Bakuzan remained silent.
Sakolomi's words still floated in the air, heavy like an unfinished prayer.
His gaze, fixed and cold, nevertheless betrayed something else — a shadow of doubt, a crack in his determination.
Sakolomi, still standing opposite him, smiled softly, almost fatherly.
— Big brother… it's over. This loneliness… you no longer have to—
— Shut up!!
Bakuzan's voice suddenly burst out, brutal, sharp.
Even the wind seemed to recoil.
Sakolomi froze, speechless, unable to answer.
Then Bakuzan continued, his throat tight, anger mixed with a distress he refused to admit:
— I can't do that. Not before… not before I've reached the goal I'm searching for.
Sakolomi took a step toward him.
— Your goal? Your goal drags you ever further into the midst of creatures of darkness!
And what if you get lost there, Bakuzan? What if you become like them? What if you are erased by one of those entities you believe you can tame?
Bakuzan slowly shook his head, a weary smile on his lips.
— That's impossible. I've been preparing forever. Nothing can bring me down.
— Stop! shouted Sakolomi, his voice trembling.
— What you're saying is absurd!
They watch you, they know how you think, how you fight, how you doubt!
You're not invincible, big brother.
You are venturing into a realm where even some gods tremble… you can't continue alone!
Bakuzan's gaze hardened.
— I have already traveled all this path alone.
Why would I need you now?
Sakolomi lowered his head. His voice grew quieter, almost a whisper:
— Big brother…
Bakuzan resumed his walk, slowly passing his younger brother.
— I have to continue. As long as I haven't reached the end of the path… I won't stop.
He passed by him without looking back.
Silence fell between them, heavy like a sentence.
But as Bakuzan walked away, Sakolomi spoke in a deep, resonant voice, like a tolling bell:
— Big brother… what guarantees us that you will succeed?
Bakuzan stopped.
His back stiffened, but he did not answer.
Sakolomi slowly turned toward him, his face closed.
— What guarantees us… that you won't be destroyed?
You know as well as I do what awaits you out there.
And I'm sure… even you have already considered your own end.
Because you are not foolish enough to ignore what you are facing.
The wind blew again, scattering around them the grasses and red dust.
Bakuzan remained motionless, his head lowered.
Bakuzan sighed, weary, almost contemptuous:
— You're wasting my time.
He tried to resume his walk, as if the conversation were just a breeze to be brushed away. But Sakolomi materialized in front of him, motionless and resolute.
— Sorry, big brother… you aren't going anywhere.
A cruel smile spread across Bakuzan's lips, confident.
— Have you gone mad? You really think you can stop me — by force, no less?
The ground seemed to answer the provocation: a dull weight, as if reality itself had taken a heavy breath. The sky above them thickened; the winds ceased. The two brothers raised their eyes simultaneously and understood. They were no longer alone.
Above them, the gods and great mythical beings — distant, immense, and attentive silhouettes — had gathered, drawn as if by the promise of a spectacle. The idea exploded, clear and icy: no one would want to miss the duel that would pit the most feared Deviant ever seen against that other anomaly-being whom no one really knew how to define.
Around them, murmurs already rose, bets were placed. The subtle voices of immortals commented, amused or worried; invisible wagers changed hands.
Bakuzan and Sakolomi challenged each other with their gaze, two opposing forces measuring themselves against the weight of the world. Bakuzan's voice, cold as a blade, sliced through the air:
— It won't take me more than five minutes to pulverize you.
Sakolomi straightened his neck. A smile passed across his face — far from childish, it held the sharp flavor of a predator who has prepared his prey. Despite the fatigue beginning to gnaw at his features, he held firm; his clear eyes shone with fierce certainty.
— If that's what you want, then let's go.
He placed a hand against his cheek, feeling the mark of exhaustion bring him back, making him almost blurred, but without losing his calm. His voice took on the tender yet dangerous tone that once crushed hesitation:
— And then, big brother… we have to settle our accounts. I never managed to beat you. Let's change the game a little, okay?
The silence thickened between them, as if the world were holding its breath.
Then, in a dry breath — a blade in the air — Bakuzan tilted his head slightly.
A shockwave burst forth, cleaving the horizon.
Sakolomi, already in motion, sliced the wind with a jumping kick, his eyes laughing.
— Nice dodge, he murmured in an almost joyful breath.
Bakuzan did not respond.
His gaze extinguished into icy concentration, and his arm rose slowly.
Then, the very fabric of reality folded beneath his fingers: he called upon the foundations of meta-conceptuality.
Orthinesis.
