Kagetori's golden eyes slid over the pulsating monument of folded souls, over the thousands of "Mouths" spewing black whispers. The stench of forgotten libraries and decay hung in the air. But Reiden's face showed neither alarm nor disgust. Only a light, almost mischievous smirk touched his lips.
"So that's it," he drawled, as if something had finally become clear. "And I was wondering why everyone calls you a naughty boy..."
Narikawari, whose body, wrapped in the remnants of stone armor, had almost healed its terrible wounds, froze for a moment. His purple eyes (Sorato's eyes, but with a foreign fire inside) stared at Reiden with sincere, almost childish incomprehension.
"A naughty boy? What?"
"Well, you know," Reiden made a careless gesture with his hand, as if swatting a fly. "You have many nicknames. 'The Worst of all who ever lived,' 'The Greatest Mistake of Creation,' and a couple more. But 'naughty boy'... It's somehow more... homey. Quite fitting for someone who made such a mess in someone else's office."
Narikawari was silent for a second, his face remaining motionless, but somewhere deep within the alien pupils something twitched—not malice, but rather bewilderment at this absurd reaction. Then he shook his head.
"You're trying to distract me? Pointless."
By this point, regeneration was complete. The last scars on Sorato's face smoothed out, the torn fabric of the kimono stitched itself together with dark, living threads. Kagetori noted coldly to himself: 'It seems within this Archive he is physically enhanced, which is why regeneration happens faster. Something like his personal space?'
"Like it?" Narikawari spread his arms, showcasing his Archive. "I consider such abilities the pinnacle of barrier-type techniques. A Majutsushi embodies their inner space, filled with a variation of their technique and energy within a defined area, usually about two hundred meters... In all of history, only three people have possessed this—Magoro, me, and Shiratori Satoru. Whom I, by the way, killed six hundred years ago and took possession of his body."
He looked over his creation—the hills of bodies, the hanging brain-monument, the whispering "Mouths." Satisfaction washed over his stolen features in a warm wave.
"What do you think, Kagetori Reiden. What will happen if I try to release two spaces at once?"
The thought struck Reiden like an icy needle. This was either a mad bluff or the greatest attack he could ever witness. The analytical department of his unique brain screamed in alarm, modeling catastrophic scenarios of two realities with different laws overlapping. He needed to act. Now.
He rushed forward. A golden flash—and he was before Narikawari, his fist wrapped in a clump of kinetic fury flying at the parasite's jaw.
But something was off. His movements... were a fraction of a percent slower. Thoughts flowed slightly thicker, as if through syrup. Even as he fought, his mind was already analyzing: Narikawari's space had at least two effects.
First effect: "Whisper of Personality Decay."
This wasn't just sound. It was a direct injection. Others' memories, pains, despair, shreds of personalities—all poured directly into consciousness, using his own Scars as conduits. Magical defense was almost impossible—the attack came from within himself. Kagetori's brain, lacking standard polarity, met this invasion not as a threat, but as a stream of unauthorized data. It didn't resist. It filtered. Cut away the foreign, preserving the core of his will, but this required energy and microscopic fractions of a second. Enough to slow his reaction.
"Red Lightning!" Reiden shouted, jumping back and thrusting his palm forward.
The scarlet discharge, leaving cracks in the very fabric of the air, shot towards Narikawari. He didn't even stir.
And the second effect manifested: "Echo of the Consumed."
The space shuddered. The nearest "Mouth"—a distorted face on the slope of a body-hill—opened wide. From its black gullet erupted... an exact copy of Red Lightning. Only it was black, cold, and exuded not rage but hunger. It thirsted to consume not flesh, but the very energy, the very Scar of the attack.
Kagetori instinctively dodged. The black lightning shot past and, finding no target, simply evaporated, leaving no trace on the stones. But the lesson was clear. Any technique used inside the Archive was analyzed, recorded, and immediately added to Narikawari's collection. And the space tried to reproduce it.
'Until I figure out what is the center, the heart of this archive, there's no point charging headlong,' ran through Reiden's mind. But what was the center? Narikawari himself? The giant brain?
