Vescrutia: Legacy

The ground buckled with a sickening groan before it gave way entirely. The tree she perched upon shuddered, twisted, and cracked apart as the roots were devoured by the yawning maw of the earth.

She vaulted just before the tree collapsed, her body twisting through the air in a controlled backward arc. The terrain below her was no more. The verdant forest had been scorched into a warzone by the wrath of a single monster. One that Hitomi would soon learn held no predilection for peace or mercy.

Her W'rayths stabilized her descent—flaring outward like skeletal wings as her eyes scoured the wasteland below for her foe. But by the time she found him, it was too late.

Kuran was already airborne, already upon her.

Her eyes narrowed—catching a peripheral glint of Naten bursting from his mutilated arm, coiled around his figure like smoke. He left no space between them.

No time for her to think.
So her instincts took over.

Hitomi extended her hand and the W’rayths responded, spiraling out from her back in a swirling mass of invisible talons—coiling around her in a protective shell.

Kuran couldn't see the ambiguous force that deterred his fist, but it wouldn't have mattered if he did.

His mangled arm collided with Hitomi's colorless barrier and shattered it like brittle glass against his knuckles. His fist never reached her, but the sheer magnitude of the strike launched the girl violently through the air.

She careened across the jungle’s canopy, flung miles from the battlefield—far beyond the craters, smoldering wreckage and ruptured earth.

Despite her W’rayths cushioning the blow, the concussive force anchored behind it bludgeoned her all the same. Blood spilled from broken nostrils and slit lips as her body flipped wildly through the air. Limp. Unconscious..

But only for a moment.

Her eyes snapped open during freefall. Instincts flaring like a fire alarm. Her pupils dilated, heart thundering in her chest. She twisted in midair, righted her body, and channeled Naten into her feet just before impact. She landed hard but balanced, skidding backward in the loam of untouched jungle, gouging a deep furrow into the dirt with her hands and heels.

Her breath came shallow and quick as she looked around—no fire, no smoke here. The battle had not touched this place yet. A seconds reprieve..

How far did she travel?

She wiped the blood from her face, feeling the sting in her face and the faint throb in her skull. Calmly, she inhaled. Spitting out a slurry of blood and chipped molars.

“..that,” she murmured, her voice low, almost reverent. “..could have killed me.”

Her smile widened, dripping red with deviant excitement.

She straightened, unfazed, and rolled her neck with a casual snap. “..okay, maybe you things are as strong as they say.”

Her eyes gleamed with a fiery glint as a surge of energy coursed through her veins. Steam hissed from her open wounds as she utilized Shōkotsu—The Restorative Arts of the Yaarou Clan.

Naten accelerated her cells with renewed vigor, causing lacerated skin to mend and seal, broken bones to realign, and even increased her heart rate to compensate for blood loss.

In seconds, her injuries and agony melted away beneath the rain.

But just as the pain dulled, her earpiece crackled to life with a nasally whine.

“—Lady Xhi’on? Lady Xhi’on, please respond! Can you hear me?!” Dr. Cyvell’s voice cut in, frantic. “I’m seeing a spike in your cortical readings—did you just black out? Your vitals dropped and then surged. We thought you might have—”

“I’m fine,” she answered coldly, wiping the rain from her eyes and sliding a foot into position. “The Mazoku is here.”

Cyvell cursed under his breath. “A-an Executioner? Gods above.. Then we must abort the mission. I will send you an extraction unit and coordinates to—”

“You will do no such thing.” she interrupted, her gaze still scanning the area as she pressed a few buttons on her mangled wrist communicator. “What you will do is leave. I've sent you the coordinates of the Velkyr’s last location— three clicks northeast from my original position. You’ll find the creature within the ravine. Not quite dead, but it may not survive much longer..”

“What!? Wait—but what of the Mazoku?”

“I’m going to kill it.” she said plainly, pulling the earpiece free and crushing it between her fingers.

The forest was quiet for only a second longer.

Then she felt him. A suffocating presence over her shoulder. Kuran drew near—tearing through the undergrowth like a demon unbound, knocking aside trees, earth, and rubble in his vindictive charge. He was coming for her, anchoring several thousand pounds of rage and fury behind his every step.

