You Already Won

The plan had been simple.

Sneak attack the Calmbrand. Have Tinsurnae finish the job. Lure him deep into the woods where Sšurtinaui had laid an entire death web of traps, illusions, and Ryun-based lures.

The forest was supposed to be their domain. The animals didn't help—Tinsurnae had abandoned that route—but the layout still gave them an edge.

At first, it worked.

Caelus had been caught off guard. Pressured. Cornered.

But then that blade started glowing.

Not just Ryun glow. Something deeper. Older.

They both had the misfortune of being cut by it—Tinsurnae four times, Sšurtinaui three. Each slash wasn't just pain—it was finality. Something in those cuts drained more than stamina. It was like their life began wilting, like death itself was whispering.

There was no time to compare notes, no time to test theories. Caelus never gave them the chance.

They only had enough time to realize one simple truth.

A few more cuts… and they'd both be dead.

Caelus dashed forward, his blade dragging a glowing X into the air—light-blue and pulsing with a slow, eerie rhythm. For a brief moment, nothing happened.

Then—

FWOOOOM.

The cross flared, exploding outward in a radial slash that punished hesitation. Tinsurnae twisted her hand upward just in time—

A spiraling vortex of water formed around her, coiling in perfect arcs. The blast met the torrent and splashed wide, doused and diffused in waves of boiling mist.

Behind her, Sšurtinaui raised one arm.

"Téma i-Farion"

A whisper of green light flashed forward—so narrow it could be mistaken for a trick of the eye. It carved clean through branches, rocks, and air itself. Even Caelus's shoulder guard split slightly—

—but his body vanished.

A flicker.

A blur.

Then steel.

Caelus reappeared behind Tinsurnae in the same breath. His blade arced down in a clean backslash while a blue mirage of himself mimicked the strike from the front—phantom and real converging in perfect sync. An X carved from Ryun followed, residual blades cleaving the space just after the first.

Tinsurnae staggered but planted her foot—

Then

A gust of freezing wind condensed around her, sharpening into a whirling lance of ice and wind. It screamed forward, shards glittering like stars.

Caelus kicked off the frozen ground, flipping backward just in time as the drill impaled the earth and froze a wide swath of the forest floor behind him.

He landed silently—grinning.

And already preparing his next move.

Tinsurnae's body shimmered, then vanished inside a dense veil of mist.

A chilled fog cloaked her frame, and Caelus's blade—already mid-swing—slowed to a crawl as it passed through the moisture-laced aura.

In that moment, Sšurtinaui reappeared behind him with a burst step, her movement sharp and surgical. She carved an X-slash, residual Ryun blades trailing behind like ghost fangs, each timed for layered destruction.

But Caelus was ready.

His body twisted unnaturally. His blade parried one, then two slashes. Sšurtinaui dodged the retaliatory strike by the thinnest breath, her body nearly ripping at the seams from how much Ryun she had to exude to push herself past the phantom edges.

She gasped—then—

CRACK!

Caelus's left fist smashed into her ribs.

WHAM!

A low kick swept her off her feet.

THUD!

Another strike to the chest sent her hurling into a tree, snapping it in two.

He dashed forward, blade primed to pierce her heart—

"No!" Tinsurnae roared, leaping in with a twist of her wrist.

A screaming column of wind and ice tunneled through the air, freezing all it touched. She followed up with:

"Abyssal Lance!"

A spear of ultra-dense water shot from her palm, trailing vapor like a missile. It slammed into the ground where Caelus had stood, obliterating it in a geyser of dirt and vapor.

They clashed again.

Water. Light. Wind. Blade.

Every motion was a death sentence, every second a gamble. Caelus and Tinsurnae wove a ballet of slaughter—his blade streaking with echoes and her limbs trailing glacial storms.

Then

An opening.

She ducked under one of his phantom X-swipes, barely brushing past the mirage blade, her feet skating over newly frozen ground.

