(Narration Japan—Tokyo
No sound cuts through the center of Tokyo. Shattered buildings clog the streets. Some towers lean against their neighbors. Others lie flat against the pavement. And at the exact heart of the city, a massive crater still glows, still pulses with raw energy from Akos Tasaku's strike on Sakoura Rolight.
On the far side, Sakoura and Akos crash into each other. Every blow shakes the ground. Both warriors gasp. Both bleed. Neither stops. They fight to their last breath.)
Sakoura pauses in the middle of the battle, looks at Akos with an ironic gaze, and says to him,
"We have reached a level where you yourself cannot land a single attack on me. I have never experienced such a battle, not even thousands of years ago. It was a good era, I admit. I take back the words I said before, that the people in this era do not understand who protects them.)
Akos raises his eyebrows and, with a mocking smile, answers him.
"So what?"
"Sakoura, I mean that you are not insects." "A devilish smile spreads across his face," but you are worse than insects. You are a soul that did not deserve to exist even in this galaxy, nor anywhere in space."
"You hold no right to decide for anyone, Sakoura," Akos whispers. Blood coats his teeth as the words scrape past his dry throat. "You cross the line."
"Blah, blah, blah," Sakoura replies. A wide grin splits his face and stretches the dried blood on his cheeks. He drags his tongue across his cracked lips and tastes copper.
"Akos Tasaku. I force you to remember the beautiful days."
The wind dies. The ambient roar of the ruined city vanishes into a vacuum. Sakoura stares at Akos. His pupils dilate, and his gaze turns flat, cold, and absolute. A heavy silence presses against their eardrums for several seconds.
The temperature plummets. Akos feels a violent shift in the air pressure.
The space around Sakoura warps and bends, the very fabric of reality groans, and Akos recognizes the truth. Sakoura summons his Universe.
The syllables leave Sakoura's lips in a low, subsonic rumble. The vibration rattles the marrow in Akos's bones.
"UNIVERSE OF THE END!"
A supernatural frost snaps through the air. Ice crystals bloom across Akos's eyelashes. His muscles lock. His boots fuse to the asphalt. He tries to twitch a finger, but his nerves send only static.
Above them, the clouds bleed into a deep, crimson red. Jagged letters of light etch themselves across the heavens and spell THE END. Sakoura's feet leave the ground. He hovers in the bloody light.
"I truly don't care, Akos..." he whispers, and the sound cuts through the unnatural quiet. "...THAT YOU END. ACTIVE SPREAD SPACE! "
The concrete beneath their feet turns to gray gas in a microsecond. The air ignites. A blinding flash sears the retinas. The ambient heat spikes to six thousand degrees.
A physical wall of force expands outward. It shatters eardrums and pulverizes steel. Skyscrapers within a 450-meter radius lift off their foundations and dissolve into dust.
The ground simply ceases to exist and leaves a deep crater lined with smooth glass.
The epicenter becomes a localized apocalypse. Matter breaks down at the molecular level. Flesh, bone, hot iron, and solid ice all surrender to the same violent erasure. Nothing survives this absolute. Ruin
Through the settling dust, Akos stands rigid. Thick, dark blood coats his skin and drips from his chin. A gaping gash splits his abdomen. Pale, slick tissue pulses in the open air, yet his chest continues to heave with ragged breaths. He survives the blast.
Invisible force still gnaws at him. Micro, lacerations bloom across his arms and cheeks, and fresh red beads well up and spill over the existing ruin of his flesh.
Muscle fibers snap back into place with a wet, visceral sound. Skin stretches and seals the fresh gashes in seconds. But his shoulders slump. Sweat mixes with the blood on his forehead.
He whispers, "The more I regenerate, the more exhausted I become..."
Sakoura hovers inches away. His lips peel back, stretching the dried blood on his cheeks into a feral, jagged grin.
A dark, manic light dances in his dilated pupils. He tilts his head and says, "It seems you have no idea how you will break... eh, Akos?"
Sakoura's neck muscles cord like steel cables. Spit sprays from his mouth and catches the crimson light. The sheer volume of his roar vibrates the ash that lies on the ground.
"Tasaku! I know, and you know, that your clan, the Tasaku, knows your technique and what you can do very well. But few know you possess a UNIVERSE, and I know you simply do not want to use it! You choose: either you use it to reach the final battle, or you die here!"
