The silence after Volrag's challenge wasn't silence. It was the held breath of the Plaza itself, the fleshy floor pulsing beneath their boots like a monstrous, expectant tongue tasting fear. The air hung thick with grave dirt, ozone, and the cloying musk of the awakened mountain. Akuma, framed by his spectral entourage, the mocking of Yumi Isamu for Haruto, the sorrowful, bleeding Takeshi Fujiwara for Juro, the swirling vortex of primal void hunger for Corvin, didn't move. His star pupiled eyes, miniature dying supernovae, swept over Shiro and Kuro, radiating cosmic indifference laced with intimate malice.
A slow, tectonic smile split the obsidian void of his faceplate. "Ah," the voice resonated, not in the air, but in their bones, vibrating their teeth like tuning forks struck on ice. "The guttering sparks. Dragged yourselves this far. Trailing ashes and defiance. Admirable... in the way a cockroach scrambling from the hearth is admirable before the boot descends." His gaze lingered on Shiro's scarred, trembling hands, then slid to Kuro's pulsing, corrupted arm, the sickly blue light visible even in the Plaza's jaundiced gloom. "Still clinging to your broken toys, I see. Still pretending you're anything more than fuel for the mountain's dream."
He took a languid step forward. Frost crackled around his boots, spreading instantly, leeching what little warmth remained. "Ryo finds it... delightful. Your persistence. Your futile, flailing rage. Like watching ants build a sandcastle on the tide line." He chuckled, a sound like glaciers shearing. "He described the look on your face, Shiro, when you realized dear Yuki was gone. The sound you made. A wet little gasp. Like a stepped on mouse. He savoured it. Savors it still."
Shiro's knuckles whitened around the cold, dead ward stone. The grinding shriek in his fused wrists roared back, phantom thorns tearing deep. He saw Aki's bright eyes, her defiant smile. Akuma's voice cut through the memory like a flensing knife.
"And little Aki..." Akuma purred, the velvet tone deepening, becoming intimate, obscene. He tilted his head, the star pupils flaring with genuine pleasure. "Oh, yes. We've had such... extensive sessions, she and I. While you crawled through stone, princeling." He directed this at Kuro, whose storm grey eyes narrowed to slits, static buzzing louder around his corrupted arm, the blue luminescence flaring angrily beneath the bindings. "Such spirit! Such fight! It made the breaking all the sweeter. The artistry, you see, isn't just in the pain, but in the unmaking."
He raised a gauntleted hand, examining it as if remembering the feel. "Started small, of course. Aesthetics. The tip of her smallest finger." He mimed a delicate, precise snip with thumb and forefinger. "Snick. Like snapping a frozen twig. The sound was... crisp. Clean. The look in her eyes when she saw it lying there on the ice, tiny and perfect? Priceless. Shock, then disbelief, then the dawning horror as the nerves caught up. That first, sharp little gasp... music."
He sighed, a parody of contentment. "Then the frost, of course. Ryo insisted it be slow. Deliberate. Not just surface freezing. We let it seep. Let it find the pathways within. You can hear it, you know? In the quiet moments between screams. A faint... crackling. Like ice forming deep inside the marrow. It changes the pitch of the screams. Makes them... richer. Deeper." He closed his eyes for a moment, savouring the memory. "When it reached her hands properly... oh, the sounds she made trying to flex them. Like glass grinding under stone."
He leaned closer to Shiro, the star pupils filling his vision with dying light, the cold radiating from him like a physical blow. "She called for you, Shiro. Oh, how she called. A ragged, wet sound, like a broken bellows choked with blood ice. 'Shiro... Shiro...' Over and over. Until her vocal cords froze solid. A rasp, then a hiss, then... silence. But her eyes... her eyes still screamed." He chuckled, low and wet. "Ryo wanted her conscious for the peeling. Wanted her to feel every atom freeze and shatter. To know it was your fault. That you led her here. That you failed her."
Akuma mimed a slow, pulling motion with his fingers. "The frost makes the skin... brittle. Like ancient parchment soaked in brine. You start at the edges. A fingernail catches, lifts... just a sliver." He made a soft, wet, tearing sound, sucking air through invisible teeth. "Riiiiip. Slow. Deliberate. The sound is... visceral. Like wet leather tearing, but... colder. Sharper. The way the underlying tissue, still warm for a heartbeat, steams in the air before it too freezes white... exquisite." He licked where lips might have been on his void skin. "The patterns it leaves... fractal blooms of frost spreading from the raw edge... Ryo appreciates such beauty born of suffering."
