The priest left.
Barely one hundred yards from the church gate, his steps slowed by age and by the strange pressure in the air, he felt the night grow dense — as if the space between atoms had begun to shatter. The rain no longer fell cleanly. Each drop bent slightly before striking the ground, curving around an invisible distortion. His chest tightened. Instinct, older than doctrine, older than language, told him something sacred had just been judged and the verdict was violent.
He turned.
The church explode!
First the windows imploded inward with a sound like breath being ripped from lungs. Then the stone walls bulged outward as if something vast had inhaled inside them. A sphere of compressed golden-red pressure bloomed at the center.
The detonation erased the structure. Wood became powder. Stone became mist. Iron rang once and vanished. The bell tower dissolved into airborne fragments that glowed briefly. Then the shockwave arrived —
It struck the priest mid-step.
Air became a wall.
His body lifted, robes snapping like torn banners, and he flew backward through wet darkness until his spine struck a tree trunk with a blunt, internal crack. Bark split. Breath vanished. Thought scattered into white noise. He slid down the trunk and collapsed sideways into mud and leaves, ears ringing with a distant, underwater thunder.
Consciousness narrowed but did not leave.
Through blurred vision, through the trembling tunnel of pain, he saw the empty place where the church had stood — now a crater of smoking geometry and drifting embers.
And at the center of that ruin stood two figures.
Gold.
Red.
Kanji's aura burned without flicker, Compressed into a tight corona that distorted the air in measured pulses. Gold lines crawled across his armor like living scripture, each mark brightening with every breath he forced through clenched teeth. His expression held no confusion now. Fury had completed its architecture. It stood finished in his eyes.
Power recognized blood.
The man before him — red aura coiled like a predatory killer — moved with the same underlying cadence as Enazumi.
Akashi raised his hand.
On his palm, the symbol burned:
Ω
He vanished.
Kanji's head turned a fraction before the strike arrived — intuition outrunning sight — and the red-sheathed fist carved through the air where his face had been. The pressure wake alone split the ground behind him in a ruler-straight trench. Kanji pivoted inside the attack, shoulder rotating, elbow guiding momentum aside, his counterstrike already unfolding — but Akashi was gone again, reappearing above, then behind, then low — each reposition a surgical edit to location rather than motion.
No hit landed.
They moved like two contradictions attempting to occupy the same sentence.
Their footwork shattered concrete in expanding spiderwebs. Their pivots twisted air into visible spirals. Each near-impact bent rain into rings. Gold arcs and red crescents carved overlapping calligraphy through the night. Trees lost bark from pressure shear alone. The crater widened without being directly struck.
Kanji, voice raw but thunderously clear even through motion – ''You carry his structure.. his stain, You stand in front of what remains of my faith as if you are not the blade that cut it down.''
Akashi rotated through a descending heel strike that stopped one finger-width from Kanji's shoulder — redirected mid-path into a spinning elbow that displaced a column of air like a detonated shell — his eyes calm, almost analytical.
Akashi – ''You search for guilt the way frightened men search for a God — drawing lines between distant fires and calling the picture destiny.''
Kanji advanced through a storm of feints, each step cracking ground, each shoulder roll generating defensive vectors that intercepted attacks before they completed — their forearms collided without touching, force fields grinding like invisible tectonic plates.
Kanji – ''My children died under a sky that still claimed to belong to God — my wife bled in a world that still dared call itself just — and you speak to me of frightened drawings?''
Akashi inverted his stance mid-exchange, sliding through a gap that did not exist until he chose it, red aura folding around him like a lens.
Akashi – ''You accuse heaven with the same mouth that excuses yourself because if God failed you, then you remain righteous without effort.''
Their knees nearly met, Shockwaves burst sideways, flattening grass in a perfect circle.
Kanji – ''I did not excuse myself even when rage would have been easier than prayer.''
Akashi – ''Obedience is often hidden rage.''
Kanji's golden blade manifested only for the duration of a swing — existing for a heartbeat — vanishing when evaded — never wasted on empty air longer than necessary.
Kanji – ''A man of God endures suffering without becoming it and to the very end i will do that!.''
Akashi's red construct weapon formed as a geometric spear — not thrown but extended — growing forward through space stopping at Kanji's throat without touching skin.
Akashi – ''A man of God who chooses hatred still chooses hatred even if he kneels while doing it, Posture does not sanctify motive.''
They separated by ten meters without stepping , Recoil forces alone pushing them apart.
Rain fell again between them.
Steam rose where drops crossed their auras.
Kanji, voice breaking but expanding with terrible honesty – ''If you are not the hand that destroyed my world, then you are its echo and echoes still carry blame because they keep the sound alive.''
Akashi, eyes narrowing with something that almost resembled sadness – ''If I were the reason for your suffering, then your God permitted me , Which makes your accusation either rebellion or confession.. choose which sin you prefer.''
They launched again. simultaneous.
and still neither struck flesh.
The air between them thickened into something that behaved more like substance than atmosphere. Dust did not fall. It hovered, trapped in overlapping pressure geometries created by their movement. The street grid around the ruined church no longer looked urban. It looked diagrammed, scored by force lines, cut by vectors, annotated by craters.