The parasite, as if guessing the train of thought, spoke again:
"And, by the way, remember how I absorbed your Blue Lightning using Akagi Rentarō's Kokurō?" A smirk played on his lips. "'Forge of Instant Retort.'"
The air before him thickened, and from it, with a quiet hiss, burst the familiar blue flash. An exact copy of Reiden's attack, now controlled by Narikawari's will and charged with recycled energy. It rushed towards its creator.
Kagetori darted aside. The lightning changed trajectory, began to pursue. He knew its mechanics, its principle—dodging was useless. So he simply stopped.
"Form of Thunderous Void: Thunder-Holding Bastion." (Raikyoshiki: Kami Inazuma)
He didn't just create a shield. The air around him within a five-meter radius ceased to be just air. It became a field. Not simply ionized plasma, but an ordered, crystalline lattice of charged particles obeying one law: "Here, no vectors of force directed towards the center exist." This wasn't a barrier; it was a denial of the very possibility of attack.
The Blue Lightning, created by the "Forge," crashed into this field. For a moment it hung, its structure trembling, trying to find any point of application. Then, with a quiet pop, it disintegrated, scattering into harmless sparks.
Narikawari raised an eyebrow. Sincere surprise.
"But you know we're in my Archive now," he uttered, and his voice acquired a metallic, merciless tone. "Which means... all your little tricks here are nullified."
He vanished and appeared right before Reiden. His strike, simple and direct but carrying the concentrated might of the entire space, slammed into Kagetori's stomach.
BOOM.
Reiden was thrown to the very edge of the Archive's barrier, where "Tenran's" reality shimmered like a mirage behind a trembling film. Pain pierced him, forcing a gasp. Narikawari gave no respite. He was upon him, his attacks falling like hail.
And Kagetori understood another thing: within his Archive, Narikawari had become faster and stronger. Much. A millennium of experience drawn from thousands of bodies, fused into one in this place, made him the perfect fighter. He anticipated movements, used techniques from dozens of forgotten schools, his body moved with frightening, inhuman efficiency.
Reiden fought back, his own mastery and speed still monstrous. In a rage, he pressed his palm into Narikawari's chest and unleashed Red Lightning point-blank.
An EXPLOSION from within again tore the parasite's body. The kimono flew to shreds, revealing swirling darkness and regenerating flesh. But this time recovery took... mere seconds. The wounds closed as if on water.
'The center of the Archive is not he himself,' Kagetori finally realized, retreating under a hail of blows. 'It's that enormous "something."'
His gaze shot to the pulsating brain-monument in the center of the space. Within it.
The decision came instantly. He pushed off from Narikawari, creating distance, and surged forward. Not towards the enemy. Towards the center of the Archive.
His speed, even slowed by the "Whisper," was still hundreds, if not thousands, of times faster than sound. He became a golden arrow piercing the hellish landscape. But the space responded.
The "Mouths" in his path didn't just whisper. They came alive. From black gullets erupted tendrils of condensed darkness and baked whispers, trying to grab him. The earth underfoot gaped open, turning into the very maw ready to suck him into the collection forever.
"Red Lightning!" Reiden roared, not stopping.
Scarlet discharges, furious and uncontrolled, struck not at a target but around, clearing the path. Tendrils evaporated with a hiss, maws snapped shut, seared by the pure chaos of his power. He raced through hell, leaving behind a trail of smoke and decay.
His thoughts worked at their limit: 'Red Color—brute force. Probably won't work on such a structure. It must be protected from direct physical destruction. But Blue... Blue is made for breaking bonds, for the decay of complex structures. Exactly what's needed.'
Narikawari, understanding his intent, roared. His rage, for the first time in the entire fight, was genuine, not stolen. He rushed in pursuit, his speed enhanced by the Archive, monstrous. He was catching up.
The distance to the brain-monument shrank. Kagetori, not looking back, felt the icy breath of the parasite at his back. No time for delicate work.