Her hand pulsed with glowing Sryun, every muscle flexed to the limit.

THRUST.

She lunged upward, right palm extended like a spear. The point punched through his armor, slicing into flesh—

—but he flickered away, teleporting mid-damage.

His eyes widened in rage.

And then came the barrage.

A hailstorm of slashes exploded from above, beneath, and all sides. Each swing tore through trees, cracked boulders, and shredded the terrain.

Tinsurnae flung herself upward, launching with compressed jets of water beneath her feet, blasting her out of the kill zone just in time.

Beneath her, the forest disintegrated into chunks of bark and cratered soil.

She glanced down, cursing under her breath.

"That was supposed to be the finisher…"

Caelus shot into the sky, his blade dragging glowing trails of Ryun behind him. But Tinsurnae was already waiting—her form outlined by swirling Sryun, her body glowing faintly blue-green as the clouds churned above her.

She raised her hands.

The sky responded.

Clouds twisted, contracted, and then burst open into beast-shaped heads, each one snapping with fangs of condensed mist and roaring frost. They exhaled in tandem, sending out waves of steaming rain bullets, like divine artillery battering the heavens. All while her Sryun wrapped around her in a tight spiral, reinforcing her body, mind, and resolve.

Caelus narrowed his eyes.

He still didn't know what that last strike was—the one that cut past his Ryun defenses like they didn't exist. That wasn't technique. That was something else. But no matter. He would adapt or die. That was the law.

He lifted his sword.

Six glowing phantom echoes spun around him like afterimages. Then—he slashed once, slowly, deliberately downward.

All six echoes mimicked the slash, each from different angles. A moment later, he activated Spectral Sync.

Glowing blue phantom copies burst outward, retracing his exact past movements. They replicated the last eight seconds of his inputs—dashes, slashes, flickers, phantom teleports—everything he had just done replayed again in perfect succession, only slightly delayed and at 75% power.

The forest was ash and ruined now.

What remained of the trees were jagged stumps and burning roots—blasted clean by Caelus's onslaught.

Tinsurnae moved like a hawk, her body encased in spiraling Sryun, streaks of mist trailing her every step as she clashed with eight phantoms.

One came at her from the left, blade dragging that signature glowing X into the air.

She spun and countered.

A Mistlock Veil snapped around her, slowing the incoming strike. Her palm thrusted upward—Tidecoil Barrier expanding into a whirlpool of mist and water, catching two other Caelus echoes before they could flank her.

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"Freeze."

She snapped her fingers—stormheads of cloud-beasts roared above her, their mouths opening wide to exhale torrents of frost and steaming rain bullets.

Three echoes exploded on contact. Gone in bursts of distorted Ryun.

But five remained. Five still moved with that impossibly precise tempo, chasing her down with flicker-dashes and delay-burst slashes.

Each movement layered over the last.

Each strike synced with past inputs, copied and replayed with devastating rhythm.

Tinsurnae's body ached. Her Sryun was stretched thin, her lungs wheezing against the moisture-heavy air. But she kept moving.

Below her—half-buried in craters and dust—Sšurtinaui lay on one knee, drawing a green arrow.

Her hands trembled. Vision blurred. Breathing uneven.

But her aim?

Still sharp.

She tracked the real Caelus between his phantom doubles.

"This is all I have left."

She shot down three clones before her aura sputtered out.

Tinsurnae dropped down as her cloud-beast heads fizzled away, water-jumping from the airborne clash and skidding across the charred earth in a blast of steam. Letting out a roar of breathless exertion as the entire area around her surged with steam.

Not just mist—bladed steam. Water vapor condensed and compressed, moving with slashes of pressure and heat. Trees melted, leaves hissed into nothing, and the terrain vaporized in clean spirals, carving trenches and scars into the forest floor. Destroying the rest of Caelus clones that shielded him before sputtering into blue mist.

This was her domain now.

But Caelus didn't hesitate.

