Alas, the next few seconds bled into reality with an agonizing slowness.
As the localized shockwave of their final clash subsided, the heavy, iridescent smoke began to drift toward the edges of the Prom Tower.
Through the haze, Trizha emerged.
She stood like a lost pup in the middle of a desolate street, her small frame silhouetted against the moonlight.
She gripped the now-fused iron pipe with white-knuckled intensity, her eyes scanning the shifting grey mists.
Her guard was not down; she was a coiled spring, refusing to grant the universe a single opening to catch her unaware.
But in the very next heartbeat, the impossible happened.
Zackier erupted from the lingering gloom like a demon clawing its way out of an abyss.
He didn't just move; he launched himself with a desperate, animalistic ferocity that bypassed all tactical grace.
From this moment on, without Nomoro, this is a full display of a one versus one.
"Forget about killing off Narasao, that damned lackluster!" Zackier hissed to the hollow chambers of his own mind, his face twisting into a mask of frantic, jagged desperation. "Focus on killing the one who's actually in the way instead!"
He closed the distance between them as a blur, his arm extended like a spear, his fingers hooked into the claws of a killer.
Yet, even as he neared the killing blow, he felt the sickening friction of the feelings he had tried to discard.
The humanity he thought he had shattered was crawling back, a persistent, frustrating itch beneath his skin.
It was infuriating.
Here he was, with his opponent finally within reach of death's door, and heartwarming flickers of a potential redemption—the very thing he loathed—were bubbling up to stall his hand.
As an Alter Being, Zackier was cursed with a meta-awareness of the "Plot" and the invisible hand of "Fate."
He could feel the narrative itself trying to steer him toward a redemptive pause, an indirect distraction designed to hand victory to the hero.
He knew he was being caught in the gears of a story he no longer wanted to star in, and the realization made his entire body tremble with a violent, impotent rage.
Zackier knows that much, but his body trembles slightly at the feeling.
He knew that he was already caught by fate's plot for him, and he can no longer escape from it.
But as an Alter Being, it is also a foremost trait to be unable to be stopped to do what they want, so what's stopping him from killing Trizha right now?
The answer to that is simple; his state as an Alter Being… is slowly fading right before his eyes.
Mid-lunge, his frustration got even worse, irritated by the fact that the once glass he had shattered for choosing this route, is coming back together once again.
"Redemption this, redemption that… I get it, they're the best!" he screamed internally, his leap carrying him closer to Trizha's throat. "People love these characters! They relate to the ones who accept their feelings and change for the better! They save themselves from their own darkness, they save themselves from themselves—that's the whole point of the entertainment and amusement of that stereotype! But I don't need saving! I'm free! And even if I did need a savior…"
As the thought peaked, a sharp, crystalline memory of the person known as 'Frantzes flashed behind his eyes.
"There isn't anyone left to do the saving!"
Zackier's internal voice broke into a mental shriek of agony.
"Not even myself! There's no savior anymore! No hero! Not in this stupidly broken world! Not when you're no longer here, Influence of Vanity!!!"
The outburst was his undoing.
In his momentary lapse into the trauma of the past, he became the very distraction he feared.
Trizha's eyes darted upward, locking onto the vulnerable, agonized face of her antagonist mid-air.
.
.
.
"That one children's hero with the 'S' emblem… he was a savior, yet he wasn't the only one who saves," a calm, spectral voice seemed to echo through the wind, a memory of Frantzes that felt more like a haunting. "Don't mistake my absence for the absence of a concept, Zackier. A savior… can be any. And you are looking at one of them right now."
.
.
.
The words struck Zackier with the force of a physical blow.
He realized his mistake—the opening he had left wide—and tried to force his strike through with hypersonic speed.
He felt his hand connect, and felt the impact of a successful hit.
But in the same millisecond, Trizha vanished.
She didn't fall.
She simply ceased to be in the space he occupied, reappearing less than a centimeter away from his flank.
Zackier's stomach dropped.
He realized, with a cold, hollow certainty, that he had already fallen before her.
.
.
.
Trizha: 103
Fate: 1
.
.
.
Trizha: 104
Fate: 1
.
.
.
Capitalizing on her escape from the fated strike, Trizha pivoted with every ounce of her remaining strength.
She swung the iron pipe in a massive, horizontal arc, the metal connecting with Zackier's face with a sound like a thunderclap.
The force, hard and deep, it was as if the entire novel turned into a black and white comic book; you could almost visualize it.
The force sent him spinning across the rooftop, a human projectile that crashed through the brick and mortar of the rooftop janitor's room—a structure Yuri had installed purely to inconvenience her staff.
The small building imploded upon his entry.
Zackier lay still amidst the rubble of mops and shattered masonry.