He straightened, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that carried like a shout, aimed now at Kuro. "And the mind, sparks? Oh, the mind breaks so beautifully under sustained, exquisite pressure. One moment defiance, the next... vacancy. A doll with frozen tears. Eyes wide, unseeing, reflecting only the frost and the instruments. She stopped recognizing her own name. Just... babbled. Nonsense words mixed with your name, Shiro. A broken prayer to a god who wasn't listening." He spread his hands. "Even if, by some cosmic jest, you reached her now... what would you salvage? A hollow vessel? A shattered mirror reflecting only your own failure? Her body is a ruin, Shiro. Her mind is gone. Frozen fractals where thoughts used to spark. Aki is nothing now but a monument to your irrelevance. A frozen, screaming testament to your weakness."
The words weren't just descriptions; they were hooks sunk deep into Shiro's soul, tearing, unmaking. He saw Aki's bright eyes clouded, then blank, empty. He saw her vibrant form twisted, broken, skin peeled back by glacial knives in the exact, slow motion Akuma described. The phantom thorns in his wrists tore deeper, a white hot agony that mirrored the evisceration. The grinding shriek became the sound of her bones freezing, her skin tearing. Kuro felt the invasive cold fire in his arm surge, chewing towards his shoulder, a physical echo of the violation described. The static roared, his father's voice hissing Weakness betrays! See? This is the cost! Her blood is on your hands!
A flash seared their minds, not memory, but brutal clarity: The Sky Hearth crypt. Haruto's relentless drills. "Focus on the angle of the hip, not the scream of the bone!" "Precision is the antidote to volatility!" "Control dictates survival!" This wasn't just a fight. This was the crucible. The final test of everything forged in darkness. Akuma's sadistic pleasure was the bellows fanning the forge.
Shiro's breath hitched, a ragged, animal sound. Blood trickled from his nose, freezing instantly on his upper lip. His eyes, burning with contained stellar fire that now held a terrifying, glacial core, locked onto Akuma's star pupils. Not just rage. Not just pain. A focused, crystalline hate colder than the void itself. Beside him, Kuro's snarl died, replaced by a chilling stillness, a predator coiling on the edge of absolute zero. The crimson scar blazed, a controlled, sun hot furnace. The grey translucence in his arm pulsed, not with hungry malice, but with harnessed, lethal cold, resonating with the Plaza's own frozen hunger. The Defiance Variable ignited, not a spark, but a supernova compressed into a blade.
Akuma saw the shift. The cosmic indifference flickered, replaced by a spark of predatory interest. The sadistic enjoyment faded, replaced by the cold assessment of a hunter facing prey that might actually require effort. "Ah. There it is. The little ember finally catches. How... unexpectedly quaint." He raised his void black hand, frost swirling around it like eager minions. "Shall we extinguish it properly? Let me show you the true meaning of cold."
The Plaza erupted. Not with fire or ice, but with the shriek of steel meeting void forged obsidian.
Shiro didn't unleash the twin scars. He drew. The old rusted blade scraped free of its scabbard with a sound like grinding teeth, its light a defiant sunspot against the Plaza's decay. He moved with Haruto's brutal geometry burned into his muscles, left foot forward, angled thirty degrees, weight distributed sixty forty. He ignored the grinding shriek threatening to shatter his wrists, focused on the alignment of his strike. The apocalyptic wrath, the image of Aki broken, channelled not into uncontrolled fury, but into a single, devastating downward cut aimed at Akuma's shoulder joint.
Akuma didn't block. He intercepted. His own massive, black ice sword, seemingly formed from the Plaza's weeping shadows, met Shiro's rusted blade with a SKREEEEE CCCCHHHH! that sent sparks like frozen stars showering onto the yielding floor. The impact jarred up Shiro's arms, exploding white hot agony through his fused wrists. Phantom thorns tore at nerve endings. He gritted his teeth, tasting blood.
