Back in the ruined school, reality was a nightmare of clashing energies.
Two forces—one a searing, predatory crimson, the other a desperate, furious black—slammed together in the corridor, each impact sending shockwaves through the already beleaguered structure.
[Die, you bitch!] Spirit Bradley roared, his voice a raw, psychic scream. He drove a fist, solidified from pure rage, into the Nurse's stomach. The force lifted her off her feet and sent her crashing through the remnants of a classroom wall.
Huff. Huff. He stood panting, his form flickering erratically.
Drip.
A sound, too liquid, too real. He looked down at his left side. A large portion of his torso was simply... gone. A gaping, sizzling wound bled dark, ethereal energy onto the floor.
[Fuck...] he hissed, the word laced with pain and fading strength.
The moment Bradley had lost consciousness, something in Spirit Bradley had shattered. He had thrown himself at the Nurse with a berserker's fury, a mindless, desperate need to destroy the thing that had hurt his other half. But she was too strong, too cunning. She constantly repositioned, always keeping herself between him and Bradley's impaled body.
At this rate, he will die...
The connection he shared with Bradley was a faint, fraying thread. The boy's life force was ebbing away with every passing second, a slow, agonizing leak. By all rights, a human should have been instantly killed by those blood spikes and the catastrophic blood loss.
That Bradley still clung to life was a testament to the strange, latent power within him—a combination of his own spirit energy and something else, something deeper and more resilient that even Spirit Bradley couldn't comprehend.
To save him, he needed to get close, to somehow stabilize the connection, to share his energy. But the Nurse was a wall of gluttonous malice, feeding on his attacks, growing stronger with every blow he landed.
The Nurse emerged from the new pile of rubble, her once-pristine uniform now shredded and stained with grime and both their blood. She walked calmly back toward the room where Bradley's body was suspended, a cruel smile playing on her lips.
"Come on. Is that all you have?" she taunted, licking a drop of his spiritual essence from her claw. "Try harder, or your precious little host is going to expire. And you... you taste just as I expected—absolutely delicious!" She had been feasting on him, siphoning his energy, weakening him steadily. That was the true danger of a Gluttony-type; they turned their opponent's strength into their own sustenance.
Spirit Bradley unleashed another wave of his black aura, the light dimmer than before. He dashed forward. I have to break through! I have to!
Fist met fist. Boom. Boom. The clashes were weaker now, the explosions of spiritual energy less brilliant. It was a miracle the building was still standing.
---
Meanwhile, inside the ravaged classroom, suspended on a grotesque throne of his own blood, Bradley's eyes snapped open.
They were no longer the warm brown his mother had loved. The sclera was completely flooded with red, vessels shattered from the sheer physical and spiritual trauma.
"Mom..." he rasped, the name a prayer and a curse.
Then, the pain arrived. It was not a wave; it was the entire ocean. A white-hot, all-consuming agony that centered on the dozen spikes still transfixing his body. He looked down, a detached part of his mind marveling at the horrific sight. It was a miracle he was drawing breath. She said for me to live... Can I? Is that even possible?
He couldn't see the battle, but he could feel it—the violent, desperate clash of auras just beyond the hole in the wall. The floor trembled, jostling the spikes embedded in his flesh and sending fresh, blinding shards of pain through his nervous system.
"Ughhh!" The groan was torn from him, a raw, animal sound.
His arms and legs were pinned, useless. With a grimace of pure determination, he craned his neck forward and bit down on the spike piercing his right bicep. He ignored the risk, the certain damage to his teeth.
Crack.
The blood-forged spike, hardened by spirit energy, shattered under the force of his jaw. It left a gaping, freely bleeding hole. It hurts. God, it hurts.
He didn't stop. Gritting his teeth, his mouth filling with the hot, metallic taste of his own blood, he moved to the next spike, and the next. Some shards cut the inside of his cheeks, but the pain was just more noise in the symphony of his agony.
He broke the last spike holding his torso and fell to the floor in a heap, the impact jarring every single wound. He lay there for a moment, drowning in the sensation.
What did you mean by 'live'? he asked the ghost of her memory. Isn't that the cruelest thing you could ask? To live in a world that took you from me?
Do you really believe I can do it, Mom? Do you still have faith in this failure of a son?
He tried to push himself up on screaming, wobbly legs, but immediately collapsed, his body a ruined map of puncture wounds.
Get up, Bradley... he snarled at himself.
Get your pathetic, self-pitying ass up!
He scraped his torn fingers against the bloody floor, nails tearing, and used the sheer, bloody-minded force of his will to haul himself upright. This time, he stayed standing, swaying like a sapling in a hurricane. He took a step, a limping, shuffling motion. Every movement was a fresh hell.
I have suffered so much. Haven't I earned my rest? Why do I have to keep fighting?
He complained, even as he knew it was the whining of a child. He knew there were people who had endured worse, who suffered more silently. He had spent years rotting in a gilded cage of his own making, drowning in self-hatred.