He sharply turned in mid-air, face to face with the catching Narikawari. His palm was already aimed forward.
"Blue Lightning!" he shouted.
The cold, relentless blue flash he released not at Narikawari, but slightly to the side—right at the approaching parasite. The latter, foreseeing this, was already opening a "Scarlet Maw of Absorption" before him—not a pinpoint one, but a huge, rotating sphere ready to absorb any attack.
And at the last moment, with the finest exertion of will, Kagetori altered the trajectory of the flying discharge. Not by a degree. By a microscopic fraction. The Blue Lightning, as if alive, wavered and slipped into the gap between Narikawari's body and the edge of his "Maw."
It shot past him, leaving a searing streak on his cheek, and slammed directly into the pulsating center of the brain monument.
The effect was instantaneous and quiet.
There was no explosion. There was a sound... of popping soap bubbles. The giant structure trembled. Across its surface, covered in faces, blue cracks ran. The bonds holding it, the complex architecture of stolen souls and Scars—all began to decay. The "Mouths" fell silent mid-whisper, their features distorting in a final, mute agony, then began crumbling into black ash. The hills of bodies subsided, turning to dust. The very air, thick with whispers, grew cleaner, brighter.
The Archive of Disfigured Mouths dispersed like a nightmare at dawn.
They stood again in the ruined director's office, among shattered furniture and dust. The crimson light from the window had given way to the cold glow of the moon. Not a trace remained of the monument.
Narikawari stood motionless, staring at the spot where a second ago the heart of his power had beat. His face (Sorato's face) showed no rage. There was... astonishment. Deep, almost professional.
"Frankly, I'm impressed..." he said quietly. "But still, I shouldn't have expected less from you. There are many powerful Majutsushi in your era, and you're considered the strongest among them. Should have expected this. You were better than I expected, but not better than I could imagine."
Kagetori, breathing heavily (the battle in the Archive and maintaining the "Bastion" had taken their toll), smirked. Blood trickled down his chin from a split lip.
"You know, I was shocked too, honestly. Shocked that a thousand-year-old Majutsushi, dubbed the title of most terrifying... is an idiot."
He rushed forward, delivering a simple straight punch. Narikawari automatically raised an arm to block, but at the last moment remembered. The "Thunder-Holding Bastion" was still active, albeit in a weakened, passive mode around Kagetori.
The parasite's hand, touching the force field, wasn't repelled. It... charred. As if touching a white-hot, yet invisible surface. Narikawari gasped in unexpected pain, jerked his limb back. And into this microscopic breach in his defense flew Reiden's leg.
The blow to the solar plexus was crushing. Narikawari flew back, slammed into a wall, and collapsed to the floor, choking on a cough.
"You're twenty-four years old," he rasped, rising, "and you've already mastered the Form of Thunderous Void so well... You know, I'd like to kill you first and then take that body for myself. Who knows, maybe you'll soon learn to create your own space..."
"Maybe enough talking already?" Kagetori interrupted him.
And, not waiting for an answer, he sharply raised his hand and fired Red Lightning... at the ceiling.
The scarlet discharge struck the stone vaults, showering them with dust and debris, and vanished into the heights. Narikawari was distracted for a moment, his gaze darting upward, then back to Reiden, wary. What a stupid waste of energy?
But Kagetori was already moving. He rushed into hand-to-hand combat again. This time the fight was different. Deprived of the Archive's support, Narikawari was still a terrifyingly experienced fighter. His style was a chameleon—now it was the hard, short strikes of an ancient monk-warrior, a second later—the smooth, evasive movements of a fencing master from the Heian era, then—the crude, street power of an Edo-period gangster. He read Reiden, anticipated, adapted.
But Kagetori was... simple. He didn't play with styles. He used crude, honed efficiency multiplied by monstrous speed and reaction. His strikes were shorter, sharper. He didn't try to outplay—he tried to overpower. Their fists and legs collided with dull thuds that shook the floor. Glass in the surviving windows rattled.
