Unless it was absolutely necessary, Haruki Aizawa had no desire to fully surrender to the Darkin within.
In this critical moment, he didn't choose to push his body past its limits through raw Blood Burst as Irene had. Instead, by observing and deconstructing the way Irene siphoned Priscilla's life-force, he developed a new, temporary application of his own energy.
He called it: Sanguine Siphon.
RUMBLE!
Haruki's eyes bled into a deep, pulsating scarlet. In his vision, the world inverted into high-contrast thermal signatures. Every living being became a roadmap of circulating blood and mana.
In the center of the arena, Priscilla and Julis appeared dim, their energy reserves flickering. In contrast, Irene was a bonfire of bio-energy, her blood concentration so high it rivaled Haruki's own limit-break states.
Haruki raised his hand, his fingers curling as if gripping the air itself.
WHOOSH!
A terrifying gravitational suction erupted from his palm. The blood mist hanging in the air—leaked from Irene's cracking skin and the wounds sustained during the fight—began to swirl. Like a river of starlight, the essence of the battlefield converged into a single, dense point in front of Haruki's hand.
As the energy stabilized, the very foundations of the Sirius Dome began to groan and tremble under the weight of the gathered power.
"??!"
Even in her madness, Irene sensed the shift. Her biological instincts screamed of a predator that had suddenly grown ten times larger. But she was too far gone to stop.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!"
The Vampire Princess swung her massive scythe, the concentrated gravity well at its tip exploding outward as she lunged for Haruki's throat.
Haruki took a deep breath, his focus narrowing until the rest of the world vanished. He pulled the swirling vortex of blood into his blade, further compressing the energy through pure martial will.
A violent, howling wind rose from nothing, pulling debris and loose tiles toward Haruki as if he were the eye of a hurricane.
"—SOUL-SUCKING SEALED DEMON SLASHER!"
The moment the energy reached its critical mass, Haruki unleashed it. He swung his blade in a wide, horizontal arc, releasing the totality of the siphoned blood as a wave of pure, crimson destruction.
CRA-CRA-CRACK!
The strike didn't just hit Irene; it tore through her, the Gravisheath, and the multi-layered defensive barriers of the arena simultaneously.
Haruki's ultimate slash reduced everything in its path to atoms.
The audience saw only a flash of blinding red, followed by a concussive shockwave that knocked the breath from their lungs. When the wind finally died down, the true scale of the devastation was revealed.
A jagged, smoking trench fifty meters long stretched across the stage. The energy shields—designed to withstand military-grade missiles—had been shredded like paper. The tip of the sword-wave had stopped exactly one inch from the front row of the spectator stands, leaving a row of students paralyzed with terror, some literally fainting from the sheer proximity of death.
"No way..."
"The barrier... it's gone."
"I must be dreaming."
The silence in the Sirius Dome was heavy and absolute. The duel between the Sword Ghost and the Vampire Princess was over, but the image of that final strike remained etched into the minds of thousands.
Haruki had effectively "reset" the battlefield. Irene had been defeated not by force, but by the systematic destruction of her weapon and her source of power.
The Phoenix Festa officials scrambled to the stage. Their priority was the safety of the crowd; the fact that a student had breached the "unbreakable" shields was a public relations nightmare they would be dealing with for months.
Finally, the referee found his voice. He raised a trembling hand.
"Irene Urzaiz and Priscilla Urzaiz are disqualified! The winners are Haruki Aizawa and Julis-Alexia von Riessfeld!"
The stadium erupted into the loudest roar of the tournament so far. Haruki didn't stay to enjoy the applause. He walked off the stage, his expression unreadable.
Irene lay unconscious in the ruins of the stage, her body drained and her scythe shattered back into its hilt form. Priscilla, pale and weak, managed to crawl over to her sister before looking up at Haruki as he passed.
"Thank you, Aizawa-san," she whispered.
Haruki stopped, but he didn't turn around. "Why thank me?"
Julis, who had joined him, looked equally confused.
