The world was pain.
Not the clean, sharp pain of a blade, but a violating, soul-deep agony. Shards of solidified silence, pure manifestations of Zero's Chinmoku, hammered into Jade's psyche. Each impact was a wave of numbness, a freezing cold that sought to still the chaotic fire of his Obsidian Core. It was the antithesis of his being, an existential erasure.
Across the Resonant Cage, Zero was drowning. Waves of crimson-black energy, echoes of Jade's Obliterate, crashed over him. They carried no physical force, but a payload of raw, chaotic emotion—the fury of defeat, the heat of obsession, the cold burn of betrayal. To his perfectly ordered void, it was a screaming, unbearable cacophony, a poison seeping into his foundations.
< Failure: Amplification. >
The prompt burned before their eyes, a taunt.
Jade roared, channeling his fury. He swung his scythe, unleashing Obliterate against the shards of silence assailing him. The crimson wave met the psychic projectiles—and the shards multiplied, swarming him tenfold. The numbness intensified, locking his muscles. A simultaneous, sympathetic scream of raw emotion tore from Zero as the feedback from Jade's failed strike amplified the chaotic waves around him.
It's using our power. Turning us against each other, Jade realized, the thought cutting through the pain. My defense is his harm.
Zero, his mind fraying under the emotional onslaught, acted with flawless, misguided logic. He performed a severance, aiming to unmake the chaotic waves attacking him. The space around him twisted—and the waves simply reformed, denser, hotter, their emotional resonance now carrying the sharp, metallic tang of his own desperation.
I cannot sever what is fundamentally part of his nature, Zero's analysis was a frantic, failing algorithm. To defend is to attack.
It was a vicious, self-destructive cycle. Each attempt to save themselves only deepened the other's torment. The Amplification had begun. Jade could feel the chaotic malice within him swelling, fed by Zero's failed severances. Zero felt the first cracks in his void, spider-webbing under the relentless emotional barrage.
Driven to the precipice, instinct overrode logic. Jade saw a particularly violent wave of his own chaotic energy about to crash down onto Zero, who was visibly trembling, his focus shattered.
No.
It was not a thought. It was a command from a place deeper than his Obsidian Core.
He moved. Ignoring the shards of silence tearing into his own back, he pivoted, throwing himself in front of Zero. He conjured a desperate shield of Obliterate's energy, not to attack, but to protect. The chaotic wave meant for Zero met his own controlled chaos and dissipated harmlessly.
The cost was immediate and excruciating. The silence shards, unimpeded, slammed into his unprotected back. He cried out, not in pain, but at the terrifying numbness that threatened to extinguish his very will. But in the space behind him, for one single, precious second, there was quiet.
Zero felt it. The screaming in his mind ceased. In that breath of pure, clear void, the solution crystallized. The objective was not opposition. It was harmony. Protection, not destruction.
His eyes, wide with a rare, uncalculated intensity, met Jade's pained gaze. He did not speak. He did not need to.
As the next volley of silence shards targeted Jade, Zero did not try to sever them. He stepped forward, placing himself beside Jade, and unleashed Implacable Stillness. But he did not make himself the fortress. He extended the aura, wrapping its serene, unmoving energy around Jade.
The psychic shards hit the pocket of absolute calm and simply… vanished, absorbed by the void.
The effect was instantaneous.
Jade's protective shield of chaotic energy and Zero's pocket of serene stillness did not cancel each other out. They intertwined, weaving together into a new, stable energy field—a perfect, resonant harmony of controlled chaos and serene void. A shimmering dome of silver and crimson encapsulated them.
The Resonant Cage shuddered. The attacks ceased. The swirling mercury walls stilled, then solidified into a single, gleaming pathway leading forward.
The silence that followed was profound. Jade stood panting, his body trembling with residual numbness, the phantom screams of his own power still echoing in his bones. Zero was pale, his brow furrowed as if haunted by a ghost he could not unmake. There were no words. The understanding between them was too fundamental, too hard-won, for language.
They moved down the new path, their steps heavy with the cost of their synergy. The labyrinth's whispers returned, but they were different now—a low, collective hum, a chorus of countless conquered echoes.
The path opened into a vast, cavernous space. The air was still and cold. In the center lay a pool of water so black it seemed to be a hole in reality, absorbing all light. There were no ripples, no reflections.
And there, lying motionless at the pool's edge, as if discarded by the void itself, was a body.
Zero's foot dislodged a small, smooth stone. It skittered across the cavern floor, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence, before coming to a rest against the pale, lifeless hand of the figure.
The face, turned towards them, was their own.