"Tch," Akuma clicked, the sound echoing unnaturally. "Still swinging that borrowed light? How predictable. Like a child with a stick." He shoved, effortlessly, sending Shiro staggering back, his boots slipping on the slick, fleshy ground. "Did you think rage alone would sharpen your edge, gutter rat? Rage is noise. It dulls the blade." He gestured dismissively with his free hand towards Kuro, who was circling, his own light rapier held low and steady, its crimson glow reflecting in his storm grey eyes. "And you, Princeling? Does the rot make your arm heavy? Or just slow your wits?"
Kuro didn't rise to the bait. He feinted left, then lunged right, his rapier a crimson streak aimed not at Akuma's armoured torso, but at the vulnerable seam behind his knee. Akuma pivoted with terrifying grace, his black ice sword whistling through the air to parry. CLANGGGGG! The sound was a bell tolling doom. Kuro's blade skittered off the obsidian edge, the force of the deflection wrenching his shoulder. The invasive cold fire in his corrupted arm flared in protest, chewing deeper, a white hot brand against bone. He hissed, retreating a step, the static roaring like a blizzard in his mind.
"See?" Akuma purred, advancing. "All that bluster, Princeling. All that borrowed fire." His star pupils fixed on Shiro, who was regaining his footing, blade held trembling before him. "You both scream defiance, yet you fight with tools we forged in darkness. Your swords? Echoes of the Sky Hearth's dead glow. Your rage? Fuelled by the suffering we orchestrated." He swung his sword in a wide, contemptuous arc, forcing both twins to leap back. Frost exploded from the blade's wake, coating the floor in treacherous, slick ice. "Even now, you dance to Ryo's tune. Scrabbling for Aki? A broken doll already half consumed by the mountain's dream. Did you know she whimpered your name before she forgot it? 'Shiro... help...' Pathetic. Like a kicked dog."
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Shiro roared, the words ripped raw from his throat. He surged forward, not with stellar fire, but with pure swordsmanship. High guard, step pivot lunge, the blade seeking Akuma's throat. Haruto's drills screamed in his mind: Angle dictates force! Misalignment dictates death! Akuma parried, the impact jolting Shiro's arms again, sending fresh waves of agony through his wrists. But he pressed, raining blows, cut, thrust, slash, each one precise, desperate, fuelled by the image of Aki's frozen tears. Sparks flew with every clash, illuminating Shiro's blood streaked face, his eyes burning with tears of pain and fury.
Kuro attacked low, his rapier a crimson viper striking at Akuma's ankles, forcing the void knight to adjust his stance. "Remember the flaying knife, Akuma?" Kuro spat, his voice thick with static and hatred. "The one you dropped in the throne room? Clumsy executioner. All that power, and you still drop things." He ducked under a backhand swipe that would have decapitated him, the wind of its passage freezing the sweat on his neck. He rolled, coming up inside Akuma's guard, thrusting for the armpit seam. SCRITCH! The crimson point scraped against the impossibly hard obsidian, scoring a shallow line but failing to pierce.
Akuma laughed, a sound like cracking glaciers. "Scratches! You inflict scratches!" He kicked out, a piston blow of void forged boot. Kuro twisted, but not fast enough. It caught him a glancing blow on the hip. CRUNCH. Bone protested. Kuro gasped, stumbling, pain lancing through his leg. The cold fire in his arm surged triumphantly, chewing another fraction towards his heart. "You carry your own doom within you, Princeling," Akuma sneered, advancing on the off balance Kuro. "The Star Breaker's gift. He marked you as ours long ago. That rot isn't a weapon; it's a collar. And we hold the chain."
Shiro saw Kuro falter. Saw the agony etched on his face, the blue luminescence flaring beneath his vambrace. The phantom thorns in his own wrists screamed. Aki's face flashed before him, not broken, but bright, defiant. One star at a time. He didn't think. He moved. Haruto's geometry: lateral step, weight shift, perfect alignment. He didn't use his scar. He used his body, his momentum, his borrowed rusted blade. He slammed into Akuma's flank with all his strength, shoulder first, a battering ram driven by despair and fury.
THUD! It was like hitting a cliff face. Pain exploded in Shiro's shoulder. Stars burst behind his eyes. But he felt the obsidian plate give, fractionally. Akuma stumbled, off balance for a crucial instant, his focus ripped from Kuro.