I'm too weak for this, Mom. And you want me to keep going with this void where my heart used to be?
The building shook violently from another colossal impact outside, and his legs buckled, sending him crashing to his knees.
Can't I just give up? Can't I come find you now?
I've been denied death.
He should have seen it coming. Nothing in his cursed life had ever gone according to plan. If he couldn't even succeed at dying, then what was left?
Is this my punishment? All I did was bully one kid! One fucking kid! The thought was a petulant, internal scream. He knew it was a monstrous simplification, that a sin was a sin regardless of scale, but the injustice of it all felt overwhelming.
I know I'm selfish, but taking you away from me... that was a punishment far greater than what I have committed. Tears, hot and shameful, streamed down his face, mixing with the blood on his chin.
He knelt there in the gore, silent, listening to the sounds of his other self fighting for both their lives. The fury, the desperation—it was all for him.
Then, after a long moment, he began to laugh. It started as a dry, wheezing sound, then grew into a hoarse, broken cackle that spoke of a mind teetering on the very edge. "Hehe... ahahaha... fucking hell. Bloody hell!"
He slammed his fist into the floor. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" He pounded the unyielding stone until his knuckles were pulp, until the bones in his hands were surely fractured. He no longer felt the pain; he was numb, utterly broken.
"Fine..." he finally whispered, the word a surrender and an acceptance all at once. His voice was ruined, a ghost of itself.
"I'll live..." he sniffed, wiping his torn sleeve across his face, smearing blood and tears. "Just for you guys... just as you asked, Mom..."
It was a lie. A necessary, life-giving lie. He had no idea how to find a reason to live in the desolate landscape of his future. He didn't know where to even start. But sometimes, the only way to take the next step is to pretend the ground ahead is solid.
I will never hate you. I could never. I don't know why you would think I needed to forgive you. There is nothing to forgive. You were just being my mom. You were protecting your son.
I'll live. Even if I have to go completely insane in the process—well, I'm already insane, it wouldn't hurt add a bit more of insanity.
He pushed himself to his feet once more, his body screaming in protest. His vision swam, blurry and unfocused. Each step was a Herculean effort, a battle fought inch by inch. The only thing propelling him forward was a will forged in the crucible of loss—a terrifying, indomitable will that no fifteen-year-old should ever have to possess.
He limped toward the hole in the wall, a specter of gore and determination.
The first thing he saw was the Nurse's back, torn and bloodied from Spirit Bradley's relentless assault. She was blocking his path, as she had been this whole time.
"Yo," he rasped.
The Nurse froze mid-motion. Her head snapped around, her crimson eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated shock. "I-impossible!" she stammered, her confidence cracking. "You're supposed to be dead! Your life force was almost gone!"
What kind of monstrous will does this child possess? The thought flashed through her mind, a sliver of fear for the first time, as she looked at the number of holes on his flesh.
The distraction was all Spirit Bradley needed. The daze of despair shattered, he erupted forward, closing the distance in an instant. His hand, solidified into a blade of concentrated darkness, thrust forward.
Spurt.
His arm pierced clean through the Nurse's side.
[Don't get distracted in a fight,] he hissed, a vicious, triumphant smile twisting his features.
"You little—!" she shrieked, her pain turning to fury.
She slashed at him with her free claws. Spirit Bradley ducked under the swing, wrapped his other arm around hers, and bent it backwards at a sickening angle.
CRACK.
The sound of breaking bone was horrifically loud. A sharp, white shard of her ulna burst through the skin of her forearm. Her scream was cut short as he drove a devastating punch into her mouth, shattering teeth and silencing her.
The force of the blow sent her flying backward, crashing through yet another wall in a cloud of dust and debris.
[You are alive...] Spirit Bradley said, turning to look at the battered, bleeding human form of his other self. His voice was soft, filled with a relief so profound it was painful.
"Yeah," Bradley coughed, a trickle of blood leaking from his lip. "It seems death doesn't want me either."
They both let out a dark, ragged chuckle, a shared understanding passing between them.
"You look like shit," Bradley said, gesturing weakly to the gaping hole in Spirit Bradley's side.
[No shit, Sherlock,] Spirit Bradley retorted, a weary but genuine smile on his face. He stretched out his hand, his form flickering. [Let's finish this. Let's teach this bitch she messed with the wrong people. You better not get your ass kicked this time.]
Bradley chuckled, a dry, painful sound. He reached out with his own disfigured, bloody hand and took it. "That ain't happening. I've taken enough beatings to last a lifetime."
"Spirit Fusion." Their voices merged into one, a single declaration of intent.
The corridor erupted in an incandescent blaze of light.
For a single, suspended instant, there was nothing.
No sound. No pain. No fear.
Only a profound, all-encompassing warmth, like being submerged in a sunlit sea.
And on the very edge of his consciousness, he heard it again—faint, distant, but unmistakably real.
You did well, my child.
He smiled into the converging darkness.
I'm still trying, Mom.
Then, the world roared back to life.