Kanji adjusted his stance by three centimeters. His Yin Armor responded like a living theorem. Plates shifted, redistributing impact load paths. Micro symbols rotated faster, recalculating stress routes. His golden aura no longer radiated outward evenly. It streamed along channels, like molten script flowing through invisible grooves.
Akashi tilted his head slightly, studying those channels instead of Kanji's eyes.
Kanji stepped forward and vanished, Through stacked acceleration bursts. Speed Enchantment triggered in pulses instead of constant output, each pulse collapsing reaction windows in timed intervals. He appeared at Akashi's left flank with a short blade already halfway through a thrust.
Akashi rotated inside the line, redirecting the blade with two fingers against the flat, not blocking but editing the angle. Kanji converted the failed thrust into a rotational elbow, then into a rear knee, then into a downward heel, each transition continuous, no reset between techniques. The sequence formed a closed kinetic loop designed to trap defensive prediction.
Akashi retreated one step, then none. His Omega symbol flashed and the space behind him shortened. Kanji's heel struck ground that had moved closer than expected. The impact produced a circular ground burst that flipped two armored transport trucks and drove them through the glass front of a municipal building.
Kanji – ''You distort your ideals and call it superiority but every shortcut is an admission that the full path would defeat you.''
Akashi countered with a forward palm strike that did not aim at Kanji's body but at the armor seam under his collar. The strike carried phase displacement. It slipped through the outer Yin plating and detonated against the inner energy mesh. Golden armor segments rippled and partially delaminated.
Akashi – ''Efficiency is not cowardice. Only believers romanticize unnecessary suffering and rename it virtue.''
Kanji answered by expanding his Yin output into dual channel flow. Basic Enchantments remained active, but now he added Yin Weapon Multiplicity. His sword duplicated into a rotating halo of five blades, each one bound to a different attack rhythm. No two swung on the same timing interval. The pattern forced multi track defense.
He advanced through his own rotating blades, body threading through lethal arcs with absolute spatial certainty.
Kanji – ''Suffering is not virtue. Choosing meaning despite suffering is. You keep removing the second half of every sentence and pretending you improved the idea.''
Akashi accelerated forward instead of retreating, stepping through the rotating blade halo with micro teleports measured in centimeters, each reposition triggered at the moment before contact. Metal kissed his skin and failed to finish the cut. Red aura cauterized the near wounds instantly.
He drove a straight punch into Kanji's sternum. Contact landed.
Now 2 kilometers from the crater that earlier was called church.
The shockwave expanded outward in a rectangular slab, not a circle, shearing an entire block face off its foundations. Apartments opened like cut models. Rooms exposed. Furniture lifted and scattered into the night.
Kanji slid backward but did not fall. Yin Armor reknit across the impact zone with liquid speed.
Akashi – ''Your God demands interpretation forever and answers almost never. A system that requires infinite explanation is either badly designed or deliberately cruel.''
Kanji raised his Yin firearm again, but now it reconfigured mid lift into a long recoil spear launcher. He fired a chained Yin harpoon. The projectile punched through three buildings, curved in flight, and returned along a guided arc toward Akashi's spine.
Kanji – ''Or your patience is underdeveloped and you call that intellectual maturity.''
Akashi caught the returning harpoon shaft behind his back without looking. The catch created a localized implosion that crushed the street into a bowl shape. He spun and hurled it back with multiplied momentum. Kanji met it with a crossed blade guard and redirected it upward. The harpoon exited the atmosphere in a burning gold line.
Akashi – ''Patience is only admirable when the waited thing exists.''
Kanji – ''Gravity exists whether you understand it or not. Meaning works the same way.''
Kanji triggered Yin Monster Partial Manifestation. A secondary golden silhouette stepped half a second out of sync with his body, mirroring his movements with amplified force. Each strike now carried two impact timestamps, primary and echo.
He attacked with overlapping force. First punch, second punch echo, delayed by fractions, landing in the same space with stacked force.
Akashi received the first on his guard and the second on his shoulder. The echo strike shattered the pavement for thirty meters behind him and launched him through a rail overpass. Steel beams twisted like heated wax.
Akashi – ''Now you are interesting. You stopped trying to win morally and started trying to win actually.''
Kanji advanced through falling debris, walking, not rushing, each step detonating small pressure wells underfoot.
Akashi surged forward with full aggression now. No more measured testing. He delivered a six strike combination built from close quarters combat, elbow, wrist break attempt, throat line chop, hip throw entry, knee spike, descending hammerfist. Kanji countered each with precise structural responses. Blade flat deflection. Armor ridge catch. Yin shock pulse from the sternum plate. Rotational escape pivot. Their limbs crashed and redirected with machine accuracy.
Each blocked strike still released destructive overflow. Parked cars liquefied from pressure alone. A subway entrance collapsed. The ground grid fractured into uneven tiers.
Akashi – ''Morality is a story told by survivors to make their survival feel deserved.''
Kanji locked Akashi's wrist, rotated, and drove a Yin charged head strike into his brow. Red light and gold light collided in a vertical column that split cloud cover.