Kuro saw it. The opening. The shift. The Defiance Variable roared. Not just rage. Precision. He didn't hesitate. He planted his good leg, ignoring the screaming agony in his hip and the glacial fire eating his arm. He channelled the static, the cold, the crushing weight of Akuma's words, and the desperate, enduring spark of defiance into his crimson scarred fist. He didn't use the rapier. He hammered. A piston blow driven by leg, core, and shoulder, amplified by the harnessed void cold swirling around his knuckles. It connected with Akuma's horned helm, right where Shiro's impact had twisted it.
CRUNCHHHHH! The sound was horrific. Bone? Metal? Both? Akuma's head snapped back violently. A fissure spiderwebbed across the obsidian cheek plate. More frozen void ichor, black as a starless night and smelling of cosmic decay, jetted out, splattering Kuro's face, cold enough to sear skin. Akuma roared, a sound of pure, shocked fury that shook the weeping pillars and made the figures flicker violently. He staggered back several paces, one massive hand clutching his helm, ichor steaming where it hit the Plaza's warm, fleshy floor.
For a heartbeat, they stood panting in the sudden, ringing silence. Shiro slumped against a pillar, cradling his screaming shoulder, his right hand trembling violently, the amber blade hanging loose. Blood dripped from his nose, mingling with sweat on the frozen floor. Kuro gasped, leaning against another weeping pillar, his corrupted arm held tight against his body. The grey translucence had visibly inched past his elbow, pulsing angrily. Blood froze black on his cheek and knuckles. The Plaza floor beneath them was scarred and steaming, impact craters from their boots, frozen patches from near misses, splatters of dark ichor. Their swords felt heavy, extensions of their own battered, screaming bodies.
Akuma slowly lowered his hand from his cracked helm. The star pupils blazed with incandescent fury, no longer indifferent, but burning with the cold, infinite hate of betrayed entropy. The frozen void ichor stopped flowing, sealing the wound instantly. The crack in his faceplate seemed to absorb the sickly light, deepening the shadow within.
"Is that fucking all the twin stars have to offer?" The voice was a whisper now, colder than the space between stars. It didn't vibrate; it cut, slicing through the Plaza's humid air and into their souls. "Swords and fists? Pathetic. You sting like insects." He straightened to his full, terrifying height. The oppressive weight of his presence doubled, tripled. The fleshy floor groaned beneath him. The weeping pillars seemed to bow inward. The Void Entity behind him swirled faster, its hunger resonating with Akuma's rising power. "I have indulged your tantrum. Savoured the desperation. But even an executioner must not play with his prey too long..." He flexed his gauntleted hands. Obsidian plates ground together, emitting a subsonic shriek that made their teeth ache, their scars vibrate painfully. "...before it spoils."
Akuma lowered his hand from the cracked helm. The star pupils didn't just blaze; they devoured the jaundiced light, becoming singularities of infinite malice within the obsidian void. The frozen void ichor ceased its flow, sealing instantly into a jagged, obsidian scab. The fissure in his faceplate deepened, a bottomless pit swallowing the Plaza's sickly luminescence. The air pressure spiked, a physical weight pressing down on Shiro and Kuro's shoulders, forcing their battered bodies lower, making each breath a laborious gasp through lungs already seared by cold.
"Is that fucking all the twin stars have to offer?" The voice was a whisper now, colder than the absolute zero between galaxies. It didn't resonate; it lanced, bypassing ears to vibrate directly in their marrow, in the grinding shards of Shiro's wrists, in the invasive ice chewing Kuro's bones. "Swords and fists? Borrowed trinkets and borrowed rage?" He took a single step forward. The fleshy floor didn't yield; it shrank from his tread, pulling back like living tissue recoiling from a cautery iron. Frost bloomed instantly beneath his boots, thick and crystalline, radiating outwards with alarming speed. "You sting like gnats. Annoyances buzzing against the inevitable night." He straightened, unfolding to his full, terrifying height. The oppressive weight doubled. Kuro's knee buckled, hitting the yielding floor with a wet thud. Shiro braced harder against the weeping pillar, the rough, icy surface scraping his cheek, the phantom thorns in his wrists tearing deeper as his muscles strained just to stand. "I have indulged your tantrum," Akuma continued, the whisper gaining volume, becoming the grinding of continental plates. "Savoured the desperation flickering in your borrowed eyes. But even an executioner must not play with his prey too long..." He flexed his gauntleted hands. Obsidian plates ground together, not with a shriek, but with a subsonic groan that vibrated the Plaza's very foundations. Shiro felt his teeth threaten to crack; Kuro tasted copper as his own teeth clenched against the vibration. "...before it spoils the artistry."