Her fingers slid to the hilt of the blade sheathed low across her back, just above her hips. Her grip tightened. Her posture widened.

She'd been itching for a chance to test the MK-II ever since she laid eyes on them. A gift from Hyperia, tailor made to accommodate her proclivity for lethal force.

She smiled faintly, a hint of thrill tracing her lips as the implications of this battle settled in her chest.

“With your death..”

Her thumb clicked the sheath open, and her W’rayths whispered back to form, gathering behind her in swirling patterns.

“I ascend to godhood.”

The jungle quaked in horror beneath his steps.

Kuran tore through the underbrush like a breathing typhoon, each colossal stride swallowing distance in an instant. His alabaster fur, slick with rain, gleamed like ghostlight beneath the stormlit canopy. The earth trembled, beasts fled, and the trees recoiled from the primal force bearing down upon them.

He was fury incarnate. A god of war, wearing the skin of a beast.

Ahead, Hitomi stood unmoved. A lone figure wreathed in calm amidst the chaos. She didn’t flinch. She didn't raise her sword. She just waited with a soft, teasing smile playing at the corner of her lips.

Not for long.

Kuran’s fist came like an avalanche—A haymaker swung wide with all the momentum his charge could carry. The air detonated behind his knuckles, generating a cataclysmic arc of force that flattened the jungle around them. Trees cracked in half behind the pressure. Birds and branches alike were flung skyward.

And yet—

His fist struck nothing but wind.
No blood. No Bone. Not even a shadow.

Just rain and air.

Kuran’s feet slowly adjusted in the mud. His punch had gouged a trench into the ground where she once stood, but not a trace of Hitomi remained. She was gone, and for the first time in this duel, his brows furrowed.

But in seconds, that confusion twisted into pain as dozens of cuts bloomed across his body. Thin, cruel lacerations carved into the muscle of his back and arms like paper through silk. They weren’t deep—but they didn’t need to be. They were precise. Intentional. The work of a scalpel, not a sword. Blood soaked his fur in dark ribbons, matting the white into crimson.

Then, behind him, a gentle click.

Hitomi stood upright, sheathing her blade with a flirtatious smirk, eyes alight with mischief. As though she'd never moved. As though the wind itself had done the cutting. But Kuran knew better..

He turned slowly, growling. Irate. He noticed his wounds weren't healing.

The Necromatter in his bloodstream—corruptive remnants from his earlier wounds—were stunting his body's natural regeneration. The pain didn’t matter. But the woman’s technique did. Somehow, this human blade had carved through Mazoku flesh. Even though this battle would end in her death, it was a feat worth noting. She had come prepared.

Then, again. Hitomi vanished.

But this time, Kuran watched with sharper eyes. The amber glow of his pupils narrowed to primal slits, catching flashes—afterimages—glimpses of motion untethered by the physical world.

His left arm, still torn and tattered from the Necromatter bullets, lifted instinctively. And Hitomi's steel met it with a resounding—clang! He infused Naten into his arm to intercept her barrage mid-swing. His other arm swept outward, blocking another flurry of strikes toward his flank. Each of her strokes were deliberate, precise, meant not to kill—but to dismantle. She was cutting for tendons, joints, the fragile hinges of his form.

She had forced him on the defensive.
But still, he would not yield.

Kuran steadied his breath beneath her assault, shifting the rage in his chest from a blistering inferno to a well of simmering coals. His pulse slowed behind deep inhales as he drew upon his own familial technique.

Shinjutsu.

He centered himself—closing his mind to the physical world and anchored himself to the realm unseen. The colors of reality faded. The grass and trees, the roar of battle—all of it replaced with a transcendent stillness. And through this lens, Hitomi’s movements became patterned. Predictable.

And then–

..There..

He found her shimmering blade, arcing toward his clavicle too fast for the eyes to see. But Kuran’s right hand snapped out and caught Hitomi's entire arm in his palm, mid-swing.

His grip tightened into iron shackles, twisting and churning until her ulna popped and pierced her skin. The skies responded with a chorus of thunder.

Then—He slammed her into the ground.

BOooOM

Again.

BOoooOM

Again.

BOooOM

And again.