The negation of all identification.
Under its effect, "this is this" became impossible; Sakolomi's attacks lost their names, their essence, their status as attacks.
They no longer existed.
Dravellion.
The rejection of pattern.
Without pattern, no law can be drawn, no order can persist.
The structures Sakolomi perceived to comprehend the logic of the fight collapsed, emptied of meaning.
Zeerât.
The cause of causes.
The link between cause and effect, foundation of all phenomena, was denied.
Thus, every strike of Sakolomi, every wave he might have generated, dissolved before even existing, deprived of causality.
Myâthre.
The presence without being.
Through it, Bakuzan summoned presences without existence, entities devoid of reality.
Even inexistences, even the Chōshinku non-existences, came forth to confront Sakolomi.
No matter what he had become — even nothingness could now betray him.
Arenhâl.
That which makes the absolute revocable.
The power to deny the definitive, to reverse the irreversible.
Under this invocation, Sakolomi felt his being collapse, as if reduced to mortal dust, stripped of all transcendence.
Finally, Bakuzan extended his hand, and a cold smile curved his lips.
Thozéïn.
Pure meaning without object.
Naked logic, the density of silence, the paradoxical form of truth.
Around him, even paradoxes seemed to weigh heavily, like chains of meaning.
Sakolomi was trapped.
There was nowhere he could escape to.
But suddenly —
Swithhh!
A blinding impact tore the fabric.
Bakuzan instinctively dodged, his eyes wide.
He felt, for the first time, a shiver of incomprehension — almost of fear.
"The meta-conceptual manipulation… has no hold on him?" he thought, incredulous.
"That would mean Sakolomi is… a being detached from any identity?"
The wind still vibrated with the echoes of the shock.
Sakolomi landed smoothly on the ground, a mocking gleam in his eyes. Opposite him, Bakuzan remained frozen, his features strained by a stupor he could not hide.
— What's wrong, big brother? Sakolomi asked with a calm smile.
You look like your plan just collapsed.
He leapt immediately, cleaving the air in a blazing whirlwind. Their fists crossed, the blows followed each other so fast that even the horizon distorted at each impact.
Bakuzan, despite being master of the meta-conceptual forces from Isissis, could not understand.
Impossible… he thought, no one can escape the negation of Orthinesis or the dislocation of Dravellion…
But Sakolomi continued to exist.
No — he persisted in a state that nothing seemed able to define.
Bakuzan felt a shiver crawl up his spine. This was no longer a conceptual being.
Nor even a meta-conceptual being.
Sakolomi had crossed what the great mythical beings called the Madhurya Threshold: the point where all form, all idea, all identity extinguishes to make way for a supra-meta-conceptual nature, superior to concepts or meta-concepts.
These entities no longer simply wielded meta-concepts: they observed them from outside, like a painter before his canvas.
Bakuzan then understood that his swift victory would not happen.
He recoiled under a fierce blow that bent him in two, his guts ablaze. Sakolomi launched again, fluid, limber, as if gravity itself hesitated to impose on him.
— This is a joke! Bakuzan roared, veins thumping at his temples.
He counterattacked with rage.
But every time his hand touched Sakolomi's body, the laws of Isissis cracked like glass.
Even the Genshitekina Yui-sei, the fundamental law of the Absolute Order of Isissis — the one making all hostility existentially incompatible with him — shattered under Sakolomi's presence.
This law was supposed to unify everything: under its reign, nothing could oppose him, as every adversary became part of his order, dissolved into the unity of the Whole.
But here, this cosmic harmony crumbled.
Sakolomi's power did not merely refuse submission — it annihilated the very principle of compatibility.
For the first time, Bakuzan felt fear.
What he faced was no longer a "being": it was an error of existence, a conscious anomaly.
Driven by rage, he lunged at his brother, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him violently to the ground.
The earth imploded beneath them, forming a black crater.
— It's over for you! Bakuzan shouted, materializing in his hand a sword of pure shadow, saturated with negation.
He struck downwards.
But Sakolomi pivoted with an almost unreal ease, dodged the blade and struck him a blow to the stomach so violent Bakuzan was thrown several meters away.
Sakolomi regained guard, breathing steady, gaze calm.
— So, big brother… what's wrong? Losing your cool already?
Bakuzan was gasping. His eyes, once cold and methodical, now betrayed a spark of panic.
Nothing was going according to his calculations.
Sakolomi was not the opponent he had planned to face.
He was a being he could neither measure nor understand — a presence outside all axioms.
And this realization, for a bearer of Isissis, already amounted to a sort of defeat.