The detonation of violet energy wasn't just light and sound; it was an eruption of will against the fabric of reality. Chamber Seven screamed. Jagged obsidian spires groaned and shattered further. The oppressive gloom was banished, replaced by the actinic glare of Shirou's unleashed essence. Kokuto stood at its heart, Void-Shear raised in a desperate cross-block.
CRUNCH-SSSSSHHHH!
The sound was sickening, final. Not the ring of metal, but the whisper of dissolution. Kokuto's legendary blade, forged in stellar cores and hardened by eons of spatial conflict, disintegrated. From the point of impact with the violet conduit, the dark metal turned to fine, grey ash, crumbling away like ancient paper caught in a furnace blast. The disintegration raced up the blade towards the hilt. Kokuto's eyes, wide with disbelief and a primal fear he rarely felt, saw it happening. With a snarl ripped from the depths of his being, he wrenched his arm back, sacrificing the last inches of the hilt to the annihilating force.
He wasn't fast enough. The violet fury licked at his armored forearm guard. The dense alloy didn't melt; it simply ceased to be, vaporized into nothingness. The energy seared flesh, muscle, and bone beneath. A strangled cry escaped Kokuto's lips – raw, unguarded pain – as he was hurled backwards, trailing smoke and ash from the stump of his sword and the charred ruin of his forearm. He hit the shadow-stone floor hard, skidding, leaving a smear of dark blood and cinders.
Silence, thick and stunned, followed the fading roar of the purple nexus. Dust motes danced in the residual violet glow. Shirou stood, chest heaving, palms still outstretched, tendrils of purple energy flickering around them. He lowered his hands slowly, staring at the devastation, at Kokuto's broken form, at the ashen remains of the blade scattered like morbid confetti. A strange, profound sensation washed over him, cleansing the despair, the mercenary calculus, the fear. It was... lightness.
"I feel..." Shirou breathed, the words soft but carrying in the stillness, "...that I'm liberated." A genuine, almost serene smile touched his lips. The chains of his self-imposed limitations felt shattered.
Kokuto pushed himself up onto his knees with his good hand, cradling the mangled forearm. The detached calm was utterly gone, replaced by a smoldering inferno of rage that contorted his usually impassive features. Dark blood dripped steadily from the wound, sizzling where it hit the charged stone floor. He raised his head, his eyes, burning coals of fury, locking onto Shirou.
Shirou met the gaze, his split red-and-gold eyes gleaming with newfound power. "Angry now, aren't you?" he taunted, his voice steady, confident. He gestured towards the ash pile. "Your precious sword is done. What are you going to do, Swordwrath? Gnaw my ankles?"
Kokuto's voice was a guttural rasp, thick with pain and disbelief. "How... how did you get this much stronger? Mortals don't surge like that!"
Shirou shrugged, the movement loose, almost careless. "I don't know either. Don't really care right now." He clenched his fists, feeling the potent purple energy coil within him, responsive, eager. "All I know is I'm totally pumped up! And I feel like I could crack universes. Destroying the likes of you?" He grinned fiercely. "Feels achievable."
Kokuto's rage seemed to crystallize into something colder, deadlier. He slowly, painfully, rose to his feet. "Very well," he breathed, the words icy. "You're truly worth killing, mortal." His good hand moved, not towards another weapon, but to his own chest. With a grimace of effort, he plunged his fingers into his sternum, not through flesh, but through the fabric of space itself. He withdrew his hand, gripping the hilt of a new blade. This one was different – shorter, broader, forged from a metal that seemed to drink the light, etched with faint, swirling runes that pulsed with restrained spatial power. It hummed with a lower, more dangerous frequency than Void-Shear.
Shirou's confident smirk faltered. *He kept a spare... in his chest cavity? What kind of monster...?*
Kokuto took a step, testing the weight of the new blade, his gaze never leaving Shirou's face. His eyes narrowed, focusing intently on Shirou's own. The fury was still there, but overlaid with intense scrutiny, a dawning realization. "Unbelievable..." he murmured, almost to himself. "A mortal... achieving even an incomplete manifestation of that State... through sheer desperation? Without eons of cultivation?"
Shirou blinked, thrown off balance. "What state? What are you talking about?"
"Your eyes," Kokuto stated flatly, pointing the tip of his new blade towards Shirou's face. "They changed color. They are partially golden. The mark of nascent transcendence."