Kanji – ''Then why do you argue so desperately against it if it is only a story. No one debates gravity with this much emotion.''
For the first time, Akashi's grin widened with open approval.
Akashi – ''Because unlike gravity, belief tries to sit on my throne.''
Civilians began to spill from the surviving buildings in waves of confusion and delayed terror. Office workers with dust in their hair. A mother dragging a child by the wrist. A delivery driver still wearing his helmet, visor cracked, staring upward instead of running. Shock had slowed their judgment. Curiosity competed with fear.
Sirens into the air. Police vehicles skidded into blocked intersections. Fire engines forced paths through broken asphalt. Above, two helicopters circled, spotlights cutting through drifting smoke, cameras already streaming the impossible.
Kanji saw them.
That changed his stance more than any wound could.
Akashi gathered red energy between his palms and compressed it into a rotating disc of violent light. The disc elongated, sharpened, then discharged as a forward blast shaped like a crescent wave. It traveled low, fast, designed to harvest everything in its path.
Kanji stepped into its line and deflected with a double blade cross guard, rotating his wrists at the exact collision angle. The blast split and diverted, but one half still tracked toward the crowd corridor between two damaged buildings.
He saw the trajectory solution before it finished forming.
Lighting Mode Times 30X. He repositioned twice in the same heartbeat and struck the diverted arc again with a reinforced Yin shield edge, redirecting it vertically. The blast carved a burning canyon through the cloud layer instead of the street.
Akashi watched that correction closely.
His expression changed from excitement to recognition.
Akashi – ''There it is. The fracture line in your perfection, Predictable mercy is the most exploitable structure in combat.''
Red condensed in his right hand. It formed as a concept of a blade first, geometry second. A sword that barely qualified as an sword. Its edges flickered between existence states, sometimes visible, sometimes only implied by the way space recoiled near it.
Kanji felt the shift and turned fully toward him.
Behind Kanji, more people were arriving instead of fleeing. Emergency lights painted the smoke in rotating colors. Loudspeakers shouted evacuation orders that no one fully obeyed.
Kanji – ''Do not aim that through them. Whatever you believe about truth, do not make it walk over bodies to prove a sentence.''
Akashi raised the red sword slowly, reverently, like a priest elevating an offering.
Akashi – ''Every god in history has asked for bodies. I am simply honest enough not to hide the altar.''
Kanji – ''Do not do this.''
Akashi's smile widened, eyes bright with theatrical certainty and genuine hunger.
Akashi – ''Now, bow to your true God.''
He swung.
The red slice did not travel through air. It rewrote a corridor from sky to ground. A vertical judgment line large enough to bisect a stadium descended toward Kanji and the crowd behind him with instant authority.
Kanji drove both hands forward and invoked without hesitation.
Kanji – ''Barrier of God.''
A massive golden cross erupted from the ground, arms wide, surface engraved with rotating scripture symbols. The red slice struck it and shattered it into radiant fragments, but a second cross manifested immediately behind the first, twice as thick, anchored deeper. It broke. A third appeared. A fourth. Each larger. Each denser. Each lasting a fraction longer than the previous.
Impact thunder stacked like drums of war.
The street grid collapsed in tiers. Helicopters lost altitude from turbulence shock and pulled away hard.
By the tenth cross, Kanji's armor showed fracture lines. By the twelfth, blood traced from his mouth. By the fifteenth, the red slice still had not fully spent itself.
Kanji roared again, voice tearing his throat.
Kanji – ''Hands of hope.''
The ground behind him burst open with golden emergence. Hundreds of colossal Yin hands rose upward, layered, overlapping, palms forward, fingers spread. They caught the remaining red descent like a net catching a falling star. Each hand burned away from wrist to fingertip, but each moment of resistance bled energy from the strike.
Kanji turned his head toward the civilians without looking away from the descending force.
Kanji – ''Run now. Do not look back!!''
This time they obeyed. Panic finally outran curiosity. The crowd broke and scattered down side streets, pulled by police, dragged by firefighters, herded by raw fear.
The red slice finished its descent.
It detonated against the last layer of golden resistance in a column explosion that erased sound for a full second. A hemisphere of red and gold expanded outward, flattening what remained of the block, turning vehicles into sliding metal paste, stripping trees to white trunks.
Smoke towered.
When it cleared, Kanji still stood.
A diagonal wound cut across his body from shoulder to thigh, armor split, flesh opened but not too deep. The injury glowed at the edges where Yin energy fought to seal it. His legs trembled once, then locked.
He lifted his head through pain that tried to bend his posture.
Kanji – ''Is that all.''
Akashi looked at the wound, then at the empty streets where the civilians had been, then back to Kanji. Delight replaced aggression, More personal.
Akashi – ''Oh. You are going to last much longer than I planned.''
His Omega symbol flared to full intensity.
Space folded.
The battlefield vanished.
Kanji reappeared on dark soil before the endlessly expanding colossal tree, its trunk wider now, roots rewriting terrain, branches threading into cloud like searching nerves. Golden leaves pulsed like distant stars.
Akashi stood elsewhere.
A desert . Wind carving lines through endless dunes. His sword still in hand, humming like restrained laughter.