Blood began to pool beneath him, dark and thick, as if the sheer precision of Trizha's strike had extinguished his life in a single, brutal instant.
Trizha stood in the center of the rooftop, her chest heaving.
Slowly, the white void in her eyes faded, and the bulging veins at her temples receded.
Her Harbinger state was dissipating, leaving behind a body that felt as heavy as lead.
She collapsed to her knees, barely catching herself before her face hit the grit.
Her hands, still trembling with the aftershocks of the combat, finally let go of the iron pipe she had been holding for a long time.
It rolled away with a hollow, metallic clatter.
"It's… it's over. Finally," she whispered, her voice cracking and thin. "I'm so tired. I think I could just collapse right here."
She started to let her weight fall, longing for the cold comfort of the floor, when a sudden rustling sound emerged from the smoke.
Panic flared in her gut.
She lunged forward, desperately reaching for the pipe that had rolled out of her grasp.
But as the figure stepped out of the haze, she froze.
It was Nomoro.
The obsidian plates of his demonic armor were flaking away, crumbling into dust as he limped toward her.
Trizha let out a sob of relief, the tension draining out of her in a single, shaky breath.
"Trizha! You okay? Where is he?!" Nomoro called out, his voice laced with the fear that the nightmare hadn't ended.
Trizha slumped fully against the ground, her hand waving weakly in his direction. "Don't even… mention it. It's over. I think."
Nomoro let out his own ragged sigh of relief, his knees hitting the concrete as his armor finally disintegrated completely.
"It's over… you say. Okay, good. That's good."
He crawled the last few feet toward her, stopping right by her side.
He looked down at her with a soft, pained expression. "...Sorry."
"For what?" Trizha asked, shifting her head to look up at him, a tired eyebrow raised in confusion.
"You dealt the most damage. You overwhelmed him," Nomoro responded, pouting slightly as he looked away in shame.
"I left you to fight him alone for too long. You don't have experience with things this dangerous... I thought you were terrified the whole time. I tried to step in and get you out so I could take the brunt of it, but..."
Trizha let out a soft, melodic chuckle that cut through the gloom.
She swatted at him again. "It's fine! Really. You apologize way too much, Nomoro. To be honest, I didn't even know what I was doing. It was like I was in a 'Zone.' I wasn't even scared!"
It was a lie.
She had been terrified, but the focused state of the Harbinger had partitioned her fear into a box she couldn't open until now.
Nomoro saw the slight tremor in her chin and knew the truth, but he chose to simply smile back.
"Yeah. I'm glad," he said softly.
He stood up on shaky legs, offering a hand to her. "Let's go. Everyone is probably waiting for us at the bottom."
Trizha looked at his outstretched palm, then at the warm sincerity in his eyes.
She smiled, the thought of a reunion with her friends—especially a certain former friend—filling her with a sudden burst of energy.
"Alright. Let's go."
She reached up, her fingers inches away from his.
The moonlight bathed them both, casting long shadows across the ruined roof.
It was a moment of pure, cinematic relief.
Then, Nomoro vanished.
There was a sudden, violent burst of displaced air.
Trizha's hand grasped at nothing.
"...Nomoro?"
She turned her head slowly, her heart stopping in her chest.
Nomoro was pinned against the far wall of the stairwell, his feet dangling off the ground.
A long, jagged bar of structural rebar had been driven through the upper right side of his chest, anchoring him to the concrete.
Blood sprayed across the wall, a vivid, horrifying red.
Nomoro coughed, a thick spray of crimson escaping his lips as he feebly grabbed at the metal bar impaling him.
He groaned in pure, unadulterated agony, his eyes wide with a sudden, frantic realization.
"Trizha! Run away!" he shrieked through the blood in his throat.
Trizha scrambled to her feet, her mind a chaotic static of fear.
She didn't know which way to run.
She didn't know what was happening.
And then, a familiar voice spoke from directly behind her.
It was a dark, low, and dangerously calm tone that made the hair on her neck stand on end.
"Anyone can be a savior, you say…?"
Trizha spun around, her breath hitching.
Zackier stood there.
His arms and shoulders hung limp at his sides, his tattered suit drenched in blood that wasn't his own.
His expression was a total, terrifying blank—a void where a man used to be.
The shadows of the night seemed to cling to him, darkening his features until he looked like a silhouette of pure horror.
He looked too terrifying to be real.
The sight of him, standing there after such a defeat, stunned Trizha to her core.
She couldn't move a muscle.
She couldn't breathe.
The Harbinger state remained locked away, suppressed by the sheer, overwhelming presence of the monster before her.
All she could do was tremble.
Deep inside, the part of her that had defied fate knew the truth: this situation was now utterly, terribly hopeless.