The jungle shook with each impact. Rain exploded off the trees. Mud and leaves rose in geysers. He pounded her into the ground like a nail into the belly of the world, intent on breaking her into pieces or ripping her arm clean off.

Kuran slammed her into the ground with reckless abandon—over and over until the earth groaned beneath the weight of her body. With each strike the jungle recoiled, leaves flung into the air like confetti, and her blood streaked the rain slick floor..

Kuran wasn't going to stop.
Not until her spine snapped..
Or until he saw her skull burst open like a melon.
He wasn't going to stop.. Not until she was still and broken.

—By the fourth slam, Hitomi's vision had blurred into a smeared palette of green, grey, and red. Her brain was swollen—body numbed to the pain from mounting nerve damage. But just before Kuran could drive her further into the widening crater at his feet, her fingers twitched.

Slick with blood and rain, her remaining hand reached out just as Kuran lifted her above his head and pointed at him with two fingers.

“Sunder.”

The word didn’t echo. It resonated.
And then—they came.

Her W’rayths surged forward like a raging tempest—clawing, ripping, and barreling into Kuran with more than a thousand blows in the blink of an eye. His body erupted in a multitude of smoking craters; his shoulder, his chest, the lateral side of his face—all blistered to the bone from the concussive blast. Kuran groaned in pain as he tumbled and rolled along the forest floor, but his massive form didn't travel too far.

Hitomi fell lifeless from his grip and hit the ground in a bloodied sprawl of broken bones. Her face was swollen and bruised, her left arm mangled beyond recognition, and her breath came in short, measured heaves due to a set of fractured ribs.

She looked like a corpse. Lifeless and still.. But then, with considerable effort, she began to move.

Steam hissed from the gashes across her face and body as she began the costly act of healing. Shōkotsu was never intended to be used in battle. The cost of Naten was far too immense.. and after the second time, Hitomi could feel her heart reacting to being overworked.

She couldn't afford another mistake..

As the steam thinned and her wounds began to seal, her gaze lifted to find Kuran again. And the smile she made was anything but kind.

“I’m going to kill you.” She whispered, her broken by pain, but filled with venom. “I’m going to hollow you out and strut around in your skin like my favorite fucking coat.”

Kuran, now steadying himself across from her, was visibly changed. The necrotic scars from Hyperian steel had disrupted his body's regenerative
capabilities. His flesh struggled to mend, the deeper wounds festering—pulsing. His illusion of invincibility irrevocably stained

Hitomi stood slowly, her movement shaking with tension but only for a moment before she steeled herself. She performed an Ava and a soft pulse of Naten flowed outward from the base of her feet. The jungle fell silent for half a breath as the rain, once a relentless torrent, began to bend around her.

Kuran exhaled slowly, struggling to draw air into his battered lungs as the world around him wavered in a haze.

His body—monolithic and defiant—trembled faintly, assaulted by wounds that refused to close. These W’rayths may have been invisible to his naked eye, but their touch had seared through muscle and marrow alike as if they were laced with acid. Healing came, but sluggishly. New lesions split open with each breath, some so deep they exposed bone to the jungle’s weeping rain.

Worse still, he could feel it—the wound along his abdomen, the one he had suffered in Helidor, began to split open once again. The Dryad's rootlike stitches sewing his flesh together were cindered, and from the corner of his mind he could feel the sickly warmth of blood pooling against his ribs.

Still, Kuran found a begrudging sense of exhilaration threading through his veins. Not the simple thrill of battle—no, this was different. It was a rare, almost nostalgic ache as he realized that the human before him was no ordinary prey.

This was the fear of death.

This human was dangerous, powerful. And in some darker corner of his ancient heart, he lamented that this clash must end. It had been centuries since he'd been deployed to battle—and eons since he thought he'd might not survive.

But pride, cold and unyielding, poisoned that sentiment.

She was still human.
Still Kocta. Lesser than. Inferior.

The Mazoku had always known themselves as Vescrutia's chosen race—to bow to the strength of a human, even in the span of a fleeting moment, would be a stain on his legacy he could never cleanse. Her success in simply wounding him gnawed at his pride like a buried thorn.

And then—he could feel it. Her Naten was rising at a terrifying pace, surging toward some catastrophic crescendo.