Akos keeps his gaze fixed on the figure that hovers above. A thick drop of blood detaches from his jaw and splatters onto the glassy crater. His chest barely rises.
His vocal cords tighten, and a low, raspy vibration escapes his throat.
"You are so foolish, Sakoura... You think you force me to use it? I have other options."
"Sakoura answers him, 'Come, let me tell you something important.'" "As long as you remain stuck in the same perception you have of this world, your defeat becomes more certain."
Akos's jaw tightens. Blood drips from his chin and splatters against his chest. His voice scrapes through his throat.
I am defeated; something will happen that even you cannot imagine. None of you can realize what danger comes in the next years."
Sakoura's eyes widen. Veins bulge along his neck. He slams his open palm against the air, and the sound cracks like a whip. "Ohhoy!" What are you saying? Forget what you're saying. Forget the future! We are in the present!"
His arm sweeps in a sharp, violent arc. The atmosphere ignites. Massive tidal waves of fire erupt from his extended fingers and surge toward Akos.
The heat blisters the air between them. The ground beneath the flames turns to black glass. Sakoura roars over the inferno: "The future is me, not you! You simply are the past, that only I remember!"
The wave crashes forward. It cuts. It swallows. Akos's right hand dissolves into gray flakes. The fingers scatter like burnt paper in the wind. Ash replaces bone. Ash replaces flesh. The stench of char fills the empty space between them.
Akos stares at the void where his fingers grip the air. His lips tremble. A dry whisper escapes his cracked throat.
"He regrets the use of this technique a month ago, but it seems he regrets it again this time more bitterly."
Sakoura gives him no space to breathe. The pulse of the UNIVERSE doubles, then triples. The radius stretches to 650 meters.
Frost crawls across the air at minus one thousand degrees while molten heat spikes to six thousand. Ice and fire collide. The remaining structures crumble into vapor.
Akos takes the full force. Hundreds of lacerations bloom across his skin. His knees buckle. His organs seize, frozen solid from within.
At the same instant, the outer layer of his flesh chars black. Smoke curls from his shoulders.
Blood gushes from his nostrils and stains his lips.
The pressure pins him. His spine bends. His boots scrape against the ground as Sakoura's energy slams into him from the left, then the right, then the left again. He barely stays vertical.
Akos lifts his chin. His eyebrows rise. His pupils lock onto Sakoura, and the muscles in his jaw tremble with pure, silent fury. The force shoves him backward.
He digs his toes into the earth. He forces one step forward. Then another. His lips barely part.
He whispers, "There is only one rule for breaking a universe: the one with the greater energy wins."
The ambient energy reaches a critical point. A detonation erupts around Akos. The shockwave strips the ground layer by layer. Dirt, rock, and ash vanish into the void.
Only a single, narrow circle of earth remains. Akos stands on it. His boots press into the last fragment of solid ground. Everything else around him is empty air.
Sakoura's voice rips through the scorched air. Spit flies from his lips. His finger points at Akos's trembling silhouette. "Who is foolish now, huh?" he screams. "Tell me, who is the fool? "This is the end!"
His right hand extends. Frost crystallizes across his knuckles, and a massive wave of frozen air expands from his palm.
His left hand ignites. A towering flame erupts from his fingertips. He sweeps both arms inward. Ice and fire merge into a single, spiraling mass of destruction. His throat swells. He roars: "TECHNIQUE EMUN! "
The attack surges forward. It crosses the distance in a blink. It strikes Akos's torso. The force penetrates, splits, and shreds. Muscle fibers tear apart. Bone fragments scatter into the smoke. The body caves inward under the sheer violence of the impact.
Akos stands for one more second. His pupils dilate. His lips part. His gaze drifts downward. A gaping void sits where his heart beats moments ago. The edges of the wound glow faintly. No blood pulses from it. Only silence.
His knees fold. His spine curves. He crashes onto the dirt with his eyes wide open and his arms limp at his sides. Crimson seeps from beneath him and soaks into the cracked earth. The pool widens. His fingers twitch once, then stop.
His throat vibrates. The sound barely escapes his lips. He whispers, "Indeed... now?"