In the heat of the furious exchange, when they closed into a clinch, Kagetori pressed his palm to Narikawari's chest. The parasite's purple eyes widened—he expected Red Lightning, prepared the "Forge" or a dodge.
"Blue Lightning," Reiden simply said.
And released it. Not at Narikawari. He turned his palm and fired the cold blue discharge... at the ceiling again.
This time, bewilderment on Narikawari's face gave way to chilling horror. His gaze shot after the trajectory of the Blue Lightning.
In the sky, through the breach in the ceiling, amidst clouds of dust, two energies—scarlet rage and blue decay—met.
Their collision was not an explosion. It was a fusion. A quiet, beautiful, and deadly act of birth. Red and blue intertwined, spiraled, mixing their principles—absolute force and absolute bond decay. And a third thing was born. Purple.
Shidēn. Purple Lightning.
The very one that pierced the Earth clean through.
It did not roar. It simply was. Perfect, an inescapable point of no return. Slowly, with gravitational inexorability, it began to fall downwards, aiming straight for the crown of Narikawari's head.
The parasite froze. All his calculations, all his millennium of experience screamed one thing: evasion impossible. Blocking—impossible. This was a sentence, already signed.
Slowly, almost with theatrical resignation, he raised both hands upward, palms outward. A gesture of surrender.
"Well, basically..." he began.
The Purple Lightning touched him.
There was no resistance. It passed through his raised hands as if through air and pierced his neck. Not his head. His neck.
There was no sound. Only a pure, geometric act of disappearance. His head was not torn off. It was... separated. A perfectly even cut. It soared into the air, flipped a couple of times, and landed softly on a thick branch of an old pine tree sticking out from behind the rubble of the wall.
The body, now headless, froze for an instant, then collapsed to the floor and began slowly dissolving into familiar golden dust.
Narikawari's head on the branch looked at Kagetori. The purple eyes were clear, the same crooked smirk playing on his lips.
"...You didn't destroy the brain, so this isn't even close to the end. You need to act more radically, Kagetori Reiden," he uttered, and the voice sounded directly from the head, without the aid of lungs.
Then his gaze slid behind Reiden's back. The expression on Sorato's face (now almost completely dissipated) suddenly changed to a comical, exaggerated horror. "Uh-oh-oh..."
Kagetori turned around.
Behind him, beyond the ruined tower, in a small, cozy alley of "Tenran," stood a building. A small but popular restaurant among students and instructors, "Akatsuki"—famous for its homely ramen and atmosphere of peace. At least, it had been famous.
Now only a pile of smoking debris remained, from under which a mangled sign protruded. The destruction from their battle—shockwaves, flying debris, stray energy discharges—had reached even here.
Narikawari, whose head was almost completely evaporated, managed to throw one last, caustic remark, his voice already like an echo:
"Praise god the restaurant wasn't expensive..."
With these words, the head finally crumbled into golden dust, carried away by the night breeze. The body had vanished earlier. Nothing remained of Kuroi Sorato. No body, no spirit. Only memory and emptiness.
Kagetori Reiden stood amidst the ruins of the office, looking at the smoking wreckage of "Akatsuki." Weariness descended on him like a heavy cloak. Pain from wounds, mental exhaustion from fighting the "Whisper," monstrous energy expenditure... But in his golden eyes there was neither regret nor triumph. Only cold, merciless clarity.
Victory? No. This was merely a postponement. Narikawari was alive. His true essence, his consciousness, hidden somewhere in thousands of other Scars and bodies, had survived. He had retreated to regroup.
And now "Tenran" had on its hands a dead director, a ruined tower, a destroyed restaurant, and the body of a legendary Majutsushi turned to dust. And somewhere out there, in the crimson spheres of the Colonies, raged the Game started by this same parasite.
Reiden sighed heavily, adjusted the torn sleeve of his jacket. Dust settled. The silence that followed the battle was louder than any thunder.
'War,' he thought, looking at the lifeless body of Keiden Fujibayashi, 'is only beginning.'
And its first call—the director's funeral and the investigation of his murder—would sound at dawn.