Kuran’s eyes narrowed—instincts howling in warning.
This would not be allowed.

Without hesitation, the titan surged forward, his massive frame igniting with a corona of pale flames. Naten sheathed him like a second skin and the ground buckled underfoot as he gathered speed. His fist cocked back as he neared his foe, aiming to annihilate her before she could unleash whatever horror she was conjuring.

But she was ready for him.

Just as he closed the distance, Hitomi’s form split. Two perfect copies tore themselves from her, emerging with ghostly speed and flanking him in a heartbeat.

The first clone became a living bolt of lightning that collided with him head-on. Kuran snarled, bracing as she slammed into his chest like a spear of crackling force. The impact drove him back on his heels, skidding trenches into the rain-soaked earth, but he did not fall. His arms clamped down around her midsection, muscles taut like steel cables as he wrested control of the grapple.

With a grunt, Kuran tore the clone apart at the waist, the doppelgänger disintegrating into motes of Naten and rainwater in his grip.

No sooner had the pieces faded than his crimson eyes locked back onto Hitomi—only to feel a sudden, searing touch against his back.

The second clone had used their immense speed to maneuver unseen during the chaos, and now stood behind him, her palm pressed against his flesh. A sickly pulse of energy rippled through Kuran's before several blades of golden light erupted out of his body and nailed him to the earth.

Kuran snarled in fury as the binding spell impaled him, muscles bulging grotesquely under the strain. But before long, he felt his mind strangled still. His breath, his will, all of him followed suit. And for a fleeting moment, his massive form was pinned down—trembling against the shimmering sabers anchored deep into his being. His Naten sputtered and raged, but the spell was well-forged, resilient.

But he would not suffer indignity. Kuran, The Merciless would not be bound.

With an explosive flex of raw power, the titan wrenched free, his body detonating the bindings into a spray of silver shards. He spun on his pivot, using his mangled arm to grab hold of the second clone, and tore her head from her shoulders with a brutal swipe—reducing her to a mist.

There would be no more distractions.

A growl roiled low in his chest as he turned his gaze back to Hitomi—the true Hitomi—still stationary, hands steepled in a unique Ava. Pale embers burst from Kuran’s skin as his rage reached its apex. He launched himself forward, the jungle floor peeling back in his wake, rain vaporizing as he became a meteor of wrath. Any other hidden clone wouldn't survive the pressure he emitted.

And now, his fist wreathed in death, raced toward the head of his infuriating prey. Aiming to bludgeon her conceited smile into a hollowed, scarlet pit.

Kuran charged through the withered jungle, a burning spear of unstoppable force, tearing apart the earth and the sky alike.

Hitomi watched him come — standing atop the cracked, dead ground—her hands calm, her posture immaculate, all while her heart pounded a wild rhythm against her ribs.

All of the realm seemed to shudder beneath his steps.
But Hitomi stood unmoving. A grin twisted her lips—borne not of conceit or mockery, but from deviant excitement of what was to come.

"Veil, Rift, Collapse."

She whispered the chant like a secret to the world; her words resonating with a ghastly echo.

“Supreme Art: Hideous Construct.”

And then, the earth exploded.

From beneath her feet, a colossal mass surged upward, rupturing soil, roots, and ancient ore in its furious ascent. It towered nearly fifteen meters into the storm-wracked sky, an edifice of perverted flesh and enchanted rock.

Its grotesque surfaces writhed with lecherous faces wailing in agony—cursed, or born in perpetual agony.
And at its crown stood its architect—her hands locked in formation, veins flaring down her arms with crimson streams of power.

Kuran's charge relented, instinct screaming for him to slide to a stop, but by then it was already too late.

The air had split open.. and Hell broke loose.

From the Hideous Construct’s many gnashing mouths burst forth an endless horde of W'rayths—their shrieking forms filling the air like a plague of locusts. They swarmed the jungle, devouring it in seconds. Trees aged into skeletal ash, the rain hissed to pungent vapor, the very soil crumbled into dust.

And Kuran was not exempt.

Hitomi watched, breathless with savage glee, as the W’rayths tore into him. He crossed his arms to shield his face—but it was like trying to block the wind with his bare hands.