Shirou instinctively touched his face. "What?" He looked around for a reflection, his gaze finally catching the polished, light-drinking surface of Kokuto's new blade. He saw it. His vibrant red irises were now vertically split: the left half remained the familiar red, but the right half blazed with an intense, molten gold. It wasn't a trick of the light; the gold glowed with internal power. "Weird..." Shirou breathed, a flicker of awe mixing with his battle-high. "I didn't experience anything like that before. No visions, no training montage... just... necessity."
Kokuto shook his head, a gesture of profound disbelief. "That state... people reach it through lifetimes of extreme trauma, relentless hardship, focused training pushing the absolute limits of mortality... when they stand on the precipice of their potential's completion. You haven't reached it totally – your eyes are not fully transformed. But even achieving it partially..." He took a step forward, the new blade humming louder. "...is unheard of for a mortal outside of divine intervention or cosmic accident. It makes you... fascinating. And infinitely more dangerous."
Before Shirou could process this, Kokuto moved. Despite his injuries, fueled by rage and newfound respect, he was a blur. The shorter, broader blade whistled through the air, aimed not to kill, but to test, to probe this anomaly. Shirou reacted instinctively, not with the rifle, but with a surge of purple energy from his palm – a focused blast, faster than thought.
FWOOM!
Kokuto twisted mid-air, the violet beam scorching past his shoulder, vaporizing a chunk of shadow-stone behind him. He landed lightly, immediately lunging again, his blade charged with crackling spatial energy. Shirou dodged with preternatural grace, the golden half of his eye seeming to track trajectories before they formed. "Are the eyes always golden?" Shirou yelled, firing another purple blast that forced Kokuto to block, the impact sending sparks of violet and spatial distortion flying.
"No!" Kokuto grunted, deflecting the energy. "Each being manifests uniquely! The color reflects the core of their power, their spirit!" He pressed the attack, a relentless flurry of cuts that seemed to shear the very air. Shirou danced back, weaving between the strikes, but a nanosecond of hesitation – a flicker of thought about the golden eye – cost him. The spatial edge grazed his thigh, slicing through armor and flesh. Blood welled, hot and sharp.
Shirou hissed, backing up rapidly. He raised his hands, channeling the purple energy. "Good to know!" He unleashed another "PURPLE NEXUS!"
This time, Kokuto was ready. Instead of blocking, he met the violet conduit head-on with his own blade. "VOID REND!" The spatial edge around his blade flared violently. He didn't deflect; he slashed through the beam itself. KRA-SHIIINK! The violet energy stream split apart like cloth, dissipating harmlessly to either side of him. Kokuto surged through the gap, the follow-through slash aimed at Shirou's chest.
Shirou threw himself sideways. The blade missed his heart but opened a deep gash across his ribs. Pain flared, white-hot. Rage, pure and defensive, surged. He didn't retreat. As Kokuto recovered from the slash, Shirou planted his feet, ignored the searing pain, and thrust his palms forward, point-blank, into Kokuto's face. "ANNIHILATION CHANNEL! POINT-BLANK!"
KRA-BOOOOOOM!
The violet detonation engulfed Kokuto's head and shoulders. He was blasted off his feet, a choked cry lost in the roar, hurled backwards to slam into a jagged obsidian spire. He slid down, leaving a smear of dark blood and scorch marks, his face a mask of burns and raw flesh, one eye swollen shut. He slumped at the base, breathing raggedly, momentarily stunned.
Shirou gasped, clutching his bleeding side, the purple energy around his hands flickering erratically. The golden high, the sense of invincibility, was fading. A wave of crushing fatigue washed over him. He felt... diminished. He looked at Kokuto struggling to rise, then down at his own hands. The vibrant purple glow was weaker, sputtering. He tried to summon the power again, aiming at the recovering Monarch. What emerged wasn't the devastating conduit, but a simple, familiar emerald laser beam.
PING!
Kokuto, even battered, raised his good arm. The spatial field around it flared weakly. The emerald beam splashed harmlessly against it, dispersing like water on stone.
Shirou stared, horror dawning. "What?!"