"Because you didn't aim for my sister," Priscilla said, her voice full of a quiet insight. "You aimed for the Gravisheath. You destroyed the scythe's influence so she could come back. You saved her soul."
"I didn't do it for her," Haruki replied flatly. "I just wanted to test a theory. Consider it a trade for the inspiration she gave me."
He walked away without another word. Priscilla watched him go, a small, grateful smile touching her lips despite the defeat. She knew a "thank you" was the last thing a man like him wanted, but she gave it anyway.
Back in the Seidokan waiting room, Claudia and Kirin rushed to meet them.
"That final strike... Master, it was breathtaking!" Kirin chirped, her eyes shining with adoration as she re-enacted the swing in her head.
"Mm." Haruki nodded, but then his brow furrowed.
He wasn't injured. He hadn't taken a single hit during the match. But suddenly, a sharp, searing pain tore through his nervous system.
"Haruki? What's wrong?" Julis asked, noticing his sudden rigidity.
"I'm... fine," Haruki grunted, but he gripped the table for support, his knuckles turning white.
He looked down at his hand. He realized the source of the agony wasn't his body—it was the Ser-Veresta strapped to his back.
The Demon Sword was in a state of high-intensity "excitation." After witnessing the destruction of a fellow Pure Stellar Lux, the weapon's internal furnace had ignited. It was venting its raw thermal energy directly into Haruki's spirit.
The backlash manifested as an impossible internal fever. Within seconds, Haruki's body temperature spiked to levels that should have been lethal. He felt like his blood was being replaced by molten lead.
"Haruki!" Julis grabbed a towel and soaked it in cold water, pressing it to his forehead.
Ssssss!
The moment the wet cloth touched his skin, it hissed and turned into steam. The water evaporated instantly, leaving the towel bone-dry and scorched.
"My God..." Claudia whispered, her face pale. "It's the weapon. The Ser-Veresta is rejecting the lull after the battle. It's trying to consume him."
Heat.
A thick, suffocating wave of thermal pressure was expanding inside Haruki's chest, hunting for an exit that didn't exist. He felt like a star undergoing a supernova within the shell of a human body.
"Haaa..."
Haruki forced himself to stand up from the infirmary bed. Every movement felt like his organs were screaming, a high-pitched roar of cellular distress.
"I didn't expect a Rebound this severe," Claudia said, her voice tight with worry. "I thought your 100% synchronization would protect you from the weapon's ego. I was wrong."
After a quick analysis by the academy's technicians, the truth was clear. Haruki wasn't being "attacked" by the sword; he was being over-synchronized. The Ser-Veresta had been so "impressed" by Haruki's victory over the scythe that it was trying to merge its core with his soul.
Because the Ser-Veresta was essentially a portable sun, the byproduct of this merging was absolute heat.
"Is there a way to stop it?" Julis asked, her eyes darting between the monitors and Haruki, who was literally glowing with a faint, orange light.
"Usually, you'd need an external stabilizer," Claudia explained. "But external cooling can't reach his core. He has to suppress it from the inside." She looked down at her own wrist. "My own weapon, Pan-Dora, has a price too. It forces me to experience my own death in my dreams every night. If my mind ever breaks, the weapon will claim my body. Pure Stellar Luxes are not gifts; they are parasites."
"Even you, Claudia...?" Julis murmured, stunned by the revelation.
Haruki, however, didn't care about the philosophy of the weapons. He stood in the center of the room, steam rising from his skin in thick plumes.
"It's just... a bit of heat," Haruki rasped, his voice sounding like grinding stone. "I can hold it. Don't waste your time worrying."
"A bit of heat?!" Julis shouted, her anger flaring. She pointed at the towel she had just dropped—it was now a pile of grey ash on the floor. "You're a walking meltdown, Haruki! If you don't vent this energy, you're going to explode and take half the district with you!"
Haruki looked at his right hand. The violet veins were now glowing a bright, angry gold. He could feel the World Ender power stirring, sensing the heat and wanting to feed on it.
The Sword Ghost and the Demon Sword were currently fighting for control of his soul. And Haruki Aizawa was determined to be the only one standing when the fire died out.
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