Flesh was flayed from bone.
Said bones were shattered and splintered.
Chunks of him—scorched, rotting—peeled away faster than his regeneration could weave them back together.

He was crumbling.
He was dying.
Her grin widened, teeth gleaming like a predator’s in the stormlight.

The thrill of victory bloomed in her chest, fierce and intoxicating.

At last.
This was her moment.
Immortality was in her grasp.

Until—
Until he screamed..

The sound was.. abhorrent.. in every sense of the word. Unlike anything she'd ever heard before. It was abominable, raw. The sky cracked from the eldritch pressure.

And reality itself fractured.

His roar triggered a shockwave that exploded outward with apocalyptic force. The ground they fought on was ravaged to dust. The sky whitened, the storm clouds receded. The very continent of Muu convulsed as a rift tore open at its center and raced outward out in a blistering silver sphere of doom.

The silver light consumed everything. The jungle was erased beneath—its verdant knolls and vibrant thickets stripped away to bleached rock.

When the light faded, only ruin remained.

A massive, smoking basin stretched out where once a lush jungle stood. Rainfall had been replaced with ash that swirled and clung to the broken landscape like black snow.

And in the center—alone amidst the ruin—knelt Kuran.

He was a shell of his former self, a silhouette of agony with blood and rain mixing down his battered form.

Half his face was an unrecognizable mass of charred, shattered flesh. Only one arm remained functional, twisted and mangled but stubbornly clenching the dirt.

Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself to his feet.
Breathing raggedly, he turned and scanning the wasteland, his remaining eye burning through the ash and mist.

But there was no sign of his foe.
Only silence..

Kuran staggered forward as the world tilted around him. His muscles screamed with every breath, and his mind swam through the smog of pain and exhaustion.

The battle, it seemed, was over.
And yet, victory sat sour on his tongue, heavy and rotten.

He coughed, thick globs of blood spilling from his lips as he slumped to one knee. His hand instinctively pressed against his abdomen, fingers digging into the torn flesh where his insides threatened to spill free. Warm blood oozed between his fingers, slick and endless. Each heartbeat sent fresh agony crawling up his spine, but he clamped his hand tighter—not out of hope, but stubborn refusal to die kneeling.

His gaze drifted to the ruin around him—the vast smoking basin, the skeletal remains of the jungle, all of the desolation he'd unleashed.
All for a single opponent.
A human, at that..

His pride twisted in his gut like a blade.

The Voice of a Mazoku Executioner was a weapon meant to tear kingdoms from the planet's surface, to annihilate armies in a breath—even in the blister of combat and warfare, to unveil such power was considered a ceremonial act.

And yet.. she forced him to do it.
The shame pooled beneath his ribs, black and heavy.

Then—
A shadow.

Barely perceptible through the settling ash, a figure dragged itself forward, limping through the haze. Kuran's one good eye sharpened as the smoke parted to reveal what remained of his stubborn foe.

Her face was a mask of gore and ruin, her braided hair now singed to ragged threads. Her left arm was simply gone — a scorched ruin of bone and shredded flesh. Her lips and cheeks were gashed, peeled back into something between a grimace and a smile.

Even with her mouth closed, her broken teeth gleamed wetly through the torn seams of flesh, giving her the chilling semblance of a stitched-up doll abandoned amidst the destruction.

And yet she stood.

And towering over her, the avatar of her salvation.

The W’rayths—once ephemeral and unseen—had massed together, forming a monstrous humanoid exoskeleton that cloaked her like a suit of armor.

Vermillion eyes burned in the construct's face. Equipped with four arms of gnarled, ivory energies that flexed with anticipation.

For the first time, Kuran could see them—the invisible hands that had shaped her spells—now condensed into something physical and monstrous.

The sight of her defiant face churned his blood into flame.

A second wind—wild, searing—ripped through his veins. He planted his hand into the shattered dirt, and forced himself upright. His battered body howled in protest, but the pain was stomped out beneath raw fury.

"How..." the thought blazed through him, white-hot.

The tower of her armor loomed, grotesque and magnificent. Her resilience defied reason. It defied fate itself. It defied him.

He bared his teeth, a snarl carving his battered face.. and causing the empty wasteland to tremble in fear.