Kokuto pushed himself fully upright, wiping blood and ash from his ruined face with his mangled forearm. He fixed his one good eye on Shirou. A grim, understanding look replaced the rage. "Your eyes," he rasped, his voice rough. "They are back to normal." He gestured weakly with his blade. "As I said. Mortals cannot control it. That State is a fleeting glimpse, a surge born of extremity. Not a weapon to be wielded. It was... luck. Impressive luck, but luck nonetheless. I thought I would have to use Firmament's Guillotine for this."
The crimson had bled back into Shirou's eyes totally, leaving only the familiar, determined red. The euphoria was gone, replaced by the cold ache of his wounds and the crushing weight of the odds. But something else remained. Not the golden power, but the resolve it had crystallized. He saw Kagaya, broken and bleeding. Merus, still and pale. Kuro, unconscious and maimed. He bent down, wincing, and scooped up his discarded Emerald Laser rifle. It felt heavy, inadequate, but familiar. He raised it, the barrel trembling slightly, but his grip was firm. His red eyes burned with defiance, not gold, but fierce and unyielding.
"I still won't back down!" Shirou declared, his voice raw but steady. The mercenary was gone. This was the sniper who found a way.
Kokuto nodded slowly, a flicker of that strange respect returning. "Alright," he said, hefting his shorter blade. "Come at me, Nishizumi Shirou." He took a step forward, then broke into a pained but determined charge.
Shirou braced himself, pouring his remaining will, his newfound will, into the rifle. He aimed, not for the body, but for the blade, for the wounded arm, for the opening he knew was there. He pulled the trigger. "PURPLE NEXUS!" The beam that erupted was thinner, less potent, but still violet, still his defiance made manifest.
Kokuto met it, not with a rend, but a desperate block. CLANG-SPAAARK! The impact staggered him, forcing him back a step, dark blood leaking from his burns. "The power has waned!" he shouted over the clash of energies. "You cannot defeat me like this!"
"Damn it!" Shirou snarled, pouring more energy, feeling the rifle overheating, feeling his own reserves plummet. The violet beam sputtered against Kokuto's defense.
Meanwhile: Saganbo's Throne Room
Deep within the obsidian fortress of his own spirit, amidst the swirling echoes of cosmic truths and the chilling presence of his alternate self, Shinji Kazuhiko focused. The complex pattern AFS had shown him – the key to aligning with the Voidheart, to slipping between realities – burned in his mind's eye.
*Focus. Absence. Potential. Not a door... a gap. A breath between moments.*
Alternate Future Shinji watched, his spectral form tense. "You got it?" he asked, his voice taut with urgency. "The alignment is precise. One misstep, and the backlash could shred your consciousness."
Shinji, his astral form radiating focused intensity, nodded without opening his eyes. "Yeah. I did. It's... weird. Like trying to become silence itself." He could feel the neural seal imposed by Kokuto, a cold, constricting band around his core. He pushed the Voidheart pattern against it, not with force, but with the resonance of absence. *I am not here. I am the space between.*
"Good," AFS breathed. "Now, push! This won't be easy. Saganbo's seal is like forged starlight."
Shinji gritted his teeth, metaphorical sweat beading his brow. "I know." He poured his will, his grief, his rage, his desperate hope into the pattern. He became the gap. He was the potential for escape.
CRACK!
It wasn't a sound, but a sensation felt throughout the throne room. A hairline fracture appeared in the intricate, invisible lattice binding Shinji's mind and spirit. Then another. And another.
Saganbo, lounging on his throne of weeping neutron stars, idly observing the cosmic tapestry of his domain, froze. His purple eyes snapped open, wide with genuine surprise. He turned his gaze towards the suspended form of the Trascender, encased in dark energy. The psychic signature he had so securely bound was... changing. Fluctuating. Escaping containment.
Before Saganbo could fully process the violation, the dark energy encasing Shinji shattered. Not exploded, but dissolved like black ice under a sudden sun. Shinji Kazuhiko dropped to the gleaming obsidian floor of the throne room, landing in a crouch, gasping for air, his eyes snapping open – blazing with golden-green spiritual energy, untamed and furious. He was free.
He looked up, instantly locking eyes with the God of Destruction. Saganbo was already halfway out of his throne, moving with a speed that defied comprehension, a blur of purple silk and terrifying intent aimed directly at Shinji.
"YOU ARE... SAGANBO!" Shinji roared, the name a curse, a challenge.
