The area lights up with energy and flame. Sakoura's voice tears through the air.
"THE END OF FLAME."
He drives the flame straight toward the center. At the same moment, Akos fires both spheres forward, and Amiko unleashes his slash, all three colliding in a single blinding flash of purple light.
A massive tsunami of pure energy erupts at the center of the battle, towering sixty meters high, spreading outward across a hundred and twenty meters, obliterating what little remains of the already ruined city around them.
Sakoura stands on top of a building that has collapsed onto another, watching. After the explosion clears, he looks straight down and sees Amiko below, his leg gone entirely, torn from its socket, his bones charred black from the inside. Flames have caught along one side of his body, and he's burning alive.
Amiko's voice comes out broken, shattered by shock. "Take you both down with me... this isn't how I die." In the end, he lets out a hollow laugh. "Go ahead. Kill me." Blood spills from his mouth.
Akos looks him over, almost impressed he survived at all, just a few burns scarring his stomach. "Holy," he mutters under his breath.
A moment earlier, before the attack landed, Akos had aimed Death straight at Amiko and released it. At the same instant, Sakoura unleashed his flame and teleported away instantly, and RAGE, which had been heading straight for Sakoura, swerved off course and slammed into Amiko instead, who ended up taking the full force of both attacks at once.
Akos crouches beside him, his voice quiet. "You saw it, right? In the end, all that chasing something meant nothing. You never found what you were looking for. You failed. Maybe it would've been better if you'd never come here at all, because none of it meant anything." He pauses, looking at him differently now. "But I'll admit, you're strong." He glances toward his chest, at the wound over his heart.
Amiko bursts into broken laughter. "Hahahaha. Now, my friend, isn't really the right time." His voice fades. "The moment to make my move was before, when I had you locked down." His eyes close for the last time. He dies right there, his weapon slipping from his hand, clattering to the ground as blood pours from what's left of his leg, flooding the ground beneath him.
Akos whispers, "So you did have meaning after all."
Sakoura drops down from the building, an ironic edge to his voice. "Hehehe, what's wrong with you? Don't tell me you actually got hurt over his death. Come on, let's finish what we started."
Sakoura hits him with a double kick, sending him crashing into a house and slamming through a staircase. He follows through with the attack, his legs charged with energy, driving a brutal kick straight into Akos's leg, shattering it. He grabs him by the throat and slams his head into the wall, laughing.
"Understand now? You finally get it, don't you?" he says. "Amiko really did hit you right in the heart. He locked down your technique. I guess I should thank him for the golden opportunity he handed me." Akos tries to break free, but he can't.
Sakoura hits him with a flurry of fast punches, one after another, leaving him dazed for a long stretch of time, still going. "Look at you now," he says. "You came back looking like some ordinary guy. No technique. Nothing." As the last word leaves his mouth, he drives his hand straight into Akos's arm and fires a kick that sends him flying back.
Sakoura slams his fist into a water tanker, sending water bursting outward, and shifts the temperature the instant it spills. The water freezes mid-air into jagged crystals, and he hurls them straight at Akos.
Akos struggles to dodge, thinking to himself, One minute and thirty seconds. Just hold on. "Sakoura, just wait. I'm going to end you."
But Sakoura dashes right in front of him and drives a punch straight into him. Lighter Flash.
Sakoura grabs him by the face, slams his body through the street, and hurls him upward, launching dozens of crystals straight into his body. He dashes again, sending Akos flying back down onto the ground at brutal speed.
He forms jagged, chaotic crystals, preparing to drive them straight through him, but Akos breaks into a sprint, tearing through a store as the crystals rain down behind him like a storm, leveling the entire place.
"Come out, kid," Sakoura calls. Akos lifts his head just enough to dodge a crystal, close enough that it clips off a few strands of hair.
"Come on, get out here already, before I bury that store on top of your head." He waits. "Come out." Nothing. "Ohh, I really don't like this game." He lifts a finger, and a burst of flame tears through the building in an instant, the whole neighborhood swallowed in fire and smoke.
"Sakoura, really, really, now come out already," he mutters, and that's when Akos bursts out at him, driving two meat skewers straight into his stomach with brutal force. The impact tears clean through him, punching out the other side, blood pouring from Sakoura's mouth.
"That was fast," Sakoura says, his voice low. "So this is how it's going to be, ehhh?"
"Sakoura, I get it, you're running scenarios," he says. "Watching how I react, you sick bastard." Akos studies him, an odd expression crossing his face. Sakoura keeps talking. "The longer this fight drags on with this madman, the more I'm learning just how hard it actually is to kill the user of Infinite Eyes. You're burning through time, just trying to figure out how he reacts, what techniques he's got."
"Oyoy," Akos says, "you gonna just sit there talking to yourself, little cute devil?"
"Enough of this; he's completely out of energy. This is my chance," Sakoura whispers to himself. He conjures hundreds of crystals and hurls them at Akos in a burst, but Akos starts moving fast, circling around him in a tight loop.
What the hell is this idiot planning, Sakoura thinks.
The crystals bury themselves into the walls, everywhere around him, but not a single one lands on Akos's body. Then, in one sudden motion, Akos spins straight toward him, and something about it freezes Sakoura in place for a fraction of a second. Before he can even process it, Akos has already spun his entire body around behind him. Dozens of crystals slam into Sakoura's own body instead.
With a wild laugh, Akos screams into his ear, "I have no limits. None at all."
He breaks free from Akos's grip with difficulty. "Damn it, damn it, what the hell are you? As much as I try, I can't figure out where you keep finding these solutions. I've admitted it a thousand times already, even before this fight even started."
Akos throws his head back and laughs. "Wait a minute, bahahaha. You told me before that I'm the one trapped in a cycle. Win the fight, win the fight, win the fight. But you're the one who's actually trapped in a cycle, admitting the exact same thing since the moment this battle began. Bahahaha."
Sakoura snaps, "What kind of nonsense is that?"
Suddenly, a drone appears in the sky above them. "What kind of idiot demon sends a drone up here?" Sakoura says. Akos doesn't even acknowledge it, his eyes still locked on Sakoura.
Elsewhere, inside a truck, Vanessa drives a hard punch straight into Yuzana's face. "Finally, finally, we found them!" she shouts.
"Ahhh, my teeth, ahh, my teeth, how am I supposed to eat now?" Yuzana groans.
Vanessa falls silent. "I can't believe it. What is even happening with him?" She stares at the screen. "Why are they just standing there, staring at each other? God, the whole area looks like ten nukes went off."
"Should I call the others and tell them to come see this?" Yuzana asks.
"No, no, we don't need to," Vanessa says. "They shouldn't even be worrying about this right now. What's already happening with Ruka and the others is enough. I don't even know if Sora and Mireya can save that many people."
"Is it even certain that Akos is going to win?" Yuzana asks. Vanessa's leg snaps into his stomach without warning. "Say that again, and I'll knock out the rest of your teeth. Akos never loses, no matter who he's up against. Akos is the most superior being in the entire galaxy."
The truck door opens. It's Jin, his voice cold. "Vanessa..."
Vanessa instantly hides the screen. "Yes, yes, what do you need, Jin?"
"Tell Akos and the others I'm heading out to find Tenji," Jin says. "I might not come back for a while. Could be months, could be days, could be years. I have no idea."
"Understood," Vanessa says. "I'll pass it along."
Jin turns to leave. "This world has dozens of motifs. Just like Akos has his own, and I have Yugo. I'm going to kill you." He pauses. "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. What I have is one very specific set of power, but whatever you've spent years preparing, it's going to end."
Back in the battle, Akos says, dripping with irony, "My fans are watching."