If she wished for death so desperately, he would grant it. If she wished for blood, he would drown her in it. And he would do so with his own mangled hands.

The ground cracked beneath his feet as the last of his Naten began to Kindle before it lash out like a crimson inferno. He stepped forward, balling his fist of ruined flesh and muscle tissue into a cruel weapon of death.

This was not finished.
Not yet.

Hitomi staggered with each step, a trembling phantom cloaked in agony. Her body was nothing but pain and broken bone, her breath ragged, wet.
Yet her lone surviving hand—pale and blood-slicked—clenched tight around the source of her second wind.

The Ring of Hatred; Disdain

The black band coiled around her finger, humming with ancient, malignant power. From it bled a burning, sickly energy that flowed into her veins, surging against the collapsing ruin of her body.

This was the might of Nikushimi, the Djyinn bound within the emerald crystal. And his was a bottomless well of vitriol and hate—keeping her upright, dragging her forward, and rejuvenating her empty reserves of Naten.. at a terrifying cost

Nikushimi was a being of avarice and fury—Hitomi could feel it devouring her even as it sustained her strength.

Already the skin along her fingers was fading into ash, gnawed to the bone by the emerald flame coming from the ring. Thin tendrils of black and green slithered up her wrist and forearm, staining her flesh with creeping vines of ruin.

Still, Hitomi pulled her ruined body forward, step by agonizing step. Doing her best to pick up speed.

Time was running out.

But her shattered lips peeled back into a savage grin as her gaze cleared the haze and settled on Kuran's face. Blood drooled from the gashes torn into her cheeks, teeth flashing through the wounds like some grizzly mask.

"I told you..." she hissed, breath rattling from her throat like iron dragged over stone.
"I.. was going.. to kill you."

Kuran's eyes narrowed to slits, the towering giant steadied only by sheer rage and wounded pride. A flicker of something primal crossed his battered face—pure and animalistic, like a rabid beast cornered in its cage.

He lunged—crossing the distance between them in the blink of an eye. His hand, a flaming ball of muscle and wrath, lashing out to crush her.

But her armor reacted with an advanced autonomy and used one of its four limbs to collide with his strike directly. The impact resonated through the ground beneath them, uprooting rubble and debris into the air.

The ground crumbled further as they clashed again—and again—a symphony of brutality.

Hitomi, slower now, but stronger than she had ever been.

Kuran, fueled by raw instinct and a hatred that transcended flesh and bone.

Each blow from Hitomi’s spectral armor landed with tectonic force, but was parried by Kuran with the last reserves of his once-boundless strength. The battlefield became a blur of crashing fists and thunderous impacts that tore the world around them into a cratered hellscape.

But this was not sustainable.

The Ring clawed deeper into Hitomi’s arm, gnawing toward her shoulder. Her mind frayed at the edges from the onslaught of foreign energy. Her vision swam. The world tilted.

If she didn't end this now—she would be nothing but a hollowed corpse, consumed by the Djyinn that resided within it.

But Kuran gave no reprieve.

He saw it—the brief, fatal flicker of weakness.
Hitomi’s body betrayed her at last. Her knees buckled, crashing to the ruined earth as the Ring’s corrosive essence consumed her shoulder. Her exoskeleton—once a monstrous, defiant thing—flickered and dimmed, faltering under the weight of her agony.

Kuran pounced with a snarl, a feral gleam igniting in his bloodshot eye.

He twisted his whole frame into a monstrous haymaker, a strike born of desperation and unyielding spite. His fist collided against Hitomi’s towering armor with a resounding CRACK—like a moutain sundered.

Half of the construct exploded into a thousand shards—vaporizing into an ivory mist, and tearing a gaping hole open across the exoskeleton’s chest.

Hitomi was exposed—bloodied, broken, a trembling shadow of the warrior she posed herself to be.

Kuran nearly squealed at the opportunity.
His hand lunged forward, ready to seize her and crush what was left between his fingers .

But Hitomi moved first.

Summoning the last dregs of her fading will, she thrust her ruined hand forward—bone and scorched flesh glinting in the sickly light.

The Ring of Hatred pulsed violently—erupting with a eviscerating, viridian blaze that swallowed the air between them. The point-blank blast tore through Kuran’s wounded abdomen with brutal forcr, carving a new, cavernous wound through his core.