Saganbo materialized inches in front of him, the displacement of air like a thunderclap. His hand, wreathed in negation energy capable of unmaking galaxies, shot out towards Shinji's chest. "Nice to meet you, Trascender," Saganbo purred, the words dripping with condescending amusement, his fingers poised to crush the core.
Shinji's mind screamed. *So fast! So damn fast! That's bad! Impossible to dodge!* But his body, guided by the Voidheart alignment and AFS's desperate coaching, reacted. Not by dodging, but by touching. As Saganbo's lethal hand descended, Shinji slapped his own palm, charged with chaotic Trascender energy, against Saganbo's extended wrist.
The contact was brief, electric. Saganbo recoiled slightly, more from surprise than effect. "Move your dirty hand," he commanded, his amusement turning to icy annoyance.
Shinji didn't move it. He smiled. A fierce, reckless grin. "Act 4," he declared, the words resonating with power, "REVERSE!"
The effect was instantaneous and bizarre. Saganbo didn't fly backwards. He simply... stopped. Completely. Utterly. Every muscle locked. His expression froze mid-snarl. He hovered an inch off the floor, immobilized as if encased in invisible, absolute stasis. Only his eyes, wide with utter disbelief and burgeoning fury, moved, tracking Shinji.
*It worked!* Shinji thought, relief flooding him. *The Other me taught me this! Reverse the binding effect, turn the cage back on the captor!* He didn't hesitate. He turned and ran, pouring every ounce of his Voidheart-enhanced speed into fleeing the throne room, towards the archway leading back to Chamber Seven, towards his friends.
*But the condition...* AFS's voice echoed urgently in his mind. *Once every six months! And it won't hold him long!*
Shinji knew. He could already feel the immense pressure building behind him, the stasis field groaning under the weight of Saganbo's cosmic will. He was halfway to the archway when he felt it – like a dam bursting.
KRACK-OOOOM!
The sound was the universe groaning. The Reverse field shattered. Saganbo landed lightly on the floor, his purple aura igniting with incandescent fury, warping the space around him. He moved, not with speed, but with the terrifying inevitability of a collapsing star. He crossed the vast throne room in less than a blink, his hand closing around the back of Shinji's neck before the Trascender could even register the broken stasis.
Shinji gasped, paralyzed by the sheer, overwhelming power radiating from the grip. Saganbo lifted him effortlessly off his feet, turning him to face those furious purple eyes.
"Guess I'll just have to kill you," Saganbo stated, his voice terrifyingly calm, "since you won't stop moving." His free hand, fingers crackling with negation energy, began to descend towards Shinji's chest, aiming to pierce flesh, spirit, and find the Trascender Core.
Panic surged, cold and absolute. *No! Not like this! Not captured again!*
Shinji met Saganbo's gaze, defiance flaring despite the terror. "Looks like," he choked out, "I have no choice, do I?"
Saganbo's lips curved in a cruel smile. "Yeah. You just need to stop moving to ensure your safety..." His fingers touched Shinji's tunic, the fabric beginning to dissolve.
Shinji's eyes blazed. "No!" he spat. "I meant I had no choice but to fight you! HERE! NOW!"
He didn't hold back. He unleashed it all. The sealed spiritual energy Yamato had taught him to contain, amplified by Voidheart Surge, honed in the wilderness of Suchumus, forged in battles against Monarchs. A tsunami of golden-green power erupted from Shinji, not as an attack, but as a declaration. It filled the throne room, a tangible force that made the weeping neutron stars flare in protest, that pressed against Saganbo's own crushing aura. The obsidian walls groaned. Ancient tapestries depicting cosmic destruction ignited and turned to ash.
Saganbo's eyes widened again, genuine surprise cutting through his anger. *He grew stronger? Even sealed? The Voidheart amplifies through trauma... Kokuto's neural lock... it stressed him! Accelerated him!*
The moment of surprise was all Saganbo allowed. His descending hand didn't slow. The negation energy intensified. It pierced Shinji's unleashed aura like a hot needle through silk. Fingers, cold and infinitely destructive, punched through Shinji's chest.
SCHLICK.
Agony, unlike any bisection or vaporization Shinji had endured, ripped through him. It wasn't just physical. It was spiritual violation. He felt Saganbo's consciousness, vast and predatory, probing inside him, seeking the anchor of his immortality, the source of his power, the vulnerability Kokuto had exploited.
