The chamber reeked of silence after the Sayuri Elders vanished. No screams. No ashes. Just nothing, as if they had never breathed at all.
Rei stood alone, chest heaving, knuckles white around the Blade of Resolve. His breath rasped like broken glass in his throat.
The figure stepped forward. Calm. Measured. Shadows parted for him like they knew better than to touch. He hadn't lifted a weapon. He hadn't needed to.
Rei's jaw clenched. His voice was hoarse.
"You erased them like they were nothing."
The Elder tilted his head, his expression flat, unreadable.
"They were nothing. You, however… you are different. You have grown since the last time I saw you."
Rei's eyes narrowed. The memory of Shira's sacrifice burned in him like a wound that never closed.
"You mean that day. When she opened the portal. When she saved me from you."
The Elder's gaze didn't shift.
"No. I speak of the day your village fell. You were just a child. But I remember you. And now here you stand, carrying power you do not understand."
Rage flooded Rei's chest. His voice cracked with it.
"Then remember this."
He vanished, Flash Step tearing across the floor, the Blade of Resolve screaming with God Enso's light. He swung, every ounce of fury pouring into the cut.
CLANG.
The Elder caught the blade in his bare palm. Sparks showered the chamber. Rei's arms trembled, teeth gritted, muscles tearing as he pushed down with everything he had.
The Elder didn't move. His eyes were still. His palm uncut.
"Predictable."
Slowly, deliberately, the Elder's other hand rose. From his flesh, steel emerged. A blade, flawless and black, sliding from his palm as if time itself had birthed it. He held it casually, but the air bent sharp around its edge.
Rei staggered back, fury twisting his face.
"So you do bleed steel after all."
The Elder's voice was calm. Too calm.
"I do not block. I do not dodge. When your blade finds me, I rewind. Your strike unravels before it is born."
Rei spat blood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Then I'll cut you a thousand times, until even time gets tired of fixing you."
The fight began.
Steel clashed with steel. Sparks lit the chamber, flashes of light drowned by the crack of Enso. Rei moved like a storm given flesh, every step carrying the lessons burned into him by the Sayuri.
Kazumi's Abyss whispered through his swings, shadows weaving around his strikes.
Daiken's Gravitas pressed into his footing, his blade weighted like the earth itself.
Tetsuya's rhythm pulsed in his veins, steps flowing faster than thought.
The Silent Elder's stillness bled into his focus, every strike precise, measured.
And wrapped around it all, God Enso roared, a rhythm of light and fury, shredding the chamber's stone as he cut.
The Elder parried without strain. Each time Rei's blade kissed flesh, the wound vanished, time rewinding in a flicker of silence. The Elder's sword moved slow, deliberate, yet every cut pressed Rei back like the world itself had chosen him to lose.
"You flail with their fragments," the Elder said, voice steady even as his sword cracked sparks from Rei's guard. "But fragments do not build gods."
Rei roared back, voice raw, human, desperate.
"Then I'll build one with my own hands."
He pushed forward. Flash Step. Mimicry Pulse. The chamber tore apart under the force of his speed, each strike layered with echoes of the Sayuri. The Elder's blade hissed, cutting through the rhythm, but Rei didn't break. He moved with fury, with grief, with Shira's voice in his ear.
Live.
The Elder's calm cracked for the first time. His parries grew sharper. His eyes narrowed. Rei's blade kissed his shoulder.
For half a heartbeat, blood spilled.
And then it vanished. The wound erased, time folding it away.
The Elder's voice dropped, quieter, edged with faint amusement.
"Almost. You almost had me."
Rei's chest heaved, blood dripping from his temple, knuckles split raw. His body screamed to collapse but his eyes burned.
"I don't need almost. I only need once."
Their blades met again. Sparks. Silence. A rhythm that shook the chamber like the heartbeat of gods. Rei's pulse slammed through his veins, every strike closer, sharper, faster.
And then his blade cut true.
Steel slid through the Elder's chest.
The Elder froze. His eyes shifted down, not in shock, not in pain, but in recognition. The steel trembled in Rei's grip, glowing with God Enso's burn.
The Elder exhaled, calm even as blood stained his robes. His voice was a whisper.
"At last… the blade remembers me."
Rei's eyes widened, confusion slicing through his fury.
"What… what are you talking about?"
The Elder's lips curved in the faintest shadow of a smile. His hand rose, pressing against the wound.
"You think this is victory. But you will learn… memory runs deeper than time."
The chamber trembled. The wound began to rewind.
Rei staggered back, chest heaving, blade dripping. For the first time, he had made him bleed. For the first time, time itself had hesitated.
But as the Elder straightened, eyes glowing with something ancient and absolute, Rei realized the fight wasn't over.
It had only just begun.