He blitzed through it.

His sword dragging a glowing X into the ruined air—blue sigils erupting behind him. The line flared for a second—

BOOM.

A light-blue radial slash exploded behind him, punishing the very act of dodging. Tinsurnae was already in motion, but it didn't stop there.

He followed through—channeling all of his mastery into a single upward slash, a move that made the entire world tilt.

The edge of his sword tore through reality itself.

A towering column of blinding energy burst into the sky, shattering the atmosphere, creating silence followed by obliteration. Trees incinerated. Land warped. The edges of the battlefield cracked apart, drawn toward the rising slash as if gravity had reversed.

Tinsurnae and Sšurtinaui saw it.

And they felt it.

DEATH.

But before that feeling could solidify—before death set in—a beam of Ryun descended from above and teleported them up.

Red-black lightning tore through the air, and then—

Three swords—each glowing purple and orange with layered intent—intercepted Caelus's column of death.

BOOOOM!!!

The detonation sank into the land, compressing the ruined forest into a leveled basin. Dust curled up into blackened skies as heat shimmered off the broken and fractured land.

Three figures stood at the center of it all.

Caelus paused.

He finally noticed the aftermath of the airships in the distance—the flames still curling from their ruins. Debris rained like dying snowflakes, and the scent of ozone hadn't faded. He'd felt no alerts, no energy spikes that matched those vessels being destroyed. And yet—

Here they were.

He recognized one of them. Jack. The other?

He didn't need a warning. The aura was enough. The Event.

Even with a depleted health bar, that presence twisted the field of battle. Two versus one—but it didn't matter. He would adapt. Or die.

Caelus took a stance.

The air trembled. His blade hummed with spectral energy. Blue sigils circled his shoulders like orbiting stars, and the pressure of his Ryun deepened the crater beneath him.

And then they collided.

The world shattered under their speed.

Caelus met them head-on—his sword cleaving space in X-shaped streaks. Jack appeared beside him, matching every blow, redirecting counters with erratic momentum and sharpened instability. North hovered above the chaos, red-black lightning crackling beneath his cloak, descending with punishing force and silent calculation.

The sky fractured. The battlefield became a whirl of storms and slash trails—every step a detonation, every missed blow a new scar on the world.

Inside the ship, the weight of survival finally hit them.

Tinsurnae cradled Sšurtinaui's limp form, her arms tight, her voice shaking. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. I owe you for this… I swear I'll repay it."

Caroline bolted over, eyes wide with relief, and threw herself into the hug, nearly knocking them all over.

"Oh my god! I'm glad you guys are ok! I thought that was it! That big-ass attack!"

"I know!" Tinsurnae gasped, her breathing still catching up with her pounding heart. "That was terrifying."

They both paused, noticing the same thing at the same time—Sšurtinaui's head lolled back, completely unconscious.

Caroline blinked.

"I guess it makes sense to be a little sleepy," Tinsurnae snorted. "Give her a near-death experience and she just—boop. Power nap."

"She's got the right idea," Caroline muttered, brushing hair out of Sšurtinaui's face before looking at Tinsurnae again. "You good?"

"Yeah… yeah, I think so. But I need to warn North." Tinsurnae's expression shifted. "That sword. I can't explain it—but it's wrong. I was only cut a few times, and it felt like it was killing me from the inside. It's not normal. A few more cuts and I think I would've just… died."

Caroline's eyes widened. "That's extremely important. Why didn't you start with that?!"

"I wasn't expecting a Star Wars ship to show up and save my ass!" Tinsurnae whined.

Caroline spun around and activated the comms, slamming her palm on the console. "NORTH! JACK! Watch out for the sword—Tinny says it has some super kill condition!"

Tinsurnae blinked at the volume. "…That was certainly one way to tell them."

Caroline grinned. "I find that being direct saves lives."