He didn't gesture. He didn't need to. He simply inhaled.
The Plaza screamed once more.
WHOOMF KKKKRRRRRIIIICCCKKKK!
It wasn't a wave. It was the void made manifest. A wall of absolute, concentrated negation erupted from Akuma, filling the space between them instantly. The very air crystallized with a sound like a billion panes of diamond glass shattering simultaneously under impossible pressure. Shiro's next attempt to raise his blade died before it began. His arm locked, frozen mid motion. The heat was ripped from his body with such violence it felt like his skin was being flayed. The cold hit not like a wall, but like being submerged in liquid helium. Agony exploded anew, deeper, different.
The grinding shriek in his wrists? It froze. The sensation wasn't gone; it was transformed. The bone dust vibrating against nerves became jagged ice shards grinding in frozen sockets. Phantom thorns became actual icicles spearing through scar tissue. But worse, far worse, was the internal tearing. The conduits of his stellar power, the pathways Haruto's geometry had forced open, flash froze. He felt capillaries burst in his sinuses, his eyes, a hot trickle of blood instantly freezing into crimson icicles on his face. Frost rimed his lashes, sealing his vision into a blurry, jaundiced haze. He gasped, a soundless rictus, the breath freezing solid in his throat, threatening to choke him. His lungs felt like blocks of ice. Focus! Angle of the hip! Haruto's voice was a ghost, drowned by the howling, soul deep cold. His legs trembled violently, threatening to give way entirely. The pillar behind him was the only thing holding him up, its cold embrace the only anchor in a world dissolving into frozen agony.
Kuro fared worse. The wave hit his corrupted arm like a supernova catalyst. The invasive cold fire didn't just erupt; it detonated. It felt like glacial termites injected with liquid entropy, burrowing with frenzied, ecstatic speed past his shoulder, tunnelling towards his collarbone, his spine, his heart. The static became a physical drill bit inside his skull, grinding against bone, shredding thought. He screamed, a raw, animal sound ripped from the core of his being, devoid of words, pure agony given voice. He doubled over, convulsing, his corrupted arm spasming violently, uncontrollably. The grey translucence flared with agonizing blue white light, illuminating the veins in his neck standing out like frozen ropes. He saw his monstrous shadow again, not just laughing, but swelling on the floor, its form deepening, becoming more real, more hungry in the void cold. FEED US! GIVE US THE ROT! the static screamed, merging with Akuma's presence. Kuro clawed at his vambrace with his good hand, nails tearing leather, desperate to rip the corruption out, but it was too deep, too entwined. The dead, icy drag was now a crushing glacier encasing his entire left side, creeping towards his core.
Akuma moved.
Not with blinding speed, but with terrible, inevitable purpose. One moment he was ten paces away; the next, he was there, his presence filling Shiro's frozen, blurry world. He didn't walk; reality bent around him. His massive form seemed to absorb the jaundiced light, deepening the shadows clinging to him. The weeping pillar behind Shiro groaned as if in sympathy.
The void knight didn't swing his sword. He simply backhanded Shiro with contemptuous, glacial ease. The obsidian gauntlet, wreathed in swirling void darkness that seemed to devour light, connected with Shiro's chest.
CRACKKKK WHUNNCHHHHH!
The sound wasn't just sickening; it was multifaceted. The initial crack of ribs giving way. The wet, meaty thud of impact driving the air from Shiro's lungs in a frozen spray of blood and ice crystals. The deeper, grinding whunch as his sternum buckled inwards. Agony, white and absolute, consumed him. He felt his feet leave the yielding floor. Weightlessness, horrifying and brief. Then impact.
CRUNCHHHH SPLATTERRR!
Shiro crashed into a weeping pillar five yards away. Stone cracked under the force. Wet, yielding flesh beneath the ice gave way with a nauseating splatter. He slid down the pillar, leaving a wide, steaming smear of crimson on the black ice, the warmth of his blood instantly freezing at the edges. He landed in a heap, gasping for air that wouldn't come, his vision swimming in a kaleidoscope of pain and jaundiced light. The phantom thorns were now real knives buried in his wrists and chest. He tried to raise his hand, to summon the Polaris fire, to do anything. Nothing. His right arm hung limp, numb, the nerves flash frozen. A terrifying cold numbness spread from his shattered chest, battling the blazing agony. The Polaris scar on his palm was a dull, frozen ache, a distant star buried under an ice age. He tasted blood, thick and metallic, mixed with the grave dirt stench of the Plaza. His amber blade lay several feet away, its light guttering weakly.