Kuran staggered, his body shuddering around the absence of flesh and bone. He choked on a growl that never found his throat.

His legs buckled. His arms sagged uselessly.
With a final, broken gasp, he dropped to his knees, staring wide-eyed at the ruin of his own body.

Before he could muster even a flicker of defiance, Hitomi's trembling hand aimed two fingers at her crumpled foe. What remained her construct’s surviving arms answered her silent command—shifting, and sharpening into a pair sickles that bisected the Mazoku Executioner at the waist with a wet, sickening shhkrrrrrrrkct.

For a moment, Kuran remained whole—his stunned expression frozen in time.

But then, like a felled statue, his torso slumped sideways, crashing into the yawning wasteland beneath.

Ash and silence devoured the battlefield.
Only Hitomi remained—standing over him, chest heaving, blood trickling down the gory rictus carved into her cheeks. Her one surviving hand dangled at her side, the Ring's malevolent light flickering and fading at last.

She glared down at what remained of her enemy, her gaze hollow, weary, but triumphant.

A ragged breath clawed from her lungs, carrying a hoarse whisper that barely rose above the settling dust:

"...you... were weak."

And with that final judgment, the exoskeleton around her crumbled into a rain of dying embers.
Hitomi, stripped of her armor and strength alike, crumpled into the rubble—finally claimed by the darkness she had defied for so long.

The airship rumbled low over the blasted terrain, its polished hull still bearing fresh scars from their earlier mission. Dr. Cyvell stood rigid near the open bay doors, one hand clutching the rail for balance, the other gripping the portable vitals monitor strapped to his forearm. His glasses slid low on his nose from sweat and turbulence, but he hardly noticed—his gaze was locked on the furious, plummeting readings flashing across the screen.

Hitomi vitals were plummeting.

They had only just completed their objective thanks to her sacrifice.

Hours earlier, she had transmitted the coordinates of the Velkyr—the ancient beast that the Empire had sought to drive to extinction. Hitomi had crippled it, subdued it without killing it, and drawn the Empire’s hunters away in a brutal, suicidal gambit. Without her intervention, securing the Velkyr would have been impossible.

And now she was dying.

"Get us closer!" Cyvell barked, his voice a hoarse rasp torn from deep in his chest. "Touch down immediately!"

The pilot nodded, steering the airship into a rapid descent, engines howling against the rising storm of ash.

—

When the loading ramp dropped open, Cyvell and a small contingent of Hyperian soldiers and medics charged forward—and stopped dead in their tracks.

The devastation was staggering.

The battlefield stretched wide, the jungle was torn apart by forces few had ever witnessed firsthand. Blackened craters smoked in the distance, while jagged splinters of stone littered the ground like the bones of some ancient titan.

And there, at the heart of the destruction, lay the only survivor.

Collapsed amid shattered stone and molten soil, Hitomi's body was a battered wreck. Her clothing was tattered, one of her arms were gone entirely, and she was covered with a litany of other injuries that pooled blood beneath her. Her once-pristine white hair was scorched and torn, clinging to her bruised face in burnt, ragged strands. Yet even now, there was a stubborn, defiant tension in her broken form, as if she had refused to let death take her until she knew victory was hers.

And sprawled before her—lifeless, colossal—was the corpse of her enemy; A Mazoku Executioner.

The sight rooted the Hyperian crew in place. A human had felled this creature of nightmares."Ceros above..." one of the soldiers whispered, voice trembling.

Cyvell shoved past them, urgency pounding in his temples.

"Move!" he barked. "Medics, now!"

The team surged forward. Hitomi didn't react as they reached her—her body was limp, barely clinging to life. Cyvell dropped to his knees beside her, quickly assessing her wounds. Up close, the damage was even worse—charred skin, internal bleeding, failing organs.

"She's crashing," one of the medics warned, already injecting her with a chemical that would sustain her for the time being.

"Keep her alive," Cyvell snapped, his voice low and fierce. "No matter what it takes."

As the medics stabilized her, Hyperian soldiers began cautiously surrounding the Mazoku’s remains. Even in death, the creature radiated a terrible, oppressive force. Its flesh, dense with unnatural energy, would be a goldmine of information—secrets Hyperia desperately needed to turn the tide of this endless war.