——

North smirked from the sideline. If what Tinsurnae said was true, then maybe it was best to let Jack take the spotlight—he did seem to want it badly. But from the looks of it?

It wasn't going Jack's way.

Caelus was on him like frostbite in winter, each movement tight, calculated. His blade cut in spirals of light and void. Jack threw up one forged defense after another—burning gauntlets, kinetic pulse barriers, even a mirrored sonic blade—but Caelus outperformed him at every turn. For every strike Jack landed, Caelus landed two cleaner ones. Every dodged slash still left behind residual echoes that clipped him.

A low warning buzzed in Jack's mind.

You've got two more hits left.

Jack knew. He felt it. He grit his teeth and dropped low, summoning another weapon from his arsenal.

Echoforge: Phaseclaw Disruptor —

A jagged, black-metal scythe infused with Haruki Limit Breaker and traces of Newsaw's time-bend Ryun. It crackled with chrono-magnetic distortion.

He swung hard.

Caelus sidestepped, barely flicking his blade—

—and Jack missed. Again.

North watched quietly.

But what caught his attention wasn't the clash. It was the shadow outlining Jack's aura. A subtle distortion—like a creeping tether between the sword's edge and Jack's soul. He's already marked… North thought.

Then it clicked.

It wasn't just a damage counter. The sword recorded successful cuts, and when the number hit a threshold—

You're done.

North's smile curled deeper.

He could see the pattern now. Jack wasn't just losing—

He was being calculated.

Jack screamed—not in fear, but in that chaotic, bone-deep frustration that only came when a fight refused to bend to your will. Power flared. A crackling amalgamation of his Haruki Limit Breaker and Newsaw's distortion burst from his form. He used everything: the sonic pulse, the ricochet kick boosters, even the chain-drill construct meant to tear through hulls.

The land trembled beneath his barrage. Ryun detonated in waves.

But Caelus?

Caelus slashed through it all.

Each of Jack's desperate attacks ended the same way: Denied. Nullified. Jack couldn't figure it out—why couldn't he pierce this guy's defenses? Why didn't his absorption convert anything? Why was every attack returned with more precision?

Then came the moment.

Caelus flickered once.

Then again.

Jack's eyes widened as time seemed to pause—

—and the sword was already coming down. Straight for his skull.

He couldn't move.

But a lightning whip snapped around his waist and yanked him back just in time.

The blade slammed into the land, sending a shockwave through the cratered landscape.

Jack rolled once, coughing, but alive.

Caelus snarled. His eyes glowed with rage as he turned toward the source of interference.

Floating just above the ground, cloak rippling in the hot Ryun air. Head slightly tilted. Crimson eyes locked forward. Thin red lines beneath his eyes pulsed faintly.

"Demon." Caelus hissed.

"From my point of view, you're the demon." North said, voice dry, tone amused.

Jack pushed himself to his feet, still steaming from the last attack.

"What the hell, I had that!" he barked.

"You almost got your head split, MC."

"Fuck off!"

North didn't even look at him. He floated, slow and deliberate, his gaze never leaving Caelus.

"Let's see what that sword of yours is really about."

Floating forward, crimson-black lightning licking his frame like tendrils of hungry fire. The red lines beneath his eyes glowed brighter. His cloak crackled with kinetic build-up.

Caelus struck first, a whirl of speed and rhythm.

He launched into Specter Waltz, three slashes around North, each timed with a phantom delay. The air shimmered blue.

North responded with a spiraling column of red-black lightning that detonated in eerie silence around him. The echoes of Caelus's strikes dissipated mid-swing as their momentum vanished, and the area bled willpower and energy.

Caelus blinked, not physically—but emotionally. That drain. It was unnatural.

He dashed back, resetting his stance, blade humming.

With Blinkbrand Thrust, he flickered forward, stabbing in a straight burning line. North sidestepped and retaliated with Veinburst Surge, red lightning firing outward like branching arteries. It connected, and Caelus staggered as his internal flow was disrupted—hallucinations crept into the edge of his senses, and his healing slowed.