"Pathetic," the void voice whispered, devoid of triumph, only infinite, chilling purpose. Akuma loomed over him, blotting out the jaundiced light, his star pupils twin event horizons pulling Shiro's consciousness towards oblivion. "All that fire. All that defiance. Reduced to a broken doll, just like your Aki." He raised his gauntleted foot, the void darkness swirling thickly around it. Frost crackled and thickened into jagged spikes on the sole. "Let me show you true artistry. Let me show you the final brushstroke on Ryo's masterpiece. Let me show you... Eventide Fracture."
The gauntlet began to change. Not glow. It devoured light. Space itself warped visibly around it, a localized gravitational collapse. The jaundiced light of the Plaza bent and stretched, pulled into the impossible darkness gathering in his fist like water down a drain. The air pressure plummeted further, a vacuum forming, pulling at Shiro's clothes, his hair, threatening to suck the breath from his ruined lungs. The temperature dropped to levels that defied comprehensiona cold that didn't just freeze flesh, but threatened to unravel the very molecular bonds holding matter together. Shiro's vision greyed at the edges. The grinding agony in his wrists faded, replaced by a terrifying, absolute stillness creeping up his arms. He could feel his blood slowing, thickening towards ice in his veins.
The ghostly figures solidified, feeding on the unleashed power. Yumi Isamu's smirk widened into a rictus grin, sharp and predatory. Takeshi Fujiwara's sorrowful expression contorted further, his bleeding wounds weeping streams of black tears that froze instantly into grotesque icicles hanging from his spectral form. The swirling Void Entity vortex behind Akuma spun faster, its form coalescing, becoming denser, hungrier, a whirlpool of pure, ravenous negation resonating with the power gathering in Akuma's fist. The fleshy floor directly beneath the descending gauntlet recoiled violently, pulling back to reveal wet, glistening muscle beneath, steaming as the impossible cold touched it.
Shiro stared up, helpless, drowning in pain, encroaching cold, and the crushing weight of despair. He saw Kuro, ten paces away, struggling to rise from his knees. Blood poured from Kuro's face, frozen into a black mask around his mouth and jaw. His corrupted arm was a dead, frozen log, the grey translucence now encasing his entire shoulder, creeping onto his chest, pulsing with a sickly light that seemed dimmer, weaker against Akuma's gathering void. Kuro's good hand scrabbled at the slick floor, trying to find purchase, his storm grey eyes wide with horror fixed on the descending gauntlet over Shiro. The drills in the crypt, the defiance forged in darkness, the brief, agonizing triumph of drawing blood… it all crumbled like ash before the unveiled, apocalyptic power of the Scourge. The embers guttered, drowning in Eventide's frost.
Kuro roared. A sound ripped from the very depths of his being, raw, primal, a denial screamed against the inevitable. It was pure, desperate defiance fuelled by shared agony and the horrifying vision of Shiro about to be unmade. He threw himself forward, ignoring the shrieking protest in his shattered hip, ignoring the glacier encasing his left side, ignoring the static drill shredding his sanity. He propelled himself with his one good leg and arm, a broken, desperate lunge across the frozen, yielding floor. His good hand, the crimson scar flaring with a final, weak pulse of desperate light against the suffocating void darkness gathering in Akuma's fist, stretched out towards Shiro. Not to attack Akuma. To reach Shiro. To shield him. To do something.
Too slow. Too broken. Too late.
Akuma didn't even glance at Kuro's futile charge. His focus, absolute and terrifying, remained on Shiro. The void gauntlet, now a nexus of light devouring cold, a singularity of Eventide Fracture, descended with deliberate, unstoppable finality towards Shiro's exposed, shattered chest. The hungry stone of the Plaza seemed to hold its breath. The ghostly audience leaned forward, anticipation etched in spectral malice. The final fracture began. Time itself seemed to slow, stretching the moment of impact into an eternity of frozen horror. Shiro saw only the lightless void filling his vision, felt only the impossible cold promising oblivion. Kuro's outstretched hand seemed miles away, a crimson speck swallowed by the encroaching dark. The embers died.