*Dammit! Dammit!* Shinji screamed internally, thrashing against the god's grip, his golden-green energy flailing wildly, uselessly against the intrusion. *I should do something! Anything! He'll find it! He'll crush it!*
"SHINJI!" A voice roared, not from outside, but from within. AFS, a spectral presence suddenly flaring with desperate intensity within their shared consciousness.
*He's hunting the core! You can't use it! He'll shatter it the moment he senses it!* AFS's mental voice was frantic.
*I have no choice!* Shinji screamed back mentally, feeling Saganbo's psychic fingers brush against the edges of his soul, seeking the core's resonance. *He'll find it anyway!*
*Then don't let him touch it! Change places! Let ME hold the core!* AFS commanded. *My resonance is buried deeper, fractured! He might overlook it! Do it NOW!*
It was a desperate gamble. Relinquishing control, even internally, to the darker, more experienced phantom of himself. But the alternative was oblivion. *Do it!* Shinji thought, surrendering the focal point of his being.
In the throne room, Saganbo frowned. The Trascender's spiritual signature... shifted. Became momentarily fractured, dissonant, harder to pin down. The core's bright signal seemed to blur, recede.
Before Saganbo could adjust his search, the Shinji he held spoke, but the voice held an echo, a duality – Shinji's desperation layered over AFS's cold calculation. "Act 5," the merged voice intoned, resonating with shared power, "CHAIN BINDING!"
Golden-green energy, thick as cables and burning with Trascender power, erupted from Shinji's chest around Saganbo's invading arm. It didn't attack Saganbo; it wrapped around him and Shinji both, forming complex, glowing links that bound them together in a sudden, intimate lattice of shared fate. Simultaneously, Saganbo gasped. A phantom wound, a mirror of the hole he'd made in Shinji's chest, appeared on his own stomach. Not bleeding, but visibly weakening, the flesh seeming to thin, to strain, as if an invisible force was trying to pierce it from within.
Saganbo recoiled, not in pain, but in shock and sudden understanding. He ripped his arm free from Shinji's chest with a wet tear, instinctively severing the physical connection, but the glowing chains remained, linking their torsos. He stared at the weakening spot on his own stomach, then at Shinji, who was already regenerating the chest wound, a fierce, merged grin on his face.
"Good choice!" the merged Shinji/AFS declared, their voice harmonized. "My Act 5 makes any damage inflicted on me transfer to the enemy as well. We share the pain. The downside?" They shrugged, the gesture unnervingly casual. "It affects me too when I hurt you. But I'm immortal. A little self-harm is just... inconvenient." They flexed their fingers, golden-green energy crackling around them. "For you? Not so much."
Saganbo touched the weakening spot on his stomach, his expression shifting from shock to cold, calculating fury. The chains pulsed with energy. "I see," he hissed. "A forced symbiosis of suffering. Clever. Annoying." His purple eyes narrowed, assessing the chains. "However, it wasn't instantaneous... because I'm way stronger, hmm? You think this pathetic chain will keep me from attacking you?" He took a step forward, the chains stretching but holding. The weakening spot on his stomach visibly strained further.
The merged entity met his gaze, the golden-green energy around them intensifying, swirling with chaotic potential. "I'll have to fight you!" they declared, their voice gaining volume, resonating with defiance. "So I won't just play defense!" They raised their hands, energy coalescing into crackling spheres. "This act... this chain... it will definitely beat you!"
Saganbo actually paused, a flicker of something akin to morbid curiosity in his eyes. "You still have more? More tricks beyond this binding?"
The merged Shinji/AFS smiled, a chilling expression that held both Shinji's resolve and AFS's ancient weariness. "This is my last act!" they announced, the golden-green energy around them reaching a crescendo, the chains binding them to Saganbo glowing like captive stars. The very air in the throne room vibrated, charged with anticipation. They drew a breath, and the words echoed with the weight of prophecy and desperate power:
"Act 6: TRANSCENDENTAL!"
The declaration hung in the air, a promise and a threat. The nature of the Act, its power, its cost – remained shrouded in terrifying mystery. The golden-green energy didn't lash out; it seemed to turn inwards, collapsing upon the merged entity, forging them into a singular, terrifying focal point of boundless potential, chained to a furious God of Destruction. The final battle, shackled together, had reached its ultimate, transcendental precipice.