Cursing under his breath, he spun, and executed Flowstep: Mirage Break, his mirage clone striking from the front while he carved North's shoulder from behind.

SLICE.

Blood flicked outward—black and red.

North's eyes widened slightly.

His breathing sharpened.

In that one moment, he felt the distortion. The lingering energy stuck to his aura. He was right, it wasn't just a wound. It was a mark. Caelus smirked and surged forward again.

But this time…

North did the unthinkable.

RIP.

He tore off his own arm mid-combat, just as the sword sliced it.

Caelus halted, eyes narrowing. "…What are you?"

North stood there with his arm glowing gold, blood reforming the limb and Ryun reforming the cloak in real-time. "Better safe than sorry."

Six ghostly phantoms encircled him.

A blur.

Six slashes detonated from all angles, converging in one final massive vertical arc of judgment.

But the ground beneath him coiled with magnetic tension—

The earth beneath erupted with a red-black lightning spiral that pulled Caelus inward—interrupting his rhythm just long enough for North to phase out and land atop a ruined cliff.

Caelus snarled. North's cloak danced in the wind. "That sword of yours is tricky," he said. "But I got a trick or two myself."

Their eyes locked again.

Caelus took his stance.

North's lightning surged.

He launched forward, fists crashing against Caelus's glowing guard. Sparks exploded with each impact—no fancy footwork now, just raw violence. Caelus met him head-on, parrying, twisting, returning the favor with blinding sword strikes and knee slams. The air shuddered with every clash, lightning and afterimages carving lines across the horizon.

North took a hit to the ribs—cracked.

He hit Caelus across the temple—blood sprayed.

And then—

Jack jumped in.

Wielding an ever-changing arsenal, he cleaved between them like a glitch in the code of reality. His blade roared with Defeat. His chakrams pulsed with Black Hawks' legacy. His gauntlets shimmered with the concepts of Time, Ruin, Despair, and every ability he ever downloaded into his core recently.

"You two wanna dance without me?" he barked, whirling through the sky, his laughter unhinged.

North growled. "This mother—"

Caelus's calm cracked as well. He sidestepped a glaive strike and slashed, carving a path of blue Ryun through the madness. It looked like a two-on-one, but truthfully?

It was a free-for-all.

They clashed in the sky, on the ground, underground, and back again.

Three stars shaken inside a jar.

North saw it first.

Caelus had the advantage in technique. His movements—refined. His blade—perfect. But his aura?… it was showing signs of being tampered with. Threads of Sryun laced his aura, thin and dangerous.

North hovered back.

He wasn't going to waste time babysitting Jack. The idiot wanted the spotlight right?

So he watched.

Below, Jack and Caelus traded devastating blows. Jack was fast, unpredictable, and relentless—but Caelus was a ghost. His blocks slipped between frames. His counters ignored conventional time.

SLICE.

A cut across Jack's chest.

His eyes widened in horror.

One more and he was done.

Jack began throwing up walls—barriers from his inventory. Translucent domes, shifting mirror fields, angelic defense systems. It didn't matter.

Caelus's blade would get through.

And then they both felt it.

Not death.

Dominance.

They turned toward the blackened sky—

North was descending.

Coated in lightning.

A crimson orb of coiled Ryun surged above his head and shattered into raining destruction. Molten red bolts hissed down like comets—each crackling with black arcs that screamed in the language of broken gods.

BLOODCRACK METEOR

BOOOOOOM!!

The sky peeled. The ground bent. The air collapsed.

Status effects surged through the battlefield: paralysis, vertigo, madness.

Caelus prepared to block, fighting off the status effects best he could.

But Jack took his chance.

SLASH

His blade ripped through Caelus's shoulder, across his chest—finally drawing real blood.

Jack's eyes widened.

He did it.

A red glow coated them both—

Then the shockwave landed.