The moment the two flames touched, the sky cracked.
Akreth's silver light and the Hollow Flame's reverse fire collided above the Scar in a violent shimmer of colorless brilliance. The air around the clash twisted, folding in on itself. Sound became distortion. Light became memory.
Eren stood firm at the edge of the chasm, Akreth pulsing in his grip, the blade humming not in fury but in clarity. The sword didn't burn hotter. It burned truer.
Yureth did not move.
She simply watched.
Then she spoke.
"You are what I feared most."
Eren stepped forward.
"I know."
Yureth raised her hand.
The Hollow Flame surged outward not as fire, but as forgetting. The trees behind Eren withered into ash. Stones lost their markings. One of the scouts behind him staggered, clutching his head.
"I can't remember where I'm from," he gasped.
Eren turned to Elira.
"Anchor them."
She nodded and began tracing runes in the soil.
"Speak your names!" she called. "Speak them aloud!"
Across the line, voices rose.
"Rhett."
"Naeya."
"Dalen, son of Tessa."
Each name pushed back the creeping fog of unmaking.
Syra joined the front line.
"Keep them talking. Don't let silence settle."
Yureth's eyes narrowed.
"You think memory will save you?"
Eren lifted Akreth.
"No. But it will stand with me."
He lunged.
Their flames met again.
The clash tore the air in two.
Yureth's Hollow Flame writhed like a living thing, seeking cracks in Eren's defenses. But Akreth held. With every strike, silver light pushed back the void. Sparks danced between them some drifting toward the camp, some sinking into the chasm below.
And still, neither gained ground.
Yureth swept her hand in a wide arc.
The Scar itself screamed.
A section of the ridge crumbled, dropping one of the Ashbound into the abyss.
Eren turned his blade, channeling the sword's memory into a shield of light.
"You destroy without care," he shouted.
"I erase to rebuild."
"You erase because you're afraid to remember!"
He pressed forward, slashing in tight, deliberate strikes.
Each swing of Akreth left echoes behind trails of light shaped like names. Cael. Lyria. Syra. His own. They hovered in the air like shields.
Yureth paused.
The Hollow Flame shrank slightly.
"You're not the first to raise truth against me."
Eren stepped closer.
"I'll be the last."
She extended both hands.
The Hollow Flame burst upward.
A column of colorless fire roared into the clouds, darkening the sky. Lightning with no thunder arced in all directions. The ground beneath them buckled.
Eren dropped to one knee, blade planted in the earth.
"Elira!"
She extended her hands, forming a circle of runes around him.
"Hold!"
Syra dashed in, daggers flashing.
She struck Yureth's defenses but they didn't break.
Instead, her blades dissolved mid-swing, falling as harmless dust.
Yureth looked at her.
"You live in the space between belief and denial."
Syra spat at her feet.
"And you live in the lie of control."
Eren stood once more.
Akreth glowed with new light brighter, steadier.
Not white.
Not gold.
But flame touched by choice.
He whispered to the blade.
"Let her feel who we've become."
Then he charged.
Yureth met him mid-air.
The two collided in a burst of light so bright it blinded even the stars.
And then
Silence.
Dust fell.
The flames died.
And both figures hit the ground on opposite sides of the Scar.
Eren rolled onto his side, gasping.
Akreth was still in his hand.
Still whole.
Across the chasm, Yureth knelt.
Her veil torn.
Her eyes wide.
"You didn't break," she said.
Eren sat up.
"You didn't either."
Then she smiled not with cruelty, but with release.
"I remember again."
And vanished.
Not in smoke.
Not in ash.
She simply… left.
Like a weight finally lifted.
The Hollow Flame vanished with her.
All that remained was wind.
And the whisper of names.