Within minutes, they secured Hitomi onto a stretcher and hurried her aboard the airship. The engines flared to life, lifting the battered vessel away from the battlefield and into the soot-stained skies.

Inside, Cyvell stayed close to Hitomi, his hands trembling slightly as he monitored her vitals. The monitor beeped in weak, uncertain rhythms, each one a fragile tether keeping her in the world of the living.

"You stubborn girl, you don't get to die after what you've accomplished.." he whispered, adjusting his cracked glasses. "You gave us the future.. And there's no way in hell you're not going to be apart of it.”

Victory had been won.
Perhaps at a terrible cost.
But it had been won.

And somewhere, deep in the ruins left behind, the first true seeds of rebellion had been sown.

[---Above the Ashes--]

Commander Delion stood at the forward observation deck of the Crimson Cloud, a sleek, blood-red warship suspended in the upper layers of Muu’s storm-ridden skies. The hum of its engines was a low, constant thrum beneath his boots, a reminder that despite their altitude, the weight of failure still found a way to rise.

Below, the Onyx Trench was a chasm of smoke and ruin. The visual feeds from the hull-mounted optics flickered with interference—ash still hung in the air like falling snow, obscuring the worst of it. But he’d seen enough.

Kuran was gone.

The moment Hitomi’s blade pierced the Mazoku Executioner’s hide, Delion’s fingers had clenched the edge of the command rail. That should’ve been impossible. A human, wielding handmade weaponry, surviving the battle at all was already an anomaly. But defeating a Mazoku Executioner?

Unthinkable.

But he'd seen it with his own eyes.. He watched as she tore through elite infantry like a seasoned specter of war, before departing with the Velkyr—the Empire’s original priority in the region—all while dragging Kuran’s remains like a trophy.

The cameras closer to the trench were vaporized when Kuran unleashed his voice, a deathly-wail of apocalyptic power that scorched everything within sight. But from above, from the Crimson Cloud, they’d watched the fallout in silence.

And Delion... he had said nothing.

“...”

The observation deck was eerily still, caught in a reverent silence upon what they had witnessed.

Only now did he speak.

“Break from Muu’s airspace,” he ordered, voice calm but low enough that his officers shifted uneasily. “Take us west. Back to Bhalia.”

The pilot responded with a brisk salute and veered the warship from the growing storm cell. As the crimson metal hull turned with a guttural moan, the Onyx Trench faded into the distance—a burial ground for pride and secrets.

Behind Delion, screens flickered as Hitomi’s face was magnified, enhanced, cataloged. Frame by frame, her movements were being dissected, slowed, studied. Her agility. Her strength. Her timing. Every strike she made against Kuran was replayed with chilling clarity.

“She fights like no human I’ve seen,” his intelligence officer murmured, almost reverently. “No wasted movement. No hesitation.”

Delion didn’t respond. His eyes remained locked on the screen where her silhouette faded into the black, carrying both their failure and their future in her wake.

“I want every technique cross-referenced with archived spell forms, martial disciplines, and forbidden tactica,” he said finally. “If she’s known in any of the eastern or southern codices—I want everything.”

A pause.

"..I want to know where she was born.”

He knew what this meant. A report would need to be submitted to the High Spire. The death of a Mazoku Executioner wasn’t a loss—it was a revelation. A crisis. The humans race had developed weapons now. Or perhaps something worse. Something they didn’t even understand.

Delion’s shoulders remained square, his uniform immaculate. To his crew, he was still the Empire’s steel spine, unbent and undeterred. But inside, his thoughts were storming.

“A.. human?” The thought scraped against his brain like rusted steel. An impossibility.

This wasn’t a mere misstep. It was a tectonic shift. Kuran had fallen. His forces were fractured. And the war campaign could no longer proceed without reinforcement. And worse— there was now a face he could attribute to the stain of his defeat.

His stomach churned with acid and shame He would have to return to Bhalia not just as a bearer of grim tidings, but as a marked man—a commander whose enemy walked free, cloaked in myth. A failure..

Still, he would not call it a defeat. Not yet.

Not until he met her himself.