The world was a distant, muffled thing to Kenta. He was adrift in a warm, dark sea, the pain a far-off echo. Nox's enraged shriek was a fading ripple on the surface above. To sink was so easy. To let the silence and the dark claim him was a peace he had earned.
But in the absolute quiet of his dying mind, a single, discordant note played.
A memory. Not his own, but one inherited through the blade. A vision of her—Yami. The master of his own master, Hikari. A woman whose name was a warning and a promise. He had never met her, only knew her through the legacy of the blade and Hikari's sorrowful tales. A figure swallowed by the very power she wielded. Her final lesson, echoing down through the generations: "The darkness is not a cage, successor. It is a crucible. The pain is not your enemy; it is the instrument. We do not conquer the abyss... we marry it, and are reborn."
Reborn.
On the cold stone floor, Kenta's body should have been still. But a flicker of movement, a twitch in his finger, sent a shockwave through the settling dust.
Nox's laughter, which had begun as a low, pained chuckle, suddenly warped. It deepened, coarsened, shifting from a melodic chime to a baritone rumble that vibrated through the shattered foundations. The air itself seemed to recoil.
"You... you actually did it," the voice boomed, no longer seductive but filled with a brutal, grinding amusement. "You pushed me this far. That little display... it was exquisite. The pain was a key."
Where the beautiful, wounded woman had lain, a new form now rose from the rubble. He was taller, broader, his features carved from sharp, arrogant angles. His hair was the color of polished obsidian, and his eyes swirled with the same starlit nebulae, but now they held a cruel, conquering light. This was Nox's true combat form—the male aspect, a being of unrestrained destructive impulse.
"The female form is for subtlety, for infiltration," he said, cracking his neck with a sound like splitting stone. He stretched, and the grievous wounds Kenta had inflicted sealed over as if they were nothing, the iridescent blood reabsorbed into flawless skin. "This form... this is for when I wish to personally unmake things. And you, little candle, have earned my personal attention."
He looked down at Kenta's seemingly lifeless form. "A pity it's already over. You are dead meat."
He raised a hand, and the world plunged into an absolute, light-devouring blackness. "Authority of Night: Final Domain — Monarch's Starless Prison."
This was not an attack. It was a state of being. Within the domain, gravity ceased, sound died, and all light was extinguished. It was a void designed to snuff out life, Ki, and hope itself.
And in that void, something refused to be extinguished.
On the ground, Kenta's dark aura, which had been a fading ember, suddenly erupted. It did not flare—it bloomed. A shroud of absolute blackness, deeper and more profound than Nox's domain, enveloped his body. It was not the chaotic, hungry darkness of Yami no Hikari; it was something purer, colder. A fundamental force.
Within that shroud, his injuries vanished. Torn muscles re-knit. Shattered bones fused. It was not healing; it was a rejection of the very concept of damage. The Dark Aura. A power only two beings in history were said to have truly mastered: Yami, the blade's creator, and Kanji Naein, the Demon of Battle. It healed the user by consuming the damage itself, rendering them immune to pain and disruption, allowing them to move and strike with a body that behaved as if it were in a perfect state, regardless of reality.
Kenta rose.
His hair, once jet black, was now the color of fresh-fallen ash. His eyes had transformed into a terrifying reverse eclipse—the sclera as black as the void, the irises a piercing, luminous white. He was no longer just Kenta. He was a vessel.
Both katanas flared to life, not in opposition, but in a terrifying, synchronized harmony. Hikari no Ha burned with a cold, white flame, and Yami no Hikari thrummed with a silent, all-consuming hunger. The very air around him began to die, mana disintegrating on contact with his aura.
Nox's arrogant smirk finally vanished, replaced by a scowl of recognition. "The Dark Aura? Impossible! A child like you couldn't...!"
Kenta's new, pale eyes locked onto him. There were no words. Only a promise of utter annihilation.
Both of them roared—Nox in furious challenge, Kenta in silent, world-ending release.
"MIRROR FORM: DUALITY'S END!" Nox bellowed, his body shifting, his own aura twisting as he attempted to replicate the impossible technique he had just witnessed, the power he had stolen from a god of combat.
Before him, Kenta simply raised his twin blades, the air screaming as it was torn apart between the two opposing, yet united, forces. The final clash would not be between a mortal and a devil, but between a stolen reflection and an awakened truth.