become your strength.
Every step you take toward power... chains you more to your own grief.
She gave a painful smile.
— You want to reach a goal... but you will never find it in strength, Bakuzan.
And as long as you don't understand that...
you will continue to suffer.
Silence fell again.
Even Satan looked away.
Nihlorgue, the void dragon, no longer moved — its shadow seemed cold.
Bakuzan stayed there, impassive.
But his eyes, for a moment, flickered.
As if beneath the Black Grief's shell,
Bakuzan's heart still beat.
Yuhida slowly approached Bakuzan, eyes drowned in a mixture of sadness and nostalgia.
Her voice barely trembled as she said:
> — You know... we could have reached that goal together. I would have wanted to help you, until my last breath...
Her gaze drifted afar, as if time itself tore to pull her back.
Around them, the rain began falling again—or perhaps it was just a memory of that night.
***
Memory: Long ago…
The rain hammered the corrugated roofs of a small clandestine bar, lost in the alleys of a city with no name.
Inside, coarse laughter and clinking glasses almost covered the thunder's rumble.
Men with faces carved by fatigue and vice celebrated their plunders, while a young woman watched silently: Yuhida.
She was only nineteen, but her eyes already carried the years of a dirty, broken world.
Since childhood, she had grown up among these thieves and smugglers who raised her not as a girl, but as a tool:
> "When you grow up, Yuhida, you will serve us with your charm. You will stop convoys, you will turn heads. You were born for that."
And she obeyed. Never flinched. Never cried.
That night, though, something in her seemed to fade.
She stood up, dodging a drunken arm trying to hold her back.
— I'm tired of seeing you drink like pigs. I'm going to get some air.
Juty, an old robber with a face covered in scars, raised his glass with a sneer:
— Air? In this rain? Hahaha! Better have a drink with us, little one!
Yuhida shook her head.
— I don't drink.
She left the bar without another word.
Outside, the world seemed washed by the anger of the sky.
The rain fell in torrents, cold, biting, almost alive.
— Tsk... such freshness, she murmured, raising her eyes to the sky.
She was about to turn back when a shadow detached from the neighboring alley.
A staggering figure, a body battered by blood and mud.
The stranger fell heavily to the ground, right before her.
Yuhida squinted, wary, heart pounding.
— What is...?
She approached in small steps, the rain gradually washing away the red traces around the body.
A young man, face half hidden under black strands glued by water.
His lips moved faintly.